Jerry Jones wants you to know: Hey, there’s still a chance Tony Romo might play quarterback for the Cowboys in Sunday’s do-or-cry NFC East duel with the Eagles, and if not, wasn’t it awfully clever to sign a $10 million backup for this very predicament?
First, the sounds of desperate optimism from Jones on 105.3 The Fan Dallas-Fort Worth concerning Romo, who has a herniated disk in his back that will force him to miss the rest of the season and eventually will require surgery, according to an ESPN report. Romo reportedly has received an epidural injection to help reduce inflammation.
“He is going through treatment beginning [Monday] and if that treatment has positive implications that it certainly has a chance to have, then he should not be ruled out in any way for this game,” Jones said on the radio Tuesday morning.
Got all that?
“If you know Tony, you can’t imagine what a competitor he is, and he doesn’t want to miss a snap,” Jones said. “He was very disappointed, particularly disappointed for his team, repeated over and over again, ‘Jerry, I can’t tell you how badly I feel relative to you and relative to my teammates.’”
Romo’s absence puts the Cowboys’ division title hopes in the right hand of the 31-year-old Kyle Orton, signed to a three-year, $10.5 million contract before the 2012 season.
“We paid a lot of money, several years ago, for just this very circumstance,” said the Cowboys GM, a.k.a Jones. “Kyle Orton has been here and he knows this system frankly as well as Romo does. And has practiced it. He just doesn’t have the game time that he would have had as the starter, and he doesn’t get the reps.”
Orton is perhaps best known as the sap who lost his job to Tim Tebow, the blundering sacrificial lamb (sorry) who was benched and run out of Denver, circa 2011. Orton had a 58.7 percent completion rate, eight touchdowns and seven interceptions when he was pulled from a Week 5 start with the Broncos en route to a 1-4 record and Tebowmania.
But Orton, who once succeeded Drew Brees at Purdue, owns the ledger of a perfectly average, if nondescript, NFL quarterback . He has a 35-34 record as a starter, including a 10-5 mark with a vintage Bears defense as a rookie in 2005 (his Sunday opponent, Nick Foles, is 8-7 lifetime). Orton completes approximately 58 percent of his passes and is picked off on less than 3 percent.
And the final dash to the NFC playoffs is rife with teams that have made do with their second-stringers. Josh McCown and Matt Flynn kept the Bears and Packers, respectively, afloat going into a winner-take-NFC North showdown Sunday. Foles has been brilliant after taking the reins from Opening Day Eagles starter Michael Vick.
Jerry Jones’ $10 million insurance policy gets his chance to join the ranks Sunday. Unless, of course, Romo responds to treatment.
With AP