Stopping the New Romo Myth

[Yakuza Rich]

No that's your problem. Your entire argument hinges on a few outliers. We generally don't throw it 48 times when leading by 30. A) Because it's rare we are winning by 30. B) Because usually in those situations we run the ball.

No, again, that's your problem.

You have not researched this. I have. You will now see my post going game thru game where we HAD leads and threw the ball recklessly. Furthermore, your claims are that we HAD to throw the ball because we were trailing by so much. And that's categorically false.

As I've shown with the post, roughly 3/4 of the games where we threw the ball too often it was because we CHOSE to throw the ball too often and *not* because we were forced to because we were playing catchup to a huge deficit.





YR

 

[TheDude]

2010 - 2013 seasons, under Romo:

2010

@ Washington, Final Score 7-13, 47 attempts

Chicago, Final Score 20-27 (score was 20-24 after the 3rd quarter), 51 attempts

Tennessee, Final Score 27-34 (score was 17-20 after the 3rd quarter), 46 attempts


2011

@ NJY Final Score 24-27 (score was 24-10 in the 4th quarter with 10 minutes left), 36 pass attempts

Detroit, Final score 30-34, (score was 27-3 in the 3rd quarter WITH THE BALL), 47 pass attempts

@ New England, Final Score 16-20 (score was 16-13 in the 4th quarter before final possession), 41 pass atempts

@ Philadelphia, Final Score 7-34, 35 pass attempts

@ Washington, Final Score 27-24 in Overtime (score was 24-17 Dallas) 37 pass attempts (but in Overtime, Murray had 25 carries)

@ Arizona, Final Score 13-19 in Overtime (score was 13-6 Dallas after 3rd quarter) 42 pass attempts (Murray had 12 carries)

@ NYG, Final Score 14-31, 37 pass attempts


2012

@ Seattle 7-27, 40 attempts

Tampa, Final score 16-10, 39 attempts

Chicago, Final Score 18-34, 43 attempts

NY Giants, Final Score 24-29 (score was 24-23 with 11 minutes left) 62 pass attempts

Cleveland, Final Score 23-20, (although score was 3-13 with 4 minutes left in the 3rd and went to 10-13 in the beginning of the 4th quarter), 50 attempts

Washington, Final Score 31-38 (score was 3-28, but was also 3-0 after first quarter and had 62 pass attempts, we never intended on running the ball).

@ Cinci, Final Score 20-19, Score was 10-13 at the half, 43 attempts

Pittsburgh, Final Score 27-24 (no lead more than 7 points), 42 attempts to Murrays 14 runs

@ New Orleans 31-34 (score was 17-24 after the 3rd quarter), 43 pass attempts to Murray's 11 attempts

@ Washington, 18-28, Score was 10-14 to start the 4th quarter, 37 pass attempts (but Murray did have 17 rushes)


2013

NYG, Final Score 36-31 (score was 27-10 with 5 minutes left in the 3rd quarter), 49 pass attempts

@KC, Final Score 16-17 (close score througout), 42 pass attempts

@ Denver, 48-51, 36 pass attempts (great game, but threw a pick on his 36th throw)

@ PHI, 17-3, 47 pass attempts

Minnesota, Final Score 27-23, (score was 20-10 in the 3rd quarter), 51 pass attempts

@NYG 24-21 (had a 21-6 lead), 38 pass attempts

Green Bay, 36-37 (up 26-3 at halftime), 48 pass attempts


So, let's count this up where we had pass attempts of more than 33 pass attempts (let's not nitpick over 1, 2 or 3 more attempts than the norm). There's 27 games listed. I will throw out the Washington game in 2011 as it was an OT game and he only threw it 37 times and we ran it 25 times. That many throws was more of a function of having more plays.

I counted 20 of those games where we weren't down by some huge deficit and *had* to throw the ball to get into the game. So in 76% of those games we egregiously threw the ball and did NOT have to play catch up.

And we had plenty of games that were ridiculous where we were throwing it 45+ times for almost no reason whatsoever.






YR

I purged many of these from memory (Det, Gb, chi). Nice effort to support your point though...much more interesting than the posts with unoriginal insults (not your posts)

 

[AdamJT13]

I'm showing, point blank, that Romo is not nearly as efficient...if not wholly inefficient during the past 5 seasons, when he starts throwing 31+ attempts.

