Thankfully, looking ahead to training camp, the Dallas Cowboys have a starting quarterback, and he has shown the capacity to be very good. Whether or not you like Tony Romo, one can’t deny that his being firmly under center is a lot more comforting than the musical chairs exhibition that was the early 2000s.
Obviously, there’s not much in the way of discussing Romo’s job security at the end of an offseason directly geared towards giving him the best chance to win.
The questions surrounding Romo are far off at this point, unanswerable until a few games into the season, and possibly more; namely, what will Romo’s role look like in an offense that will rely much more heavily on the rush? Will he be able to balance his penchant for effective gun-slinging with his role as a Roethlisberger-of-2005-esque bus driver? Will he find a rapport with Roy Williams?
And, of course, will he and Jessica, against all odds, make it in this work-a-day world? (I had to say it.)
The much less bandied about and much more obvious story of the off-season thus seen has been that of the backup position, one that sat as an undetected tumor of sorts for the 2008 squad.
Dallas probably would have made the playoffs were it not for an ugly stretch in the middle of the season last year, the three repression-worthy games in the absence of a sore-pinkied Romo.
Perhaps I misspoke. It was not ugly. It was unwatchable.
Enter Brad Johnson; enter Brooks Bollinger; exit playoff hopes.
So Dallas ditched Johnson and the UFL-bound Bollinger and went out and got Jon Kitna, a still-effective quarterback with a slightly better than .500 career record and a litany of praise from former teammates for his abilities as a leader. And make no mistake, he is still effective; his numbers last year speak more to the overall ineptitude of the Detroit Lions than they do Kitna himself.
Dallas-native Matthew Stafford may soon find this out the hard way.
If that was not enough, the team drafted Texas A&M product Stephen McGee in the fourth round. This was a controversial pick, as McGee had an injury-plagued career in College Station that (predictably) yielded unimpressive numbers.
Obviously, Dallas must have seen something in the former-Aggie; just what that was, it will be interesting to find out (or try to find out, at least) come training camp in two weeks in San Antonio.
