In their 51-48 loss to the Denver Broncos, Dallas quarterback Tony Romo threw an interception late in the fourth quarter on his own 14-yard line, allowing Peyton Manning and the Broncos to kneel and then kick the winning field goal.
Despite giving up the ball in the dying minutes of the game, Romo is not the reason the Cowboys lost this shootout. In fact, he was the only reason they were in the game at all.
Ever since his unfortunate bobbled hold back in the 2007 playoffs, Romo has held a reputation for being unreliable in the fourth quarter.
After this most recent pick on Sunday night, people were quick to jump on the Cowboys’ quarterback and once again label him vaguely as ‘un-clutch’.
The fact is that couldn’t be farther from the truth, and recently Romo has actually been quite efficient in the final 15 minutes.
Since 2011 (having only played six games in 2010 due to injury), he has nine fourth quarter game-winning drives – five in 2012, four in 2011. Since becoming the starter in Dallas (in 2006), he’s authored 19 game-winning drives in total, ranking 10th among currently active quarterbacks.
Since 2011, Romo has ranked as one of the best fourth quarter quarterbacks in the NFL. In 2011, he was ranked fifth with a quarterback rating of 102.2, in 2012 he was fourth with 103.5 and thus far in 2013 he is seventh with 104.6.
Those are great numbers.
Despite his consistent success, Romo’s failures are always more celebrated than his victories, perhaps in no small part to his being part of the storied Dallas Cowboys and all the national exposure that comes with them.
He’s made mistakes in big games, absolutely, but many other quarterbacks have too. It’s just that with Romo and the Cowboys, the good is all-too-quickly washed away by the bad.
Of course, we cannot completely remove him of all guilt in their Week 5 loss.
He threw the pick, and as a direct result of it the Cowboys lost the game. But by the end he had completed 25-of-36 passes for 506 yards (a Cowboys record) and five touchdowns.
It was the greatest performance of his career and only the fifth time in history a quarterback managed 500 yards and five touchdowns in one game.
The fact is when he manages 48 points over four quarters, it’s hard to place blame solely on the shoulders of the quarterback for the loss.
Lest we forget the amazing play by the Broncos’ linebacker Danny Trevathan, who had to leap and fully extend his body to make the grab. Or the fact that DeMarco Murray could only manage 3.5 yards per carry, with the Cowboys only running for 52 yards despite the early lead.
Lest we forget that the Cowboys defence gave up 414 yards in the air and another 103 on the ground while allowing Manning to complete 33-of-42 passes on the night.
All this makes it extremely difficult for the Cowboys to defend (or extend) the 14-point lead they managed in the first quarter.
If you cannot eat up clock with the run, or get the odd crucial stop on defence you’re not going to keep a lead. The quarterback cannot run the ball himself, or play cornerback.
Most telling is the fact that the lack of a running game and poor defence have been issues that have hounded the Cowboys these last three seasons, yet remain unfixed.
Romo managed 14.1 yards per completion, connected on 69.4 percent of his passes and had a quarterback rating of 140 this past Sunday. That’s phenomenal, and the quarterback did all he could.
This game should be heralded as a historic shootout, perhaps one of the most exciting games of the season, but that’s not the narrative that will dominate the post-game discussion.
As it has almost his entire career, it’ll be that late-game interception that Romo gave up that’ll have everybody talking.
It’s ironic that the greatest performance of his career should also reinforce a bad stereotype for the embattled quarterback.
And it’s a shame that it’s the few bad plays, not the many good, that’ll ultimately determine Tony Romo’s legacy with the Dallas Cowboys.
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