Romo aware of target on his back
By Michael Silver, Yahoo! Sports
July 18, 2008
Like his girlfriend Jessica Simpson, Tony Romo is known primarily for two things – a pair of playoff disappointments that mar his otherwise resplendent rise from NFL nobody to star quarterback.
How much those conspicuous clunkers will weigh him down as he prepares for a season in which his Dallas Cowboys are projected as strong Super Bowl contenders is one of the biggest questions as the start of training camp approaches.
While restless Packers legend Brett Favre and presumed successor Aaron Rodgers are the quarterbacks getting the bulk of the attention in July, I'm equally interested to see how another passer with Wisconsin ties handles the heat this summer and beyond. From paparazzi to armchair general managers, Romo, who grew up in Burlington (a Milwaukee suburb), has been besieged by people who take him a lot more seriously than he claims to take himself.
"No one's going to remember me five or seven years from now," Romo insisted last weekend from the putting green of the Edgewood-Tahoe golf course, where he was in the process of finishing in a tie for third place in the American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament. "Really, I'm not that important. Eventually, no one will pay attention to me, but right now it's going to be tabloids and articles and all kinds of craziness. All I can do is try to win as many (championships) as I can and have some fun in the process, and eventually it'll be somebody else's turn."
While he may be underestimating the staying power of his fame, Romo, 28, is right about the winning part. Until he leads the Cowboys, who open training camp on July 24 in Oxnard, Calif., to a playoff victory, he'll remain an easy target for critics who claim he's not sufficiently committed to his craft.
Last January, Romo set himself up for that stigma by making a celebrated border run during the bye weekend before the Cowboys, the NFC's top playoff seed, hosted their divisional-round game. Joining Romo in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico were teammates Jason Witten and Bobby Carpenter, ex-Cowboys lineman Marco Rivera, their significant others – and, oh yeah, Simpson, her parents, and a few of their camera-clicking friends.
The images of Romo, whose Pro Bowl regular season had wheezed to an underwhelming end (one touchdown and five interceptions in his final three games), chilling poolside with the voluptuous actress/singer/reality star created a stir before Dallas' meeting with the New York Giants. When the favored Cowboys suffered a 21-17 defeat that essentially ended on cornerback R.W. McQuarters' interception of a Romo pass in the end zone with nine seconds remaining, the impending fallout drove wideout Terrell Owens to tears as he defended his quarterback.
"I think Tony learned a hard lesson about fame and perception," another Cowboys teammate said recently. "It's not so much that (going to Mexico) actually affected his performance, but that it opened him up to criticism and attention that was unnecessary."
We'll have to wait until Romo's next playoff bye weekend to see if he takes a different approach, but in the six months since the defeat to the Giants he hasn't shied away from the public eye. Anyone who saw the clip of him singing Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" in January while onstage with the band Metal Skool – and, adding to the weirdness, actor Dennis Haskins, the man who played Mr. Belding in "Saved By The Bell" – can attest to that.
"The thing is, I still do the same things I've been doing the last 10 years – it's just that people are noticing it now," Romo said. "You can only practice and get ready for football so much; you can't do it 24 hours a day. I'm not married, and I don't have kids, so that leaves me some time to enjoy myself.
"If I want to go out or listen to some music or take my girlfriend to dinner, I do it. I don't feel like I should have to hide. I still play golf, I still play basketball and I still play soccer like I always have."
Uh, soccer? That's right – Romo, who last October signed a six-year, $67.5-million contract extension, routinely rips it up in the midfield in a Dallas-area rec league. Heaven help the Steve Bartman wannabe who takes him down with an aggressive slide tackle.
An undrafted free agent out of Eastern Illinois who didn't throw an NFL pass until midway through his fourth season, Romo enjoyed the luxury of not having his decisions scrutinized by a patronizing public. Now, as a two-time Pro Bowl quarterback who has chosen to date an even bigger celebrity, that's no longer an option. Like the Patriots' Tom Brady, he believes he can handle the fame while adhering to the work ethic that allowed him to rise from obscurity in the first place.
Brady, however, has won three Super Bowls and earned his place among the game's all-time greats. Romo is still looking for his first playoff victory, and strangely has more US Weekly covers (one) than he has Sports Illustrated's (zero).
Until he comes through in the postseason, at least to casual fans, Romo will continue to be known as The Guy Who Went To Mexico With Jessica Simpson – Then Tanked.
Depending on your perspective, that may or may not be a slight improvement over his previous summer's designation, Bobble Boy.
A year earlier, he was simply Tony Who?
He swears they're all the same guy. Of the Cabo trip, Romo said, "It's hard for me to explain to people. It was a bye weekend, and I wanted to get away before I started locking in on the game. I didn't want to go on a drinking binge to Vegas or New York; what I really wanted to do was relax and watch football all weekend. So a few us of decided to bring our girls down to Mexico, take them out to a couple of nice dinners and watch the playoff games.
"It was perfect. It's not like I went out to Cabo Wabo and ripped it up. It was all very mellow. People don't realize the decisions you make and why you make them. If you go out to a club and drink water, now everyone says you're partying."
Romo stopped talking for a moment, perhaps realizing that it was pointless to try to change a perception that has clearly spiraled beyond his ability to control. People can and will draw their own conclusions about his lifestyle and whether it negatively impacts his game, and the only effective rebuttal is to come up big when it matters most.
"I know exactly what I need to," Romo continued, pausing to line up a 15-foot putt. "Just realize that I don't think I deserve to be good this year unless I've worked harder than I did the (previous) offseason."
Romo's glare turned steely. He sank the putt and politely ended the interview. "Time to get serious," he explained. Six months from now, he hopes to provide conclusive evidence of that being the case.
