For years, Cowboys fans have held placed the task of winning a sixth ring on the shoulders of Tony Romo. Romo, who became the permanent quarterback and starter for the Cowboys in week seven of 2006, has been one of the most accurate regular-season quarterbacks in the past few years. So naturally, #CowboyNation should have six, seven or eight rings by now, right? Sadly, this is not the case.
Although Romo is a bona fide gunslinger, he is also injury-prone and a poor decision-maker, which leads to head-scratching interceptions and turnovers. As Cowboys fans, we’ve gotten used to Romo’s bad decision-making because in our minds the ‘good Tony Romo’ always outweighs the ‘bad Tony Romo’, and let’s be honest, we have never had anyone else remotely possible to challenge Romo for his job — until now.
Rayne Dakota Prescott better known as Dak Prescott is a six foot, two inches tall, 230-pound quarterback for Mississippi State University who was drafted in the fourth round of the 2016 draft to be Tony Romo’s backup. As luck would have it, Romo was injured in the first quarter of a preseason game against the Seattle Seahawks, and the 2016 season was thrust into the hands of the 23-year-old rookie. And he has been nothing short of phenomenal.
Don’t believe me? Look at the numbers. According to NFL.com, In Prescott’s first seven games as an NFL quarterback; he has thrown for 1,773 yards, nine touchdown passes to just two interceptions and two lost fumbles. Over the past seven weeks, he has beaten three 2015 playoff teams including the Green Bay Packers, Cincinnati Bengals and the 2015 NFC division champion Washington Redskins. Prescott’s overall quarterback rating through the first seven weeks is third in the league behind New England Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady and Atlanta Falcons Quarterback Matt Ryan.
Now there are those out there who believe that once Tony Romo is healthy he should resume his duties as the starter. I think those people are absolutely insane and should never be allowed to talk about football again, but as always, look at the numbers.
Since becoming the starter mid-2006, Tony Romo has thrown for 34,154 yards, 247 touchdowns to 117 interceptions and 22 fumbles lost. He has been to the playoffs six times, losing four of the six games. But here’s where things get interesting: In the 10 seasons that Romo has been in the league, he has only played four full seasons (all 16 games in a regular season). Romo has broken his right pinkie finger, his left clavicle, he has ruptured a disks in his back and has had two transverse process fractures. He most recently suffered a compression fracture to his L1 vertebrae before the start of the 2016 season.
All of these injuries and turnovers and inability to win the biggest games would make most fans happy to move on, but for die-hard Cowboys fans, this is a hard thing to do. Romo has been the guy for so long that changing it now can be scary because there is still so much we don’t know about the young Dak Prescott. I do know this one thing: A talent like Prescott doesn’t come around too often, so Cowboys fans, let’s take the risk. You never know, it could work out well for us in the end, just ask the New England Patriots and Tom Brady.
