I’m kind of sick of it. I’m sick of hearing how Click this link. No, that isn’t spam, I promise. Read the title of that YouTube video – one that has over 330,000 views. Romo Singlehandedly Loses the Game!, it reads.
Do you know what I typed into the YouTube search bar to find that video? “Tony Romo Seahawks.†That’s it.
When I type in something like “Brett Favre Saints†– you know, because he threw one of the most careless interceptions in NFC Championship history back in 2010 against New Orleans – I don’t see any, Favre Singlehandedly Loses the Game! videos. Instead, titles look like Brett Favre interception by Saints Tracy Porter NFC Championship. Paul Allen’s Call.
It’s the "Tony Romo always loses in the fourth quarter" narrative. But it’s one that couldn’t be further from the truth.
There’s a subset of readers who acknowledge the previous section to this article. They know that Tony Romo is a good quarterback, and that he puts up numbers that are better than the majority of starting quarterbacks in the NFL. But this subset also believes that Tony Romo is the least clutch quarterback in the league, failing to put together game-winning drives, and stinking up the place in the fourth quarter.
That subset is wrong.
Since 2000, exactly 50 quarterbacks have thrown at least 200 attempts in the fourth quarter when their team was either tied or trailing by at most 10 points. Of these quarterbacks – which includes the aforementioned Brady, Rodgers, Brees and Manning – Tony Romo has the highest completion percentage (64.70%).
Among this same group given these same circumstances, Tony Romo ranks fifth in interception rate (interceptions per attempt), ahead of each of the “elite†passers mentioned previously.
And it’s not only when his team is trailing, either. Since that same year, 21 different quarterbacks have thrown at least 200 pass attempts in the fourth quarter while their team was either tied or winning by at most 10 points. The reason this number is smaller is because, clearly, teams that are winning in the fourth quarter aren’t as likely to throw the football.
Within this group, Romo ranks sixth in completion percentage. Admittedly, however, he has a higher interception rate than anyone not named this piece, he shows that, given opportunity, Romo’s rate at coming through with a victory on game-winning drives is nearly identical to Drew Brees’. And it’s better than what we've seen from Philip Rivers and Aaron Rodgers.
It’s Tony Romo’s fault though.
Stop the Narrative
Our advanced metrics peg him as a player much closer to the elite quarterback talent in the league than many want to believe. And under a fourth quarter microscope, Tony Romo may actually get better as a signal-caller, not worse.
Yet, there will be a continued belief that Tony Romo isn’t clutch, that he can’t win a Super Bowl and that he’s bound to fail each and every time he steps onto a football field at the end of a game. But this feeling for many has nothing to do with how he’s actually performing on the field. No, it’s the result of a media-driven false narrative that was created about the biggest position on the biggest team in the biggest sport in America.
People don’t want Tony Romo to win because he’s a Cowboy. And really, many don’t want him to succeed because he can sometimes come off as super obnoxious. But if you really want to judge Tony Romo the quarterback – if you really want to build a narrative off of his play on the field – make sure you get the story right.
Because Tony Romo is a damn good quarterback.