Over the past five seasons, his passer rating at 31+ attempts is 85.5. How is that "wholly inefficient"? That's higher than the overall ratings during the same time frame for guys like Joe Flacco, Carson Palmer, Andy Dalton, Cam Newton and Sam Bradford. It's almost identical to the overall rating for Eli Manning (85.6).

And selecting five seasons -- not two, not three, not four, not six, not seven, not eight and not all nine -- is curious, since that would put Romo in the worst light possible out of any duration.

Romo's 31+ ratings for every possible duration --

Past 1 season -- 126.2
Past 2 seasons -- 115.4
Past 3 seasons -- 91.3
Past 4 seasons -- 87.7
Past 5 seasons -- 85.5 <---- lowest possible
Past 6 seasons -- 89.9
Past 7 seasons -- 88.7
Past 8 seasons -- 89.2
Past 9 seasons -- 89.2

 

[Idgit]

Over the past five seasons, his passer rating at 31+ attempts is 85.5. How is that "wholly inefficient"? That's higher than the overall ratings during the same time frame for guys like Joe Flacco, Carson Palmer, Andy Dalton, Cam Newton and Sam Bradford. It's almost identical to the overall rating for Eli Manning (85.6).

And selecting five seasons -- not two, not three, not four, not six, not seven, not eight and not all nine -- is curious, since that would put Romo in the worst light possible out of any duration.

Romo's 31+ ratings for every possible duration --

Past 1 season -- 126.2
Past 2 seasons -- 115.4
Past 3 seasons -- 91.3
Past 4 seasons -- 87.7
Past 5 seasons -- 85.5 <---- lowest possible
Past 6 seasons -- 89.9
Past 7 seasons -- 88.7
Past 8 seasons -- 89.2
Past 9 seasons -- 89.2

Looking at that recent trend, it kind of unravels the argument, anyway. I can live with 126.2 in a pinch, if he's not able to bring it up some more.

The 115.4 without all the rushing support the year before wasn't too shabby, either.

 

[Toruk_Makto]

Over the past five seasons, his passer rating at 31+ attempts is 85.5. How is that "wholly inefficient"? That's higher than the overall ratings during the same time frame for guys like Joe Flacco, Carson Palmer, Andy Dalton, Cam Newton and Sam Bradford. It's almost identical to the overall rating for Eli Manning (85.6).

And selecting five seasons -- not two, not three, not four, not six, not seven, not eight and not all nine -- is curious, since that would put Romo in the worst light possible out of any duration.

Romo's 31+ ratings for every possible duration --

Past 1 season -- 126.2
Past 2 seasons -- 115.4
Past 3 seasons -- 91.3
Past 4 seasons -- 87.7
Past 5 seasons -- 85.5 <---- lowest possible
Past 6 seasons -- 89.9
Past 7 seasons -- 88.7
Past 8 seasons -- 89.2
Past 9 seasons -- 89.2

ANNNNNNNNNNNDDDD SCENE!

 

[AdamJT13]

That's patently false.

No, it's not.


Let's take a look the 2010 games from your list --

2010
@ Washington, Final Score 7-13, 47 attempts

We never led in the game. We trailed by double digits at halftime and in the second half. And 17 of those pass attempts came AFTER the two-minute warning in each half.

Chicago, Final Score 20-27 (score was 20-24 after the 3rd quarter), 51 attempts

The score was never 20-24 (or 24-20) in that game. We were down by double digits in the fourth quarter. And 18 of Romo's attempts came in the fourth quarter, including all 10 plays after we went down by double digits. (Romo's rating in that fourth quarter? 96.1.)

Tennessee, Final Score 27-34 (score was 17-20 after the 3rd quarter), 46 attempts

The defense allowing 34 points is the definition of "things not going well."

We were down 10-0 and 17-3 in the first half. Then Romo threw eight straight passes in the two-minute offense, capped by a TD pass to make it 17-10 before halftime. He threw another TD pass right after halftime to tie the game -- we went from down 17-3 to tied 17-17 in 11 plays, with 10 of them passes and only one run (for 1 yard). It was tied for the rest of the third quarter until the Titans kicked a field goal with 19 seconds left in the quarter. Our run/pass ratio for the rest of that quarter? Eight runs, eight pass attempts and one sack.

