Get someone in the draft or trade for another QB. Romo doesn't have the mentality to be the Dallas QB, he's proven that time and again that when the team needs him to get a TD, he can't.
I agree there are other problems with Dallas aside from QB (OL being one, game management another) but if all Jerry Jones is going to do this offseason is replace the defensive coordinator then that's not enough IMO.
The first part is typical fanatical response when it comes to Romo and other criticized players. He's proven plenty of times he can get that TD when the team needs it - evident by his 5 game-winning drives this year (led or tied the league if I'm not mistaken) and 31 in his career (9th amongst active QBs). He makes mistakes too, they all do, some more than others, but when a player draws a certain reputation the overreaction is always myopic. Not every final drive results in a win for a QB - plenty come up short.
Romo is basically a Brett Favre clone - a gunslinger that makes plenty of mistakes and he's never had the great supporting cast Favre did. And for all the hype Favre drew he only won a single championship and had plenty of abysmal performances in big games. If the Dallas defense could get eight defensive TDs next season perhaps Romo could go on a Brees-esque playoff run as well. Lost in that Saints championship run was how many bounces went the right way for the Saints defenders, often bailing them out of holes.
Romo is the 5th highest rated passer in NFL history (I'm not a huge fan of the statistic but lots of people are), 6th all-time in completion percentage (not too shabby for a guy that throws interceptions, I mean he's no Tebow out there completing sub 50%). He has a better career INT % than such luminaries as Eli Manning and the aforementioned Favre. He's also top ten in a bunch of other minor statistical categories like yards per attempt.
No one argues he's in the greatest ever category but the anti-Romo's act as if the guy can't play at all, as if he's a scrub like Scott Mitchell or Rex Grossman, or even believe Joe Flacco is better.
I hope you are aware the number of QBs that have "the mentality to be the Dallas QB" can be counted on one hand. And not a single one of them will be leaving their current club. Granted there could be more in another person's view but we'll never actually know. Bledsoe, Henson, Carter - those guys didn't have the mentality yet Romo certainly does or he'd have performed like those clowns and would have been replaced long time ago.
There's also not a single player in the 2013 draft that is what one would label "a lock" to be a franchise QB. I would like to see a guy like Geno Smith get drafted in the 2nd rd and groomed to possibly take over in a couple years if necessary, but that's unlikely and not necessary. Smith will probably be gone by late first round/early second round and there are far more crucial areas for Dallas to address than backup/future QB in the draft.
Trading Romo will get no value in return for a player of his caliber. Go out and get Flynn, Sanchez, Smith or Vick - feck no - he's far better. He could easily lift a team like the Chiefs or Cardinals into relevancy yet it still takes a collective effort to make the playoffs and win, and believe me if Romo were a free agent there would be a caravan of teams inquiring to sign him.
As Eric Mangini and Steve Young have stated, fans get too caught up in QB wins/losses and completely miss the crucial aspects of the game. Plenty of all-time greats were crucified for not winning the big games until they either did or retired without doing so. Marino never won out, Fouts and Tarkenton as well, and yet they were outstanding QBs and among the best of their eras, and they now get free passes by critics but it wasn't always the case. And you can bet your house if any had been a Dallas QB the criticism would have been through the roof.
Elway and Young were crucified for years until a team effort won championships and took the proverbial monkey off their back, and it took Elway fifteen years to win the big game (I was never one that criticized - he guided three average Broncos teams to SBs in the 80s, partly because of him but also partly because of an extremely weak AFC - they'd have been perennial one-and-done in the NFC playoffs). Peyton choked routinely in the postseason until one great January run, and how fortunate his opposing QB in the SB was Rex Grossman (!). It took Peyton nine years to win - Romo will be in his eighth year as a starter in 2013 - time is still on his side but it takes a team effort to win. Very few teams win championships, some haven't in decades, some never.
Romo is a current top ten QB and whether he leads Dallas to a championship or not will not diminish how good he actually is. He could win a Super Bowl and he'd still be hated and crucified - it's the nature of being the QB of the most hated club in the NFL, and arguably only behind the Yankees on the national hate scale. Aikman won three championships and the anti-Cowboy fans blasted about how crap he was, how he was lucky he had Emmitt and Irvin, his lack of game-winning drives (they were often winning), and how he was a statistically poor passer, completely missing the offensive scheme employed was run-run-pass, that Aikman was the most accurate passer of his era, and that he was capable of winning games and leading. Mike Martz stated that had he been Aikman's OC/QBC that he would have passed for 4000 yards every season in his offense nullifying the statistical criticism.
It should also be noted that Aikman had a superior collection of players to surround him, which doesn't belittle his greatness, but Romo has never had that save the 2007 season and arguably in 2009 - both years the club bombed out in the postseason but not because of Romo (he did torch Philly in 2009 before the Vikings pounded Dallas). The dropped FG hold in 2006 started the reputation and has been blown way out of proportion. One may also cite his last minute interception against the Giants in 2007 but completely ignoring the touchdown pass drop in the 3rd quarter of that game which would have put Dallas up 21-14, they eventually settled for a FG... final score, 21-17. So it would have been 21-21 on the final drive and there would have been no interception - Dallas was in position to attempt a winning FG in a tie-score.
These are things critics miss - they just latch onto the reputation and certain performances. Yes he's fecked up in big games but he's won games to put Dallas in those positions. I'd still have him over 20 other starters in the league, arguably as high as 26.
