Graziano: Tony Romo 15th in Jaws' QB countdown

[KB1122]

One bad game? A few bad games?

He led the league in interceptions last year.

 

[TwoDeep3]

Calling that play a "risk" makes no sense. It was a pass to the RB in the flats!

He was FOOLED by the LB on the play and it was picked off. Simple as that. Blame Romo for it.

Calling it a "risk" and pretending it's a pattern with him and that other QBs don't make mistakes is just plain silly.

Do you people even understand what you're watching on Sundays? Do you REALLY think Romo knew the LB would be waiting underneath Murray in the flats and just tossed it there anyways?

TwoDeep, as for your assertion that Romo's last INT lost the game, you're still wrong. It's a 60 minute game. The D had a chance to hold the Commanders to a FG even after that INT which would've given the offense another opportunity. So if I was as fixated on the D's performance as you are on Romo's performance, I could say that Jason Hatcher lost the game when he committed the personal foul on RG3 which ended our hopes of keeping them out of the endzone. Hell, we DID stop them on 3rd down until the flag was thrown.

Football is a team sport. Doesn't get more elementary than that.

Yes, I understand what I am watching, thanks. You try and absolve Romo, but all your complaining doesn't change the fact Romo threw into as crowd.

Throw it away and reload.

The defense had not been stopping them all day. So of all the times to hold the ball and move forward, this was it. Your excuses don't change the fact that Romo threw that pick and the momentum changed.

Why was it Austin's fault in the Giant game?

Dez' fault in the Bears game.

The punt block in the Jets game the year before.

But somehow Romo makes a mental mistake, and it's a team game.

How many times have you seen the comments about the Giants game in 2007 and it was Crayton's fault for short arming the pass from Romo.

Or Fasano dropping a pass in the endzone.

This is a team sport when Romo is involved with the loss. It is a player mistake when it is anyone else.

I didn't just arrive at this website this morning.

Excuses do not change results.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Yes, I understand what I am watching, thanks. You try and absolve Romo, but all your complaining doesn't change the fact Romo threw into as crowd.

Throw it away and reload.

The defense had not been stopping them all day. So of all the times to hold the ball and move forward, this was it. Your excuses don't change the fact that Romo threw that pick and the momentum changed.

Why was it Austin's fault in the Giant game?

Dez' fault in the Bears game.

The punt block in the Jets game the year before.

But somehow Romo makes a mental mistake, and it's a team game.

How many times have you seen the comments about the Giants game in 2007 and it was Crayton's fault for short arming the pass from Romo.

Or Fasano dropping a pass in the endzone.

This is a team sport when Romo is involved with the loss. It is a player mistake when it is anyone else.

I didn't just arrive at this website this morning.

Excuses do not change results.

That's quite a lot of strawman you have going on there. Perhaps you should just let some animals have at it. At least then it would be useful.

 

[Idgit]

Sometime I wonder if Romo would benefit from taking a queue from what many consider Aaron Rodger's greatest weakness -- Rodger's willingness to eat dirt and take sacks. In fact, I'd say Rodgers has taken it to a level I'm not sure I've ever quite seen before and at times Rodgers <looks> borderline silly doing it.... however, you can't argue with the results of taking a sacki instead of throwing low percentage passes. The sack hurts but you can recover from it -- a interception is a back breaker.

Sometimes? If it cuts down on turning the ball over, he definitely should.

I think Romo's massively underappreciated, but I don't really have trouble with ranking his year last year anywhere in the top half of the league. He had some rough play with the turnovers early. Many of the problems, I believe, were related to the interior OL and the WRs route adjustments early, but it's pretty hard to fairly strip that stuff out when comparing his performance to other players when you don't know what the adjustments were supposed to be. You just do the best with what you have to evaluate and go from there. 19 picks is 19 picks.

 

[Nav22]

Yes, I understand what I am watching, thanks. You try and absolve Romo, but all your complaining doesn't change the fact Romo threw into as crowd.

Throw it away and reload.

The defense had not been stopping them all day. So of all the times to hold the ball and move forward, this was it. Your excuses don't change the fact that Romo threw that pick and the momentum changed.

Why was it Austin's fault in the Giant game?

Dez' fault in the Bears game.

The punt block in the Jets game the year before.

But somehow Romo makes a mental mistake, and it's a team game.

How many times have you seen the comments about the Giants game in 2007 and it was Crayton's fault for short arming the pass from Romo.

Or Fasano dropping a pass in the endzone.

