ESPND: 5 Wonders: Keeping Tony Romo clean

[WoodysGirl]

Sep 4
10:00
AM CT

By Todd Archer | ESPNDallas.com

IRVING, Texas – The first regular-season game is upon us and the first regular-season offering of Five Wonders is here as well.

Just like you can’t wait for kickoff Wednesday, you can’t wait for the Wonders, so on to them:

** Clearly the Cowboys have to keep Tony Romo something close to clean to have a chance, and in big games that has not been easy. The Giants sacked Romo six times in last season’s winner-take-all contest. In the divisional round of the 2009 playoffs, Minnesota sacked Romo six times. In the winner-take-all 2008 season finale at Philadelphia, he was sacked only three times but was hurried into most of his throws, leading to just 183 passing yards. I wonder what kind of magic offensive coordinator Bill Callahan can work with an offensive line that will have had five practices together.

** As the Cowboys continue to ponder Jason Witten’s availability for Wednesday’s game because of a spleen injury, I wonder how much playing in Week 2 at Seattle will be a benefit. Clearly having more time to recover from this injury will help, but does the chance of him injuring his spleen go down to zero percent by waiting 11 days for the Seahawks game? Maybe it does. But I’d wait until the spleen is 100 percent recovered and not risk it and if it means holding Witten out of the first two games, so be it. Now that’s easy for me to say and not so easy for the Cowboys or Witten, but the long term has to be at the forefront of this decision and I’m not talking only about 2012 but Witten’s post-football life, whenever that might begin.

Read the rest: http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/cowbo...ony-romo-clean

[Mr Cowboy]

** I wonder how long it might take Ryan Cook to become the Cowboys' starting center. Phil Costa’s low back strain is something that might linger although he has returned to practice and is a tough guy. But Cook is three inches taller and 12 pounds heavier than Costa. The fact that the Cowboys added a year to Cook’s contract after the trade from Miami tells me that they want some protection for 2013 too. Costa is scheduled to be a restricted free agent, and to keep his rights the Cowboys will have to tender him a deal in the $1.5 million range. Cook is scheduled to make $1.1 million in 2013.

Great time to address the problem at center, 5 days before the first game. Better late than never, I guess.