Romo is better when the pace is faster, sure. We can all see that. But it's absurd to try to spin that into some kind of a problem with interceptions when the offense plays at a normal pace. If it's late and the game is
tied, you're usually trying to get into FG range before the end of regulation, so it's normally a situation in which you'd try to get the play off quickly. If you're
leading late, then yes you would slow down.
In the 4th quarter or OT when the Cowboys are
tied, Romo does have the most INT, but he also has the most TD, and (by far) the most yards and best ypa. His passer rating ranks 2nd among players with at least 75 attempts in this situation. And remember, this includes drives in the last 2:00, when you have to get the play off more quickly anyway, because you're trying to score to avoid overtime.
In the 4th quarter when the Cowboys are
leading, and the offense is not in any hurry, Romo doesn't have an inordinate number of INT. According to your theory, this is where we'd see the negative effect of a slowed-down offense. Instead, we see that Romo is the best QB in the league when playing with a late lead.
I'm pretty certain that there was a statistic that showed when Dallas was leading by 7 points or less in the 4th quarter is when the INT's start occuring. Your chart only shows when Dallas is leading and doesn't show how many points.
Counter to that, when Dallas is losing, but within 7 points, Romo's numbers are phenomenal.
I don't think all turnovers, even if they come from Romo, are all his fault. But I think when we slow down the pace, it's not good for the offense (which I've been saying since the Giants game).
Each of the TD's came when we sped up the pace of the offense.
We had the drive where we were extremely slow with the pace of the offense and drove right down the field and Dez missed an easy catch and it stalled the drive and we had to kick a FG. Was that Romo's fault? No. But nonetheless the offense stalled out and that's what matters.
The same with the INT that went off Street's hands. I think what happened there was that because the snap took forever to come off, Merriweather could get a better read of what Street was going to do and could be right there to make the jarring hit. If we snapped it with say, 7 seconds left on the play clock instead of 0.001 seconds, perhaps Merriweather doesn't process it in time and doesn't make that hit.
This isn't an attempt to bash Romo as some people think because any time you say anything remotely negative that concerns Romo, that's what some lapdogs think. It is an attempt to understand why Romo and the offense plays extremely well at times and why it plays poorly at times as there doesn't seem to be anything in between when it comes to the offense's performance.
Last year was a great example in my mind. I won't count the SF game because Romo was clearly rusty. But outside of that, his only other bad game was the 1st Skins game. Where again, the Skins showed blitz, the offense's pace was painfully slow, and we struggled against a putrid Skins defense.
I also think that's part of Tony needs the run game. Last season the offensive pace was faster because the coaching staff told Tony to stop audibling out of running plays so much. And we ran a ton on first down, so Romo was just getting up there and snapping the ball instead of all of this "
check with me" and over-adjusting protections.
I actually saw a lot to like from the offense in the Giants game. Even without Dez, we have pose some serious matchup problems for defenses with Witten, Dunbar, McFadden, Beasley and Escobar. But it's clear to me that when Romo is processing his pre-snap reads faster the offense is far better and it's likely a combination of Romo performing better, his teammates performing better and the defense being in a worse position to defend against the Cowboys offense.
YR