Early in the fourth, we drove to tie the game. Our run/pass ratio before tying it and while it was still tied? Four runs, five passes.

Then the Titans scored a TD to go up 27-20 with less than eight minutes remaining. We drove right down to tie the game again using six passes and one run.

Of course, the Titans scored again, with less than four minutes left, to go up 34-27. And we had to pass on our last seven offensive plays.

As always, context is important.

I could keep going with the other seasons, too, but it's late. Are there games when we pass a lot even when we don't need to? Sure, you can find some. But you can also find games when we pass a lot and then stop passing because we're so far ahead (For example, Romo had 22 attempts in the first half against the Saints last season but only seven in the second half; he had 21 in the first half against the Bears, then added two TD passes on his first three attempts of the third quarter and had to pass only two more times all game.) And most of the time, we pass a lot only because we need to, such as in the three games you listed above. Romo actually threw the ball more times in the first half last season (17.4 per game) than he averaged from 2011-2013 (17.38 per game), but he threw the ball much less in the second half because he didn't NEED to throw the ball as much in the second half -- we were winning more often instead of trying to catch up. It's really that simple.

 

[ljs44]

Romo actually threw the ball more times in the first half last season (17.4 per game) than he averaged from 2011-2013 (17.38 per game), but he threw the ball much less in the second half because he didn't NEED to throw the ball as much in the second half -- we were winning more often instead of trying to catch up. It's really that simple.

Why must people challenge Adam????? Confusing.........

 

[CowboyRoy]

That's false.

I've seen plenty of people that think he's better than Brady or Rodgers or Brees.



I have readily admitted that more times than I can count. We are on the same page, but the blind lemmings see any perceived slight to Romo as grounds for smear campaigns.



I haven't really delved into Romo throwing deep in this thread.

I don't think the deep ball is a strength of his. He's better at throwing those intermediate or 'deep intermediate' passes which he's quite good at. However, he did have plenty of time to throw in 2013. The pass protection was good that year. His problem was he just didn't throw the ball well that year. Some blame the back cyst, but Romo talked about how he was changing some of his throwing mechanics and I think that played a bigger role. The older you get, the longer it takes to incorporate new skills and it may work in practice, but in the game it's a completely different story. I think the Wednesdays off combined with the new mechanics becoming ingrained allowed him to throw the ball exceptionally well for most of last season.

But, some will still think of that as being a 'Romo hater' and some will try to say 'more is more' with Romo despite showing us metrics that point to the exact opposite.

I just prefer to let 'em bury themselves with their own inane logic, blatant deception and mistruths.






YR

Ok, then we are on the same page. Anyone thinking Romo is as good as the elite QB's in the NFL is kidding themselves. He can play at that level in games, but those guys do it every year and in the clutch every year.

As far as the deep ball, I would agree its not his strength. There are people in the NFL with stronger arms. The myth that Romo has a weak arm, however, is just that a myth. His arm his strong enough.

 

[WillieBeamen]

Ok, then we are on the same page. Anyone thinking Romo is as good as the elite QB's in the NFL is kidding themselves. He can play at that level in games, but those guys do it every year and in the clutch every year.

As far as the deep ball, I would agree its not his strength. There are people in the NFL with stronger arms. The myth that Romo has a weak arm, however, is just that a myth. His arm his strong enough.

At the moment, Romo is better than Brees...

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Over the past five seasons, his passer rating at 31+ attempts is 85.5. How is that "wholly inefficient"? That's higher than the overall ratings during the same time frame for guys like Joe Flacco, Carson Palmer, Andy Dalton, Cam Newton and Sam Bradford. It's almost identical to the overall rating for Eli Manning (85.6).

And selecting five seasons -- not two, not three, not four, not six, not seven, not eight and not all nine -- is curious, since that would put Romo in the worst light possible out of any duration.

Romo's 31+ ratings for every possible duration --

Past 1 season -- 126.2
Past 2 seasons -- 115.4
Past 3 seasons -- 91.3
Past 4 seasons -- 87.7
Past 5 seasons -- 85.5 <---- lowest possible
Past 6 seasons -- 89.9
Past 7 seasons -- 88.7
Past 8 seasons -- 89.2
Past 9 seasons -- 89.2

Keep changing the argument in hopes that new arguments may give you a point and that makes it appear that you are correct in the original argument. It's an old lawyer trick that you and some others here like to pull and I can see it from a mile away.

