Is Romo retiring from NFL too early?
So, Tony Romo is retiring from football to join Jim Nantz on CBS’ top announcing tandem on NFL games. Uh-huh. Never mind that his harshest detractors already were snickering, “Yeah, so how’s he gonna blow big games THERE in the last two minutes?”
It took a few hours on Tuesday to believe reports that such a topflight quarterback, in so quarterback-starved a league, really is walking away, prematurely, albeit at age 36. Or is he? Consider: We all believed as recently as early Tuesday morning that Romo’s Dallas Cowboys were still working hard to try to trade the accomplished, rifle-armed QB with 14 seasons of NFL experience (and 10 as a mostly impressive starter).
Romo confirmed his jolting job jump on a CBS conference call late Tuesday afternoon. But he himself didn’t sound much more convinced than any of us that he has played his last NFL game.
Yes, he expects to field calls from teams, he said. Yes, it will be difficult not to entertain those pitches, he said. Then the ah-HAAA! moment … No, he can’t say he’s 100 per cent retired. Just “99 per cent,” he said.
Oh, brother. This, only just moments after Romo had said, “As we learned with Brett Favre, that shelf life (of not fully committing to retirement) obviously can take on a life of its own.”
It didn’t help when Romo said, “I don’t know that the competitive fire is ever going to go away. I’m a person who really likes to attack things. When I want to be great at something, I throw everything into it.”
Maybe we are so cynical about his retirement commitment, so skeptical, because over the years we have heard too many unconvincing, premature retirement pronouncements from top athletes — including multiple ones by serial unretirees Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Brett Favre.
Their initial announcements all felt too soon. So does this one. Several hours after the surprising reports spread Tuesday morning, word came that the Cowboys had released the talented but enigmatic quarterback, rather than place him on the reserve/retired list.
This, just a day after the Cowboys had informed all other 31 NFL clubs that Romo was officially on the trade block and, hey, go ahead and renegotiate a new contract with him if that’ll help. Ope, never mind. What was that all about? Would Romo have gone to, say Denver or Houston, if they’d finally acquiesced to the Cowboys’ trade demands?
And why is Romo retiring now, when he seemed so keen through March on continuing his career as a starter elsewhere? Why not retire a month or two ago?
Romo surely was nervous on the conference call, but he provided neither satisfactory nor convincing answers to those questions.
Furthermore, did he retire to the TV booth because the Cowboys couldn’t get anyone to bite on a trade? Was it that no one out there wanted Tony Romo, even at a renegotiated, cap-friendlier contract? I can’t believe any of that. I’m no Romo apologist, but the man at his best was one of the best the NFL has seen this century, period, no matter how huge a “But what about all those crunch-time brain cramps!!!” asterisk you wish to slap on that statement.
As I wrote a couple weeks ago, Romo ended 2014 — his last full season as starter before his last two injury-plagued years — owning the second best career passer rating in NFL history (97.6), behind only Aaron Rodgers. Since then Tom Brady has edged ahead of Romo (97.2 to Romo’s 97.1), so he’s No. 3 all-time.
In 2014 Romo posted the NFL’s best passer rating (113.2), second best TD -to-interception ratio (3.8to-1) and tied for the most TD passes thrown against the blitz (15). He never looked better.
Romo (apparently) finishes his Cowboys career with the third most wins by a quarterback (78), most passing yards (34,183) and most TD throws (248).
Look, if all passers in the league instantly became free agents today, do you think 32 would be signed before Tony Romo? No way.
One team seemingly was a perfect fit for Romo: The Houston Texans. Houston’s a short flight within Texas from his growing young family’s Dallas-area home. And the Texans are as loaded (except at QB) as just about any team in the league.
But while Romo told the conference call that the Texans indeed topped his landing-spot wish list, he added: “This (move) had nothing to do with the Texans, and everything to do with CBS.”
Once the Cowboys informed the NFL office it had cut Romo on Tuesday afternoon, he immediately became free to sign with any other NFL club, 17 days before his 37th birthday. That remains the case. Or at least until Romo files retirement papers with the league. And he didn’t sound Tuesday as though he was in a huge rush to do that.