Romo Admits It Was His Fault

Sometimes a quarterback points the finger at himself to shield a teammate from criticism. It can be part of leadership.

And sometimes the quarterback is simply telling the truth.

So let’s give the Cowboys’ Tony Romo credit for honesty. He couldn’t be assigned much credit for anything else in the fourth quarter of a loss to the Jets on Sunday.

“Really this game just came down to one or two plays,” Romo said. “Those plays were plays that I gave them the ball.”

First he fumbled on a third-down dive at the Jets’ goal line. Then came what Steve Politi of The Star-Ledger called Romo’s masterpiece of stupidy.

Peter King of Sports Illustrated described the game as a total, absolute, utter debacle for Romo:

With a minute to go and the score tied, only the Lord knows what Romo was looking at. He badly underthrew Dez Bryant, and the interception into the waiting arms of Darrelle Revis led to the winning field goal.

Romo and Bryant could be seen discussing the route after the interception, and it made you think that Romo was expecting Bryant to come back for the ball. But Romo set things straight after the game. And the postgame quotations from the coaches indicated that a zone coverage by the Jets’ secondary, disguised as man-to-man, tripped him up.

From DallasCowboys.com:

Dez Bryant said after the game that he had run his route correctly.

“We wanted to get in a formation and a protection that we felt could block up some of their pressure and give Tony a chance to work the outside the receivers,” Jason Garrett said. “It looked like they went to what we call (cover) 2-man, played up underneath it, and I don’t know if Tony was fooled by it a little bit, but unfortunately we made that turnover and gave them a chance to win the ballgame.”

Jets Coach Rex Ryan said: “Mike Pettine might have had the call of the day. We have this play called ‘Jet Mike Mix’ that we call, and we’d been getting a lot of one-on-one’s on the outside. We wanted them to think it was one-on-one, but we actually had help on top. Revis was able to undercut it and get the interception.”

It might have also been questonable for Romo to focus on Bryant in the first place. Bryant sustained a quad injury earlier in the game on a punt return, and was also hobbled by cramps.

“I cost us the football game tonight,” Romo said. “That’s frustrating. It’s disappointing to work very hard to make sure that you’re put in those positions to win the game, and it’s hard to swallow a game like that. I’ve got to be better. That’s the bottom line.”

Extra point There has always been the feeling that if Romo could eliminate dunderhead plays late in games, he could be considered an elite quarterback (and lead Dallas to a title). Romo fans and Dallas fans have been waiting for that to happen, for experience to kick in. Instead, they keep getting kicked in the teeth. Is there still a chance that Romo can mature into a champion? Or is what you see what you get?