TEK2000;1544070 said:
I don't buy into the "game tape theory" very much.
They only guy that knew what to do to really disrupt Tony was Sean Payton... THE guy that got him picked up by the Cowboys. Payton had worked with Tony all 4 years he'd been here so he knew EXACTLY the kinds of things that would give him trouble... and did them in our game against the Saints.
Agreed, but Sean Payton wasn't the one, if the game tape theory holds true, that "exposed" Romo. He started his "slide" vs. NYG, 0 TDs 2 INTs for a 58 QB rating.
Anyways, I think the game tape theory has a tiny bit of validity to it IMO. Why I say this is that nobody knew anything about Romo. Romo has been around to know a good amount about the league. So he came in and lit the world on fire. Well, surely, he has to have a weakness, right? And teams will find and eventually exploit that weakness to varying degrees of success. Now, it's up to Romo and the Boys to compensate for that weakness and try to hide it.
I don't think it's "the" reason he dropped off so much, but I think it plays into it.
TEK2000;1544070 said:
1) Our Defense stunk! If you're a QB on a team where the defense is giving up points on almost every single opponent possession, you're going to have a really tough time because you've got to try to keep up with the opposing offense.
His first 6 games, he had 180 attempts and the last 5, 157. That averages out to 30 attempts a game the first 6, and 31.4 the last 5. The stats don't bear out the Boys put the games on his shoulders, because surely his attempts would go up a lot more. *edited* For clarity purposes, it doesn't show that the Boys put the game on Romo's shoulders moreso in the latter half then in the first half.
If you disclude the first NYG since he only played a half, it's 153 attempts over the first 5 games that he started vs. 157 for the last 5. 0.8 attempts/game difference.
TEK2000;1544070 said:
2) Our offensive line struggled in those games. If you go back and watch the games, you'll see that Tony was hit, rushed, sacked, and had to scramble much more often in those last games than he did in his first few games. What QB is going to still perform at a super high level when his pass protection is breaking down more frequently?
I agree with this, he got sacked more and more each game. That, in and of itself, could be the main reason why he declined.
TEK2000;1544070 said:
3) Our running game was of very little help to us in several of those last few games. A QB without much of a running game is all on his own in most cases.
Basically, we put our entire offense on Romo's shoulders those last few games and he still performed pretty well except for 2 games.
During the month of December, Tony Romo had a QB rating of 77.1
There were 17 starting QB's with a SEASON rating lower than 77.1.
During his worst stretch, he was still better than half of the NFL's starting QB's were on the season.
He just needs to work on protecting the ball when he's scrambling and not forcing some of his throws.
I can agree, or at least see where your coming from, with most of that. The running game curtailed a bit (continuation of O-line troubles?). But he performed poorly in 3 games (NY, NO and Philly), not that it is much of a difference.
