He May Not Be a Helluva Quarterback but…

I have a deep, dark, dirty, festering secret. Like the lure of heroin to those in chronic pain, my willpower is failing me. I can’t help it. It’s like a tractor beam and I have been sucked in. I’m struggling, however pointlessly, against it. But then I saw this video and, well, I felt my muscles go limp. Whether I just gave in because I was tired of fighting it or I actually willingly decided to let myself be pulled away, I’ll never know.

I may have typed one or two (or half dozen) negative things about Tony Romo in the past few years. A week ago, after his interceptions lead directly to the Cowboys losing to the New York Giants, I wished a cavalcade of painful, puss-filled diseases to strike him simultaneously. I really couldn’t even think or type or speak about the Cowboys for a few days after last Sunday night’s game. What’s funny is that I made a shorthand list of things I wanted to write about once the searing pain of the loss became just a dull throb. Then I crossed them off for each time I heard one of the points being made for the 10th time by a local writer, sports talk guy or blog commenter. The list:

1. Flozell Adams – roundhouse kicked Justin Tuck?
2. Tony Romo – fuck him
3. Defense – fuck them
4. Terrance Newman – you suck at football
5. Wade – nevermind about them demoting him to D. Coordinator. He’s now gunning for Assistant Manager of Section 302 concessions
6. DeMarcus Ware – where? (minus 1 for pun)
7. Jay Ratliff – GOOD JOB
8. Two chances at catching a touchdown – Terrance Newman, you suck at everything
9. If Flozell Adams can roundhouse kick someone, I expect crane kicks from Ware unless he remember how to sack someone


But there’s no reason to dwell on the mess that was the game against the Giants. Unless the Cowboys lose tonight against the Panthers, then I am going to burn down the new stadium myself. What I was desperately searching for all week and through this weekend was a reason to believe again. Well, it was more like I needed a reason not to hate my own team and specifically my quarterback. I searched and searched. And then I found that video. And dammit, I like the dude. I’m not really convinced he will ever win a playoff game. But there’s just something about him that makes me unable to outright hate him. And trust me, every fiber in my being is screaming to hate him.

I’ve watched the video over and over again (partly just to figure out if McGee really is as dumb as he seems or if it is just that he’s a rookie) and I laugh more each time. Comparing the silly pirate cannons in Tampa Bay to the gunfire you grew up dodging on the mean streets of Burlington, Wisconsin? Dammit, I can’t hate you. Trying to get a laugh, a smile or a pulse out of Jason Garrett? Awesome. Alternately, Jason Garrett apparently missed his calling as a palace guard. But what really sold me on this video is Tony Romo’s liberal and almost Tourrette’s-like use of the phrase “helluva job!” to encourage his teammates.

Maybe this is just a frenzied forage around the cold, barren soils of Cowboys football in a desperate attempt to find something redeeming about the leader of the team. Maybe I just need to find something to get my hopes up for tonight’s game. Maybe I’m doing that thing where once a certain number of people agree on something and jump on the pile (Ed Hardy sucks, Saturday Night Live isn’t funny, Apple sucks, “I want to throw this can away, where’s your recycling?”) and so I have to try to be ahead of the curve by believing the opposite to be true. So in conclusion, look for me and my football gang to be watching the game tonight with a renewed sense of Cowboys pride. Alternately, look for me in the crowd. I’ll be the one wearing a t-shirt with a bedazzled tiger on it, doing my impressions of the Church Lady during commercials and texting “Tony Romo rulez” on my iPhone to everyone I know while actively NOT recycling. Down is up, black is white, cold is hot and, most shocking of all, I don’t hate Tony Romo like I thought I did.