The Dallas Cowboys are no longer Tony Romo's team. They are Dak Prescott's team, something that Romo himself acknowledged was a fact of life during an emotional press conference this week.
Romo didn't just slink quietly away, though -- he reportedly asked for a chance to win the job back before conceding to Prescott. So you can bet he won't be happy as a backup in 2017. That makes it entirely possible that Romo could play for another team, if the Cowboys are willing to trade him or release him.
But Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Thursday that's not a likely scenario and said it's "not a consideration" for Romo to be somewhere other than Dallas in 2017, per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
"It's not a goodbye. I think Tony has got five years left of really compete [sic] for a Super Bowl," Jones said. "I believe Tony will be the quarterback on a Super Bowl team. I believe that strongly.
"We're talking generic now, and I have no plans for him not to be part of the Dallas Cowboys. Not a consideration."
The logic behind Romo not being on Dallas is the cost involved. Romo is, as Jones recently joked, the most expensive backup in the NFL. Romo has a cap hit this year $20.8 million and would count more than $40 million in dead money against the cap if he was cut (obviously not a scenario as the Cowboys push for a Super Bowl).
Next year, Romo has a $24.7 million cap hit and will cost the Cowboys $19.6 million in dead money if he's no longer on the roster, regardless of whether he's cut or traded.
That's a lot of coin and the $5.1 million the Cowboys could save by Romo being elsewhere could go a long ways towards helping other parts of the roster.
But Jones believes it's "very tenable" to keep both guys on the roster for the foreseeable future.
"Let me say this -- it is very tenable to long term, look at this situation, very tenable, for me on a long-term basis," Jones said. "I don't want to go any further than that. But it's very tenable for me to see a long-term basis us being strong at quarterback. That's where we are with these two."
There's no telling what "long-term" actually means. It's impossible to fathom Romo being OK with staying on the roster as the backup for Dallas, regardless of how this season ends.
He's not getting any younger, and he likely sees opportunities at winning a Super Bowl slipping away. That win isn't the same thing if he's the backup, either.
But the Cowboys control his future employment because of that contract situation. The $5 million in cap space might not be worth it to Jones to watch Romo play somewhere else. And given how he's kicked the Romo contract down the road with extensions and restructuring in the past, it wouldn't be surprising to see the Cowboys simply wait and see what happens this year before making a final decision on Romo.
