It's Time For CBS To Have An Uncomfortable Conversation With Tony Romo
Romo was at his absolute worst on Sunday.
The rest of the country has finally figured out what I started noticing years ago: Tony Romo is unlistenable. Is that a word? Well, it is now! Thanks, Tony.
I first started noticing Tony's decline two seasons ago. Too much yapping, not enough analyzing. Things got really bad this year, especially with the constant blowing of Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen. Seriously, it's insane.
And then yesterday happened. Bills-Jags. One of the best games of Wild Card weekend. And Romo made it insufferable. Just insufferable.
America noticed, and – perhaps for the first time in a decade – FINALLY banded together on SOMETHING. I haven't seen the country united like this since the pre-Trump era of politics. It was beautiful.
It was also very much needed:
It's time for CBS to make some tough calls with Romo
It was just awful. I'm a notorious Romo hater. In recent years, I've raised the bar for my Romo stories, because if I didn't, I'd be writing one every single week. So, he has to be particularly bad for me to write about it.
Sunday was, easily, his worst performance ever. It was borderline criminal. I knew when I heard that opening monologue about … the under/overdog Jags being able to beat the under/overdog Bills, we were gonna be in for a wild day. And Tony did NOT disappoint.
CBS won't do it because they're paying him way too much money, but if EVER they were going to make a change, this is the time to do it. Not one single person would bat an eye. But they won't do it, because they're locked into a Tua Tagovailoa-esque deal with Tony that has completely hamstrung them.
Romo, for those who don't remember, signed a mega deal in 2017 for roughly $180 million over 10 years. It runs through the 2030 season, which means we ain't even close to the end, folks. We're barely halfway through!
Meanwhile, CBS's actual top football team – Ian Eagle and JJ Watt – will continue to sit on the sidelines for Wild Card weekend and watch Tony pump out takes like … whatever the hell THIS was after Josh Allen's first touchdown yesterday:
That literally happened yesterday. Allen scored a touchdown in the first half, and Romo spent the next 30 seconds saying it might not count because the ref immediately started talking fast after the play.
Nobody knew what was happening, CBS didn't even have a shot of the ref to show us (probably because it didn't exist), and then they just proceeded with the extra point while Jim Nantz tried to clean up his mess. It was absurd.
But wait … there's more! Anyone catch this one from the second half when Josh Allen slid well short of the first down line, and Tony – and GENE! – both said it was a first down because it's where he was touched?
That's not true. It's where the ball is when the QB begins his slide. The play is dead from that moment on. We've had that rule beaten into our brains ALL SEASON. Both guys got it completely wrong on the broadcast. Not surprisingly, they also got it wrong on the field.
Here's the other layer to this, and we saw it play out beautifully yesterday. Tom Brady has soared past Romo in the pantheon of NFL analysts. Brady wasn't great last season. Fox took a lot of heat for bumping Greg Olsen for him, and it didn't pay off in Year 1.
But Brady has been excellent in Year 2. His arrow is pointing way up, while Romo's is wayyyyyyyyyy down. After sitting through three hours of Tony slobbering over Josh Allen, we got three hours of Tom Brady doing things that Romo used to do – like inform the audience:
That's what made us all fall in love with Tony Romo nearly a decade ago when he burst onto the scene. He was smarter than us, but able to convey that in an informative way. He was someone who we wanted to watch a game with, because he knew what was about to happen, and, more importantly, WHY it was about to happen.
And he was genuinely excited about it.
That's all gone now. It's completely gone. Now, it's just three hours of Romo making weird sounds, slobbering over Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen (he called him his baby at one point yesterday), and stating completely obvious things that don't need to be said. Multiple times yesterday he said that the Jags could win the Super Bowl.
No shit, Tony. They're the No. 3 seed and won 12 games this season.
Should CBS shake things up this offseason? Absolutely. Will they? Probably not. They can't. Their hands are tied. Unfortunately for them, America has officially noticed. The cat is out the bag.
Oh well. I'm just glad we have Brady.