This is a team sport when Romo is involved with the loss. It is a player mistake when it is anyone else.

I didn't just arrive at this website this morning.

Excuses do not change results.

Wow. Simply wow. It wasn't one player's fault in any one of those games you mentioned, and I would've hoped you'd know that ONE player is NEVER worthy of all the credit or blame for any win or loss.

Football is a team sport. Doesn't get more elementary than that.

Unless you think Romo saw the LB and decided "Gee, I'm going to toss it right towards that feller and hopefully it bounces off his hands and into DeMarco's!", you have no basis for saying he took too big a risk. He was tricked by the D and didn't expect the LB to run to the flats. Period.

And since throwing "into a crowd" implies that there was more than 1 defender in the vicinity, you're wrong about that too.

 

[coult44]

D) a quarterback who went to the SB and was pretty darn good in his day evaluates the situation and places the 15 tag on Romo because he knows more about the game than the fans who whine over Romo not being respected.

Jaws is right. That last pass was a stupid pass and it was all on Tony. You cannot throw a pass into a knot of players and not know where the defenders are and where your target is. Especially in the last 4 minutes of a win or go home game.

Romo made that mistake and there isn't any other player, squad or coach that can be blamed for that pass.

Nav - you wear homer glasses and your caveat at the end about joining the morons makes you look petty and small.

Stats don't mean squat if the team doesn't win. They don't hand out trophies for stats.

I was getting ready to hit enter on a message that basically said this exact same thing. Great Post TD3, Until Tony (and I've always been a big Romo fan) gets us over the hump and deep into the playoffs, that last game of 2012 will define his legacy. As much as I don't agree that it should, in the eyes of most football fans, it will. He's the QB of the Dallas Cowboys. That's like being the shooting guard of Lakers, or the SS of the Yankees. Well kinda, those guys have lots of trophies. But, you know what I mean....Tony should be able to carry any scrutiny he gets, and still come out on top. Is he gonna have more pressure than most? Yes. Should he? Yes. That's what comes along with having that C on his chest, and that star on his helmet.

 

[CoCo]

Jaws ranking doesn't bother me anymore than Romo being left out of the top 100. I like Romo. I think he's more than capable of leading a strong team through the playoffs. Romo made a bad play in that last Washington game. It was gut-wrenching for every single Cowboy fan. The FO decided he was worth a 6 year extension. Looks like we'll reload and try again.

And I'm pretty sure Jaws ranking, or that bad play in Washington, doesn't doom our 2013 season anymore than Peyton's game-ending mistake vs Baltimore wipes out the Broncos chances this year.

 

[Vinnie2u]

Brady, Rodgers, Brees, P. Manning, E. Manning, RG3, Kaepernick, M. Ryan, J. Flacco, Phillip Rivers, Big Ben, Matt Stafford, Andrew Luck, Cam Newton, Russell Wilson.. Sorry But 15 about right for Romo at this point in his career

 

[ElGatoGrande]

Yes, "risky",,, Not surprisingly youve looked past the point, Romo leading his patchwork offense trying to score one more time happens all the time and quite often he throws hoping for the best. That LB "fooled" him because he couldnt freaking see the freaking coverage but took the risk and threw the freaking ball, get it?

 

[JohnnyHopkins]

I don't have an issue with it. Romo has an entire season to prove all of the naysayers wrong (or right). But so help me, if he messes up my fantasy team this year........

 

[ufcrules1]

Brady, Rodgers, Brees, P. Manning, E. Manning, RG3, Kaepernick, M. Ryan, J. Flacco, Phillip Rivers, Big Ben, Matt Stafford, Andrew Luck, Cam Newton, Russell Wilson.. Sorry But 15 about right for Romo at this point in his career

Exactly right. Romo is a tad above average in the league right now it is just hard for die hard Romo fans to accept. I have been saying on this forum for a while now that he is top 15 and everyone was complaining about it, now Jaws comes out and says the same thing. Graziano who is a big Romo supporter doesn't fully agree but can't really argue much with Jaws either. He made this quote below.

" If the whole world is sitting there waiting for you to throw three interceptions in the biggest game of the year so it can say, "See! I told you that guy was no good!", and you do it, then there's really not a lot you can say when they continue to underestimate you." Graziano.

This is my list below. I feel that Newton. Stafford, Romo, and Rivers are all very close to each other and are pretty much interchangeable on the list with maybe Newton having the most upside out of all of them. I actually prefer to do the list in tiers like Trent Dilfer did a while back. With all this said, I would love nothing more than Romo to prove me wrong, heck I have been waiting a very long time for that.

