DALLAS - If it’s possible for the Cowboys to begin a season with limited fanfare, this is it. News of "America’s Team" in Dallas has taken a back seat to the latest on the "Dream Team" in Philadelphia while the first Super Bowl winner (and the last) appears to rule the NFC from Green Bay.
To return the Cowboys to relevance, the man who must own the first quarter - of the season, not just Sunday night’s season opener against the New York Jets [team stats] - is Tony Romo
Super Bowls aren’t won in September, even if Green Bay still looked reasonably super Thursday night. Honestly, that’s not what the Cowboys are about these days, anyway. Nineteen teams have been to Super Bowls - some of them multiple times - since Dallas made its last visit 16 seasons ago.
For the Cowboys, after a disastrous 6-10 season that featured that rarest of NFL admission-to-failures - a midseason coaching change - it’s about finding that .500 level and then getting back into the playoff picture.
The Cowboys aren’t hosting a Super Bowl this year and no one outside the organization thinks much of their chances in visiting one. They just want to become a team that’s still part of the postseason hunt when we get to December.
For that reason, Romo has to be at his best right away. The Cowboys won’t play a game against a quarterback who would be ranked superior (not at the moment, anyway) in the season’s first four games.
Romo has to outperform the Jets’ Mark Sanchez, Washington’s Rex Grossman, San Francisco’s Alex Smith and Detroit’s Matthew Stafford to get this team on track before it has to deal with the likes of New England’s Tom Brady [stats], the Eagles’ Michael Vick or even the Giants’ Super Bowl-winning Eli Manning on down the road.
Some of you may point out that the Jets’ young Sanchez already has four playoff victories, which just happen to beat Romo’s total by three. While that’s true, the Jets haven’t done much postseason winning while riding Sanchez’s arm.
He hasn’t passed for 200 yards in any of those playoff wins. Only in last year’s upset of New England - Sanchez’s fourth playoff victory - did he throw more touchdowns than interceptions.
The first three quarterbacks the Cowboys are scheduled to face fall more into the "caretaker" category. These are players who are supposed to manage games and not lose them. Detroit’s Stafford, who has fought injuries his first two seasons, is the only one who, like Romo, is expected to go out and win games with his arm while the running game and defense take secondary roles.
You might guess by my prediction of a 5-11 record for this team that I don’t really like Romo’s chances of being able to do this. That’s true, but it has less to do with perceived limitations on his part than on the Cowboys having sketched together a paper-thin roster that can’t afford injuries of any consequence.
In addition, while it seems Romo’s backside will get ample protection from Doug Free, the rest of the offensive line is all newcomers or players in new positions. Two rookies and another player with one NFL start are slated to open the season in the lineup.
That should make this a better team in 2012 but it’s an invitation to immediate disaster for a team that struggled to run the ball with efficiency a year ago. You can’t put too much of a burden on Felix Jones. He has never been a featured back in this league (he wasn’t at Arkansas, either), and it appears that if he builds up the strength to handle a heavy workload, he loses the elusive quality that made him a first-round pick to begin with.
No, if the Cowboys are to provide surprises of the opposite variety than those they managed in 2010, it’s on Romo’s ability to connect with Miles Austin, Dez Bryant and Jason Witten. With protection, this can be a formidable passing team, although it will face some challenging defenses early, starting with Rex Ryan’s New York Jets.
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