Romo's Sudden and Mysterious Rise

[FLCowboyFan]

Nice post... Really great analysis

 

[Pessimist_cowboy]

Romo didnt start playing at an elite level this season until the New Orleans game. In 2011 with one of the worst o lines in the league Tony had some of his most classic games ie; the San Francisco game, the Bills game where he set the cowboys record for most consecutive pass completions and completion pct., and the tampa game (4tds in the 1st half). He led a terrible team almost into the playoffs by himself, Turned a jag wr into a legitimate wr and got him paid in the offseason, all while playing a quarter of the season with broken ribs. Im not taking away anything hes doing this year though. This yr and 2011 are definately his best imo.

2011 he was 31 and 9 or 10 with like 4500 yards , he was outstanding . It's close right now I give the nod to 2011 .

 

[TheMarathonContinues]

Romo didnt start playing at an elite level this season until the New Orleans game. In 2011 with one of the worst o lines in the league Tony had some of his most classic games ie; the San Francisco game, the Bills game where he set the cowboys record for most consecutive pass completions and completion pct., and the tampa game (4tds in the 1st half). He led a terrible team almost into the playoffs by himself, Turned a jag wr into a legitimate wr and got him paid in the offseason, all while playing a quarter of the season with broken ribs. Im not taking away anything hes doing this year though. This yr and 2011 are definately his best imo.

I hear you on all the above.....but none of it equates to having a bad back. All offseason long we heard about his lack of velocity and his career essentially being over. Let's not forget that Cowboy team underachieved that year. Some would argue this year we are OVERACHIEVING.

 

[TheMarathonContinues]

2011 he was 31 and 9 or 10 with like 4500 yards , he was outstanding . It's close right now I give the nod to 2011 .

He's on course to best those stats despite missing a game and getting hurt.

 

[Pessimist_cowboy]

He's on course to best those stats despite missing a game and getting hurt.

He won't come close to that yardage , the td -int ratio should be on par.

 

[MagicMan]

Yeah but since week 1 he's only thrown 3 INT's. Factor in he's had a bad back, missed a game and his offense is much more reliant on the rushing attack? There's no comparison IMO. Not to mention we were 8-8 that year lol. And he's far more efficient this year than he was that year. I'll say this. His deep balls and arm were better. His chemistry with Laurent was a thing of beauty.

Whatever happened to Robinson anyway? I know he left the Boys to the Jags for more money and fell off the face of the Earth.....the other blackhole not named Oakland. He did have great chemistry with Romo, too bad money will do that to you. Reminds me of Alvin Harper when he went to the Bucs to never be heard from again.

 

[Direwolf63]

Whatever happened to Robinson anyway? I know he left the Boys to the Jags for more money and fell off the face of the Earth.....the other blackhole not named Oakland. He did have great chemistry with Romo, too bad money will do that to you. Reminds me of Alvin Harper when he went to the Bucs to never be heard from again.

Robinson was forced to retire because of concussions.

 

[Beast_from_East]

Romo has always been a stud, the problem is he was surrounded by crap, especially on the offensive line so he looked a lot like Brady did early in the season with no line.

Not some magical formula that when you fix the oline, your stud QB starts looking good again.

 

[Wood]

nothing mysterious about it. Its what running Murray 30 times a game will do for play action.

 

[Toruk_Makto]

"Tony Romo is having the best season of his career to this point, and I am not even sure it is close. He is having a simply amazing season and, of course, picked a rather unlikely time to do it in his career arc." -- Bob Sturm

When Romo signed his contract extension, he said that he was not an 8-8 quarterback. If you're one of those like Sturm, you probably though he was just blowing smoke. After all, look at his "career arc." In his first four years, three Pro Bowls, a couple of top 5 seasons in passer rating and three trips to the playoffs. Since then, no Pro Bowls, only one top 5 season and never able to lead his team above .500. He'd become little more than an average quarterback. Now he's suddenly the #2 rated passer in the NFL, and his team has its best record this late in a season since 2009. Amazing. Unlikely.

Whatever.

These are the team's yearly rankings during the Romo era, excluding pass offense. The first ranking is the average rank in rushing yards/TD, the second is defensive pass rating/points allowed per drive. I then took the average of both rankings to make a "rest of team" ranking (in parentheses)

2006 8th, 21st (14.5)
2007 13th, 9th (11.0)
2008 21st, 17th (19.0)
2009 11th, 9th (10.0)
2010 22nd, 24th (23.0)
2011 24th, 22nd (23.0)
2012 29th, 27th (28.0)
2013 25th, 28th (26.5)
2014 7th, 17th (12.0)

If you were paying attention, you knew this when it was happening -- excluding the pass offense, from 2010-13, this was a bad team that would have had about 5 wins per season with an average QB performance.