Tier 1
Rodgers
Brady
Brees
Peyton

Tier 2
Big Ben
Eli
Ryan
Flacco
Luck
Kaepernick
RG3
Wilson

Tier 3
Newton
Rivers
Romo
Stafford

 

[burmafrd]

Exactly right. Romo is a tad above average in the league right now it is just hard for die hard Romo fans to accept. I have been saying on this forum for a while now that he is top 15 and everyone was complaining about it, now Jaws comes out and says the same thing. Graziano who is a big Romo supporter doesn't fully agree but can't really argue much with Jaws either. He made this quote below.

" If the whole world is sitting there waiting for you to throw three interceptions in the biggest game of the year so it can say, "See! I told you that guy was no good!", and you do it, then there's really not a lot you can say when they continue to underestimate you." Graziano.

This is my list below. I feel that Newton. Stafford, Romo, and Rivers are all very close to each other and are pretty much interchangeable on the list with maybe Newton having the most upside out of all of them. I actually prefer to do the list in tiers like Trent Dilfer did a while back. With all this said, I would love nothing more than Romo to prove me wrong, heck I have been waiting a very long time for that.

Tier 1
Rodgers
Brady
Brees
Peyton

Tier 2
Big Ben
Eli
Ryan
Flacco
Luck
Kaepernick
RG3
Wilson

Tier 3
Newton
Rivers
Romo
Stafford

You do realize everyone ignores your Romo posts, right?

 

[Yakuza Rich]

The dumb line was 'you can't make mistakes regardless of whose fault it is.'

You are going to make mistakes if your teammates screw up. If the WR runs the wrong route, RB misses a blitz pickup, O-Line gets fooled on a stunt, etc. After a while it's either the rest of the team is that bad or maybe it is the QB's fault. But saying you can't make mistakes even if it's not your fault is just a lack of understanding the fundamental point of football; it's the ultimate team game.





YR

 

[Rack]

You just can’t make mistakes, regardless of whose fault it is.

This makes no sense. If it wasn't your fault, then you aren't the one that made the mistake...

If it lead to an int, but it was the WR's fault... it's still not the QB's mistake.

I usually like Jaws but he's flat out wrong on this one. The field conditions made it exceptionally difficult to have an effective passing offense (without the benefit of a running game) and having your top 3 WR's leave the game with injury sure as hell doesn't help either. Romo sure as hell didn't play well that game, but he was far from being "The" reason we lost.

 

[jobberone]

Romo has to eat the last play. Did it lose the game? Maybe. It sure didn't win it or make things better. The failure of the offense last year was not scoring in the RZ. The major failure on the team last year was the defense. Look at all the injuries for that one. It had problems in the RZ but elsewhere as well. You could point to several plays in every loss last year as being pivotal. But Romo can't escape that play. That one was on him. I'm not that hung up on ranking although it's fun to do as long as you don't take it too seriously. Romo is in the top ten in the league. But you cannot totally ignore pivotal plays by the QB who handles the ball on almost every play on offense.

 

[ufcrules1]

But you cannot totally ignore pivotal plays by the QB who handles the ball on almost every play on offense.

I think that is a good point that you cannot totally ignore very pivotal plays by the QB like the one in Washington. Kindly note that was his 3rd interception in the game (all his fault) after not throwing even one in the previous TWO games. It is clear to see that the pressure got to his head and he choked against Washington. That is the type of inconsistency that leads Jaws, myself, and others to rank him outside of the top 10. Hopefully he proves us all wrong this year!

 

[DanteEXT]

I know that the team lost that game because of that pass. Regardless of what went before, the game was still in play and Dallas could have won. But they did not because Romo turned the ball over. At some point you have to give credit where it is due. All the theatrics he did before were washed away when he lost the game with one pass.

At 8 years in the league he should know better. That is what Jaws is saying. Clearly an 8 year vet should know better in a game where it is for all the regular season marbles. An 8 year vet should know not to throw a dumb pass into a crowd where you cannot see your receiver or the defenders when the game is on the line.

When one mistake can be an ender. And that is the rub with Romo. He takes risks he doesn't have to. And why the press and talking heads believe what they do about him.

He did the very same thing against the Giants in the second game against them last season and it was a pick six for Pierre-Paul. So this was not an isolated incident.

You can claim team game all day long, but the fact remains he threw an ill advised pass when there was no shot at recovering from the turnover. He took a risk, either out of panic or over confidence and tossed the one play the team cannot come back from.