The fact is that less is more with Romo.

The stats show this and if you're looking to compare him to Carson Palmer, Andy Dalton, Sam Bradford and even Flacco (who has never had a high QB rating), it reeks of desperation.

And the fact is that you claimed that these games of 31+ passes were usually due to being down by a large deficit and I showed in Romo's case that is largely untrue and was often times the exact opposite.






YR

 

[Yakuza Rich]

I purged many of these from memory (Det, Gb, chi). Nice effort to support your point though...much more interesting than the posts with unoriginal insults (not your posts)

I wish I could purge these from my memory. They were painful enough to sit and watch.

Too many people like to view this as an insult to Romo. But for me, it's like watching somebody take a Ferrari and try to use it for off-road driving. Use the Ferrari like it's supposed to be used,







YR

 

[ufcrules1]

At the moment, Romo is better than Brees...

That is extremely debatable. Brees has already accomplished much more than Romo and Brees has been on a REALLY bad team 2 years in a row. I would gladly take Brees over Romo right now.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

We never led in the game. We trailed by double digits at halftime and in the second half. And 17 of those pass attempts came AFTER the two-minute warning in each half.

We threw the ball blindly and the defense was doing just fine. In fact, 7 of the points were given up BY THE OFFENSE FOR THROWING THE BALL RIGHT BEFORE THE HALF on a play we weren't going to score on.

The questions are 'did we need to throw the ball that often?' and "where we efficient throwing the ball that much?" and the answers are categorically 'no.'

You claimed that throwing the ball more than 35 times a game is done when you are down by a lot and the defense can't stay up. This again is categorically false in this scenario. Remember, we were down by 21 points to the Rams this year and STILL RAN THE BALL instead of trying to throw it left and right.

The score was never 20-24 (or 24-20) in that game. We were down by double digits in the fourth quarter. And 18 of Romo's attempts came in the fourth quarter, including all 10 plays after we went down by double digits. (Romo's rating in that fourth quarter? 96.1.)

Sorry. The score was 20-17 with 5:16 left (it was late posting this and my eyes screwed up the number, but still...the margin is actually SMALLER and only proves my point more). Again, it was not a large deficit and perhaps the defense actually plays better if we aren't throwing it 51 friggin times and they are on the field for so much.

The defense allowing 34 points is the definition of "things not going well."

That's not part of your caveat. It's having a large deficit AND the defense not being able to hold them. The deficit simply wasn't that large when you're TIED at halftime.

Are there games when we pass a lot even when we don't need to? Sure, you can find some.

Dude, I found 20 out of 26 games that didn't meet your criteria of why we were throwing. You have made it look like around 90% of the time we throw the ball heavily because we had a large deficit and the defense couldn't sustain the opponent.

Even if I gave you 3 or 4 games, that would still be more than 60% of the games where we recklessly threw the ball and neglected the run for no reason.

Compare that to the Eagles game where we were DOWN by 3 points in the 3rd quarter and the defense didn't play well and we still ran the ball 31 times for 2.6 yards per carry. Or the Rams game when we were down by 21 points and we decided to stick with running the ball and Romo only made 23 pass attempts and we ran the ball 25 times. Romo also ended up going 18-23 for 217 yards and 2 TD's, 1 INT in that game. In the past, he would have gone something like 28-46, 310 yards, 3 TD's and 4 INT's and his performance would tail off badly after 35 throws.

The fact is that we have thrown the ball around a ton and it had little or nothing to do with the performance of the defense or deficit we had. And Romo, as a whole, is not nearly as effective when he starts throw the ball more regardless if we have a deficit or a lead.





YR

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Why must people challenge Adam????? Confusing.........

Really?

It's not hard to debate Adam in this one.

He made it look like we throw the ball a ton because it's almost always due to a huge deficit with the defense playing poorly. When I showed him that wasn't true in roughly 3/4 of the games from 2010-2013, he decided to argue a few while changing his arguments (we call that 'moving the goal posts') and the fact is that even if we gave him a few games (which is debatable), that's still over 60% of the games that didn't fit his criteria.

This argument is silly.

I have stated specifically that Romo throws the ball more effectively in passes 25-35 than in passes 35+.