Romo's best season was when he had his most complete receiving corps (2011 -- Dez, healthy Miles, Robinson). His season rating was above 100, but this didn't show in W-L because of how weak the rest of the team was. His next two best years (2009, 2007) were when he had his best teams around him. His worst year was 2012 when he had his worst team around him. These are not coincidences.

Top 5 Rated Passers Since 2010
Rogers 111.3 (17th, 12th) 14.5
Manning 105.1 (15th, 15th) 15.0
Brady 100.3 (7th, 13th) 10.0
Brees 100.2 (17th, 20th) 18.5
Romo 98.0 (21st, 24th) 22.5

The rankings in parentheses are for those teams' running games and defenses. The last number is the average of those two ranks -- it's where the team ranks without the passing game. Romo said it all with the words, "I'm not an 8-8 quarterback." Of course he isn't. His numbers over the last five seasons are up there with the game's elites. The main difference between him and the other four is that Romo did most of this on a bottom 10 team.

Which tends to have an effect on your career arc.

The whole point of looking at individual statistics is to separate the performance of the team from that of the individual player. If you weren't paying attention to the player's individual performance on bad teams (or didn't understand their significance), then naturally you are surprised by his individual performance this year. Sure it's his best season so far, but there's nothing amazing or unlikely about it.

Calling Romo an average qb the last few seasons was pretty funny.

 

[Pessimist_cowboy]

Calling Romo an average qb the last few seasons was pretty funny.

I don't really see an improvement in Romo I see an improvement around ROMO

 

[Bullflop]

There's no mystery involved when your OL has blossomed into one of the best around. Romo is and has been a very good QB who hasn't had the benefit of the supporting cast in the past that he has now. If their defense manages to play its best game, they're capable of beating all but maybe a few the very best in the league.

 

[65fastback2plus2]

i wouldnt call it sudden and mysterious.

theres nothing sudden or mysterious about it.

its been plain as day in front of everyone's eyes. most just had blinders on and refused to believe and comprehend what they saw.

 

[RS12]

Romo's Sudden and Mysterious Rise

What is sudden and mysterious about having better protection and a top running game?

 

[CCBoy]

Percy, anyone has followed your works has been great amounts of insights from which to judge football and our Cowboys.

As to the continued balance of growth on the Cowboys, commitment to high value youthful defensive lineman needs to continue now as well.

 

[pancakeman]

The only thing Romo did better in 2011 was throw the deep ball. There is no way there's even a comparison. I don't think people realize Romo has only 6 int's and 3 of them came in the 1st game of the season.

1st half in fact.

 

[Clove]

He's having his best year IMO, huge passing yardage stats mean nothing to me. Winning football games do, and he's the culprit behind us winning these games. Of course you have Murray, who is HUGE, and the offensive line, but the QB is what makes the engine go. I've always said it, so I usually blame the QB for good will, and blame the QB for most losses. Unfair, but it's my opinion. What I would like to see going forward is the offensive get rolling early. Stop waiting till late. This type of football will get you beaten, and this could happen Thursday.

 

[percyhoward]

What is sudden and mysterious about having better protection and a top running game?

And the 15th ranked defense, as opposed to the 30th.
2013: 26.6 points/game on 11.5 drives/game (30th in points/drive)
2014: 19.7 points/game on 10.6 drives/game (15th in points/drive)

We can also put to bed the myth that having a bad defense has actually helped Romo's numbers. Here's the list of the top 5 passers from the OP, with their rating, their "garbage time" rating, and the difference.

4th qtr, trailing by >8 pts, loss
since 2010
Rogers 111.3 92.2 (-9.1)
Manning 105.1 102.7 (-2.4)
Brady 100.3 81.8 (-18.5)
Brees 100.2 86.6 (-13.6)
Romo 98.0 103.9 (+5.9)

While Romo's rating does go up, this isn't the norm. In these situations, the QB takes more risks, the defense knows what's coming, and the rating normally suffers. On average, the other guys drop 10.9 rating points.

It should be obvious, but the better your defense, the more it helps your QB.

 

[ufcrules1]

Yeah, Romo is playing top notch right now. With this Oline and running game, there should be no excuses to play below his regular season stats, or meldown in the win and in game /playoff games this year. If he continues to play at his regular season level in those games, he may be able to shake the choker label.

 

[pansophy]

I think play-calling, o-line play and lack of a commitment to running the football has also done him no favors over the years, especially under Garrett.

You have it backwards. The fact that our OL sucked affected the play calling and meant we couldn't run the ball.

You can call running plays all game long but if you can't do it what difference does it make?