Monday Musings -- Part II

Late-night sometime-funnyman Jay Leno devoted a little sliver of his monologue Monday to cracking on QB Tony Romo and his latest playoff misfortune.

Actually, playing footage of T.O.'s crying defense of Romo drew Leno's biggest laugh. If somewhat unintientionally. He explained T.O. had been defending Romo from accusations that his Mexican tryst with Jessica Simpson had hindered his performance.

"I've got footage of their vacation in Mexico," he joked, flashing to scenes from of a cheesy 1950s Gidgette-type beach flick featuring a goofy dancing dude with blonde eye candy.

It's official. Romo is a punchline.

And get ready, Tony, because Leno is just the beginning.

He is about to find what life under the microscope is like, what going from The Next Roger to Tony Romeo is like, what being kicked in the man-parts is like.

Until about 12 seconds ago, Romo had been a universal feel-good story: a Cowboy fan favorite as well as media darling because of how much playing football seemed to mean to him and how good he was at making this game look easy.

And as an added bonus, he helped this Cowboys team win. A lot.

His happy train screeched to a halt Sunday when he lost his second straight playoff game as a starter.

What happened a year ago in Seattle was hardly an indictment of his QBing skills, an unlucky bounce really. And this season's loss to NYG had many culprits with Romo being way down in the blame-game rankings.

BTW, I will release how I voted in the blame-game poll Wednesday. And Romo is nowhere near my No. 1.
I am pretty much alone on this. By Monday, Romo had become a favorite punching bag of many local media types as well as national sports blog joke fodder and a welcome break from Britney for celebugossip blogs.

Even Eva Longoria jumped in with a little bit of advice for Tony and Jess.

Is this fair to Romo? Hardly.

He actually played a fairly decent game in Sunday's loss. He had his ugly moments, most notably his final pass where he had time yet forced the ball to a blanketed Terry Glenn. Mostly, though, he had zero second-half protection and spent Sunday's crucial moments battling frustration and blitzing Giants and awful drops and a player quitting on a route and abysmal penalties.

I'd also argue that doubt about whether his mind is right with ball is misplaced. Anybody who knows Romo, even tangentially, understands how badly this kid wants to be good and how hard he works to be so.

"Tony's personality, if you don't really know him, you might say he's not putting everything in, he's worried about other things, he's a celebrity quarterback and all," his best friend and tight end Jason Witten said. "But that's the furthest from the truth. More than anybody I've been around, Tony had the competitiveness to win and want to win and he has the ability to put everybody else in positions to be successful."

He brought some of this on himself, though, and that is not a criticism of his bye-weekend vacation or blaming Jessica for 21-17 to NYG. This is just a byproduct of a famous person dating a famous-er person and creating a famous-est couple requiring name smooshing like happened with Bennifer.

Is this Jessomo?

Or Jomo? Or Tessica?

Who cares? Nobody would except the Cowboys did not win a game they absolutely should have seeing as they were the better and healthier team, and they were playing at home. Aikman summarized Romo's dilemma perfectly when he noted during the broadcast: "If they do not go on to win this game, he has opened himself up to a lot of criticism."

Romo has lost a little of his accumulated goodwill with many Cowboys fans who feel like he's become more interested in being famous than winning a Super Bowl. They are used to Aikman who seemed to burn with a singular focus until he had a ring which then led to his famous-dating days.

Romo, of course, has a right to his private life.

He can date whoever, wherever. He just has to realize by his very public doings during his bye weekend
by putting himself out there he has added pressure to his already laden shoulders.

It wasn't wrong. It just was not smart.

And I blame Coach Wade for this a little. Sometimes the job of the coach is to save players from themselves. He probably needed to tell Romo that, while reality is reality, he probably does not want to create a perception that his mind is on anything except football.

Especially not a publicity hungry starlet.

He realizes this, I think. He seemed to tip his hand a little Sunday with his postgame remarks. He noted that he did not live with regrets and he's comfortable in his skin yet his word choice suggested he may choose differently if presented with such public plans next time.

He said "when I made the choice in those things, I felt like I was making a good decision."

I believe he really did think he was doing the right thing. It might have been, if they had won.

"I told you this was going to happen," Coach Wade said Monday. "If you lose, it's something like that. If you win, it wouldn't have been."

They did not win. And as usually happens, a lot of eyes turn to the quarterback. He is supposed to be the leader of the team and thereby held to a higher standard. He, along with the coach, is the guy everybody talks about when a team fails to win playoff games.

And it only gets harder from here for Romo.

Every year he doesn't win, the questions build about if he can, getting louder and louder until doubt itself becomes another thing he has to overcome. Just ask Coach Wade or Peyton Manning or John Elway. The monkey just shows up one day and everybody starts asking about him and wondering if the guy really can win the big one.

I have no doubt Romo can. And will.

What is frustrating is this year was set up perfectly for him and the Cowboys, with the bye and home-field and this is why the disappointment was so much worse than a year ago and why everybody is looking for reasons why this happened.

"It's been kind of bad luck for him that he can't win the big game," Witten said. "I don't think it's to that point with Tony. Obviously, he's put a lot of pressure on himself to like he has to be a leader and get us over the hump but I don't think that he feels like he can't win a playoff game."

And if Leno's perception comes to be seen as reality, the joke is he is too busy fawning over Jessica to care anyway.

Comments

[Herb Rabinowitz]

They should have sent ALL the receivers to Mexico!