Jan. 10, 2010

Romo has coming-out party with first playoff victory

By Pete Prisco | CBSSports.com Senior Writer
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ARLINGTON, Texas -- Those dates out on the town with the jet-set crowd won't be a big deal anymore. Jetting off to Cabo or Vegas on the bye week won't set off any fan craziness now, but might instead lead to offers to buy him poolside daiquiris.

Romo on labels: 'It's all part of the process. Everybody goes through it until they win.' (AP)

When you're the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, following Hall of Fame passers like Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman, the scrutiny is second to none. It's magnified even more when your name is in the tabloids, linked to starlets who can sing (or not).

America's team means your America's quarterback and that brings scrutiny like America's president -- or, worse, the previous one who sat in the suite of Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones Saturday night. When you don't win in the playoffs, the pressure mounts, the criticism comes at you worse than any speed rusher and you know a little how it feels to be George W. Bush.

They pick and pick and pick. They say you can't win the big game. They say you turn it over too much. They say you can't do the right thing at the right time.

But by cutting up the Philadelphia Eagles Saturday night in the Dallas' 34-14 victory at Cowboys Stadium, Romo basically took all that stuff and told those critics to stick it into the A-gap.

He was 17 of 27 for 203 yards and two touchdowns in the first half as the Cowboys rolled to a 27-7 lead and scored on all five second-quarter possessions. He finished 23 of 35 for 244 yards as the offense shut it down in the second half. Romo didn't turn the ball over, which was key.

Can't win the big game? No matter how a player downplays that talk, it has to sting, but Romo didn't seem fazed by it after the game.

"It's just a label," Romo said. "It's all part of the process. Everybody goes through it until they win. If you didn't go through it, you'd probably have a great team when you came into the league and be part of something special."

The Cowboys haven't been great since the mid-1990s. They hadn't even won a playoff game before Saturday night since 1996. They will advance to the NFC Divisional Round next week where they will face the Minnesota Vikings.

The 13-year dry spell is over. How long has it been since they won in the postseason?

The last time Dallas won a playoff game, Jerry Jones had his real face, God could still watch Cowboys games through the hole in the roof of their stadium and the only way Romo could have had a Hollywood beauty was if he tacked her poster to his wall.

That instability since that last playoff victory has been mainly at two spots: Quarterback and coach. Cowboys coach Wade Phillips, who won his first postseason game by beating the Eagles, is the fourth Dallas coach since that playoff victory. It's even worse when you count quarterbacks. Romo is the 10th since Troy Aikman retired in 2000. Before Romo, Aikman was the last quarterback before to win a playoff game.

In between, the Cowboys tried stiffs like Quincy Carter, Chad Hutchinson, Clint Stoerner and Anthony Wright. And also tried on-their-last-legs veterans like Vinny Testaverde, Randall Cunningham and Drew Bledsoe.

Not until Romo took over in 2006 have the Cowboys had stability at the position. When he did take over, many thought he was the next Hutchinson or Stoerner, just a body the Cowboys were trying to prop up as their starting quarterback.

As it has turned out, he's been much more than that. This season, Romo threw for 4,483 yards and 26 touchdown passes. He was white hot down the stretch, throwing nine touchdown passes and two interceptions in his final five games.

None of that would have mattered if he lost to the Eagles. Romo lost two previous playoff games, the first coming in Seattle in 2006 when he mishandled a snap on the game-winning field goal attempt. Then the Cowboys lost at home as the top seed in 2007 to the eventual Super Bowl champion New York Giants.

Those games led to the questions about Romo. Dating Carrie Underwood and Jessica Simpson and his jaunts to Cabo and Vegas only intensified the heat. Cowboys tight end Jason Witten, who is Romo's closest friend on the team, has watched it all first hand.

"To play at such at a high level and take the criticism he has would be tough," Witten said. "Not too many players could do that in this league. He just put two feet in front of him and kept moving forward. He took a lot of heat and I'm so proud not to for him to win it, but the way he's playing and creating so much and playing turnover-free football. He won't take credit, but that's him."

Romo hit nine different receivers against the Eagles -- and that's is a sign of his maturity. In the past, he might have forced the ball to his top receiver, which was Terrell Owens sometimes or even Witten. But now he scans the field and goes to the open man. He threw a touchdown pass to Miles Austin, his leading receiver, and then threw another to third-team tight end John Phillips.

"We go as he goes," Witten said of Romo. "As a friend, you couldn't be happier for him. As a player, it's so good to see."

If they're to beat the Vikings again -- as Dallas did in its last playoff victory in '96 -- Romo will be the key. If he plays well, they win. If he doesn't, they don't.

It's that simple. The playoffs are about quarterback play, and he started with a big game. Will it stop the critics? Is the can't-win-a-big-game label gone?

I asked Romo if it was gone just before he exited his post-game press conference.

He smiled.

"They'll be some other label next week," Romo said.

Maybe so, but Romo is a playoff winner. That's one label you can't take from him now, and one you can bet he's happy to have.