Tony Romo Leaves Cowboys Behind

By ESPN

The NFL's most polarizing player has played his last game for the Dallas Cowboys.

Sources told ESPN that Tony Romo will pursue one of several offers in television.

He leaves a complicated legacy with the Cowboys. That’s because former quarterbacks Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman, each of whom is in the Hall of Fame, combined to win five Super Bowls and established the standard for any quarterback wearing a blue star on a silver helmet.

For all of Romo’s gaudy statistics -- 34,183 yards passing, 248 touchdowns and virtually every significant franchise passing record -- he won just two playoff games in a decade as a starter.

No gray exists for Romo. He’s viewed strictly in black and white.

For "Romo apologists," he can do no wrong. They will seemingly blame the coaching staff, the defense and anything and anyone but Romo for the games he lost.

"Romo haters" view him through a prism in which they see hollow statistics and too many interceptions thrown at the worst possible moments. They see a player known more for his greatest mistakes than his greatest triumphs.

The truth, as you would expect, lies somewhere between the player the Romo apologists adore and the one who drove the Romo haters crazy.

For most of his time as a starter, Romo was among the NFL’s best quarterbacks. In some years, he was an elite player; in others, he was a notch below.

Romo is polarizing because he rarely played his best football in the Cowboys' most important games, and some of his biggest gaffes occurred on national television.

Folks still talk about the botched hold on a field goal attempt against Seattle in a 2006 playoff loss, and his failure to lead the Cowboys to victories in win-to-get-in-the-postseason games in 2011 and 2012. A lesser quarterback probably wouldn't have even maneuvered the Cowboys into position to compete for a playoff spot in the final game of the season in the 2011, 2012 and 2013 seasons, as Jerry Jones tried to rebuild his club without losing double-digit games.

Romo’s critics don’t care.

New England's Tom Brady, Pittsburgh's Ben Roethlisberger, San Diego's Philip Rivers, the Giants' Eli Manning and New Orleans' Drew Brees are the league’s only current quarterbacks who have started a decade with the same team.

No ambiguity exists about their respective legacies.

Brady, Roethlisberger and Manning have won multiple Super Bowls. Brees won a Super Bowl, giving an identity to a franchise that was mostly moribund before his arrival.

San Diego has never won a Super Bowl, but Rivers is the second-best quarterback in franchise history behind Dan Fouts.

The Cowboys judge themselves by the standard Tom Landry created for parts of three decades until Jones fired him after buying the team in 1989. Former coach Jimmy Johnson took over, turning a 1-15 team into a Super Bowl champion in the early 1990s.

Since Romo never achieved the ultimate victory -- he couldn’t even get them to the NFC Championship Game in 2007 and 2014, when he had his best teams -- too many folks lose sight of his improbable journey from undrafted free agent to four-time Pro Bowler.

He plays the game with a joie de vivre we rarely see in the self-important NFL. His athleticism, accuracy, intelligence and penchant for spinning out of sacks and making big plays out of chaos is why he has a career passer rating of 97.1.

Only Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers, Seattle's Russell Wilson and Brady rank ahead of him.

Romo had 30 game-winning drives and 25 fourth-quarter comebacks, an indication he performed well in winning time, which only frustrates fans when they think about the interceptions he threw in critical moments.

Romo led the Cowboys to several wonderful victories, such as their win over Peyton Manning the 9-0 Indianapolis Colts in his fourth career start, and a win over the 13-0 Saints in the Super Dome in 2009.

He helped the Cowboys to a 25-24 win over Buffalo in which Dallas scored 10 points in the final 20 seconds after he threw five interceptions, and he rallied the Cowboys from a 14-0 deficit to beat the Detroit Lions 24-20 in a 2014 playoff game.

Along the way, he has also shown incredible toughness.

He returned from a fractured rib and punctured lung to lead the Cowboys a 27-24 overtime win against San Francisco in 2011, and he played through a herniated disc in 2013, leading the Cowboys on a game-winning 87-yard drive to beat Washington 24-23 on the road in December.

In 2015, he returned from a fractured collarbone after nine weeks to try to salvage a lost season. He lasted seven quarters before breaking it again, ending his season.

But it’s Romo’s October 2013 performance against Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos that encapsulates his career.

Romo passed for a career-high 505 yards with five touchdowns as the Cowboys rallied from a 35-20 third-quarter deficit. However, with 2:39 left in the fourth quarter, Romo threw an interception at the Dallas 24 to set up Denver's game-winning field goal as time expired.

Denver 51, Dallas 48.

Romo apologists blamed the defense; Romo haters blamed the quarterback for the inopportune turnover.