What does throwing the ball in the first half really have to do with anything?

And did he also mention that we ran the ball more in the first half than from 2010-2013?

More cherry picking.





YR

 

[rynochop]

That is extremely debatable. Brees has already accomplished much more than Romo and Brees has been on a REALLY bad team 2 years in a row. I would gladly take Brees over Romo right now.

Ah, so bad teams are an excuse for Brees. Gotcha

 

[percyhoward]

He didn't show Rodgers which was cherry picking stats.

He also didn't show that over the past 5 seasons that Romo's actual performance was far worse than the QB's he mentioned. He also didn't want to put in Romo's 2010 season because he knew it looked really bad.

http://cowboyszone.com/threads/more-aggressive-offense-next-year.318098/page-5#post-6041394

I mentioned Rodgers six times in the above post that you quoted, and that (I'm assuming) you read. Then, to remind you, I also posted a link in this thread. In the future, I will try to remember to repeat myself frequently in our discussions.

Over the past five full seasons, Romo's "actual performance" after 30 attempts in a game is consistent with where Romo ranks relative to the other four QB. You would expect the 5th-best QB over that time period to be the 5th-best QB after 30 attempts over that time period. Maybe you can explain why we should expect Romo to show more improvement after 30 attempts than these other guys?

Rodgers 224 of 337 2989 30 7 115.4
PManning 490 of 758 5587 48 21 96.2
Brady 400 of 648 4605 36 13 93.3
Brees 573 of 904 6517 51 26 91.8
Romo 278 of 445 3251 24 13 90.4

More importantly, his drop off (which is what we're actually talking about) is also consistent with three of the other four QB. This is why the credo that "less Romo is more," makes no more sense than "less Brady, Manning, or Brees is more." And this is based on the assumption that the only factor that influences such a drop off is the number of attempts, which is at best shaky, and is almost certainly false.

Rodgers +5.9
Brady -8.1
PManning -8.8
Romo -10.5
Brees -11.1

Finally, you keep referring to Romo's 5 1/3 games in 2010 as a "season." That means you're going back 4 and 1/3 seasons for Romo, and 5 seasons for everybody else. As a veteran of research, you know that's not a valid comparison. With the data that is available to us (without going back and counting each and every game) all we can use to compare are their qualifying seasons. For Rodgers and Brees, that's 2010-14, and for the rest it's 2009-14. But let's include Romo's games from 2010 anyway, even though it makes his sample larger than the rest. Romo's drop off goes down to 12.8 rating points, making his drop off 1.7 points lower than Brees.

They all have drop offs of 8.1-12.8 rating points. So you're still faced with the same question. What is it that makes "less Romo is more" true, that doesn't also make "less Brees, Brady, or Manning is more" true?

 

[Super_Kazuya]

Ah, so bad teams are an excuse for Brees. Gotcha

Hey, remember that ufc thinks the 2013 Cowboys, who gave up 6600 yards on defense, was a Super Bowl quality team if only they had a better QB...

 

[rynochop]

Hey, remember that ufc thinks the 2013 Cowboys, who gave up 6600 yards on defense, was a Super Bowl quality team if only they had a better QB...

Yeah, he also could not wait for brandon weeden to start that Arizona game last year and how anyone could qb this team behind that line.

He.s consistent, i.ll give him that.ba

 

[ufcrules1]

Ah, so bad teams are an excuse for Brees. Gotcha

Really bad teams are an excuse for any QB. NO was horrendous last year.

 

[percyhoward]

And selecting five seasons -- not two, not three, not four, not six, not seven, not eight and not all nine -- is curious, since that would put Romo in the worst light possible out of any duration.

Romo's 31+ ratings for every possible duration --

Past 1 season -- 126.2
Past 2 seasons -- 115.4
Past 3 seasons -- 91.3
Past 4 seasons -- 87.7
Past 5 seasons -- 85.5 <---- lowest possible
Past 6 seasons -- 89.9
Past 7 seasons -- 88.7
Past 8 seasons -- 89.2
Past 9 seasons -- 89.2

In his defense, I was the one who selected five seasons, just because it seemed like a good round number. It is interesting that I chose a number that makes Romo look worse than he really is lol.

And it has to be repeated that this entire argument confuses cause for effect anyway.