Game over and Romo was at fault. Excuses are for the guys who walk the field.

The interception was terrible, I would agree. But the game was still in play even after that last interception. The defense forced a 3rd down incompletion but was negated by a boneheaded penalty on Hatcher's part. At worst without that penalty, the skins would have been kicking off with a 6 point lead and 2 and a half still to play.

 

[Sportsbabe]

Jul 8
6:11
PM ET
By Dan Graziano | ESPN.com

Ron Jaworski's daily countdown of the top quarterbacks in the NFL rolls on, and he's got the Dallas Cowboys' Tony Romo ranked No. 15 this year:

"I have always liked Romo, but his play in the final regular season game of the 2012 season with the NFC East title on the line still bothers me. You just can’t make mistakes, regardless of whose fault it is. It was the fourth quarter interception with three-and-one-half minutes remaining and the Cowboys trailing by three. That I just can’t forget. You can’t make a throw with no definition in that particular situation, regardless of the pressure.
​

Now, you can argue that Jaws has Romo too low on his list. I personally feel he does. But what you can't argue is that Romo has himself to blame for the fact that this can still be the reason for downgrading him on a list like this. All of the things people say in support of Romo are true. He succeeds in spite of a rotten offensive line, makes plays other quarterbacks can't make when the play breaks down. The one-playoff-win thing can't be laid entirely at his feet. He led the Cowboys back from behind over and over again last year in real games that counted in the standings in order just to get them into that division title game in Washington. All of that is true.

But it's also true that he threw the three interceptions in that game, after a half-season in which his interception problem had lay dormant. And it's true that this is the one consistent thing that keeps Romo from the top level of rankings like this -- his maddening tendency to make mistakes in these big moments and big games.

Read the rest: http://espn.go.com/blog/nfceast/post/_/id/52662/romo-ranks-15th-in-jaws-qb-countdown

I pretty much have to agree with Jaws. What Tony did at that time, during that game was unforgiveable and unforgettable.
I don't know what it is about that boy, but he has another year to come correct.

 

[Reality]

Unfortunately we live in a society today where most fans want players "punished" for having a bad game especially at the wrong moment. Yankees fans loved A-Rod at one point, now it's the worst deal in the history of baseball. A lot of Cowboys fans hated that we picked DeMarcus Ware and said over and over how we would rue the day we passed on Shawn Merriman. A lot of fans last year were rolling in agony over wasting our previous top pick and our time on Dez Bryant and how Jerry Jones screwed the team yet again.

It all comes down to fans getting angry and wanting to exact some sort of revenge on the people who make them angry. It's the reality tv generation where people who annoy, disappoint or anger us must be publicly humiliated and flogged. A player drops a catch? He must be benched, traded or cut immediately. A quarterback throws an interception? He must be benched, traded or cut immediately. The other team's running back has a 100+ yard day? Our running back sucks and must be benched for a rookie who had one good half in a pre-season game. A DE/OLD who puts constant pressure on the quarterback and is great at stopping running, but doesn't ring up double digit sack numbers? He must be benched, traded or cut immediately. The next year when he racks up the sacks? We need to sign him to a long term contract of course!

Drew Brees threw a ton of interceptions last year but he will be ranked in the top 10 quarterback rankings by everyone in the media. See, not having Sean Payton forced Brees to throw those interceptions. It wasn't his fault of course. I mean Romo had an awesome offensive line and even half the fans could have done better than him last year behind that stellar line.

Romo both impresses me and disappoints me. Just like Aikman did. Just like Staubach did. A quarterback can be average or worse, but if the team wins a Super Bowl, we need a guy like him. The bottom line is Romo just signed a new contract so he's not going anywhere. Win or lose, he's the quarterback and that's not going to change. I really don't care where he is ranked and I'm sure he doesn't either. If the Cowboys have a great upcoming season, Romo will be back in everyone's top 10 quarterback lists and it won't mean a thing then either.

/reality

 

[Reality]

I think that is a good point that you cannot totally ignore very pivotal plays by the QB like the one in Washington. Kindly note that was his 3rd interception in the game (all his fault) after not throwing even one in the previous TWO games. It is clear to see that the pressure got to his head and he choked against Washington. That is the type of inconsistency that leads Jaws, myself, and others to rank him outside of the top 10. Hopefully he proves us all wrong this year!

Yeah I agree, that Peyton Manning choked big time throwing two interception in his last game last year. So did Tom Brady, who threw two interceptions in his last game last year. Glad we don't have those chokers on the team.

/reality