Former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman recently talked about how the team is missing Tony Romo at the QB spot this current season. Aikman, a Super Bowl winner with Dallas several times, is currently an analyst with Fox for their NFL games and happened to be covering the Cowboys matchup with the Denver Broncos. In that game, Dallas found themselves overwhelmed by the Denver defense and unable to move the ball very well. As the offense struggled, Aikman contended that was due to the team’s new look passing game that is being led by sophomore star Dak Prescott.
As Dallas News reported, Troy Aikman said during the NFL matchup that the Cowboys’ passing game has “lost out on some of the big plays they used to get when Romo was quarterbacking.” Tony Romo has been missing for at least a season now. Romo was the hot topic throughout most of the previous NFL season, as he was sidelined early on and then watched Dak Prescott emerge into the new star quarterback for the team. Prescott, along with Ezekiel Elliott, ended up leading the Cowboys to the top record in the NFC, but they eventually lost in the NFC Playoffs to a Green Bay Packers team with more experience.
Fast forward to the start of the latest season and the Cowboys are now 1-1 after defeating a struggling New York Giants team and then struggling themselves against Denver. The Broncos took a 42-17 win at home thanks to their defense holding Elliott and the rushing attack at bay. Prescott was able to finish with a 30-for-50 passing performance that resulted in 238 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions. It has Cowboys fans wondering if the team’s performance last season was a fluke. Some believe it was two rookies defying expectations and now they’re in that proverbial “sophomore slump.”
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— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) September 18, 2017
While Troy Aikman mentioned the missing component of Dallas’ passing game, he made it a point to clarify he wasn’t saying anything bad as far as their current quarterback goes.
“But that’s the one area that we’ve seen missing since Dak took over. That’s not intended to be a criticism whatsoever. I’m a huge fan of Dak’s, I think he’s a terrific player, he’s a great leader.”
In his rookie season, Dak Prescott competed in all 16 games for the season. He threw 311-for-459 passes for 3,667 yards and 23 touchdowns. A lot of that first-year success came from the early confidence he received as a rookie as well as the mentoring he received from the sidelines via Tony Romo. For argument’s sake, it took Romo until his second full season (2007) to surpass 4,000 yards. He surpassed Prescott’s first-year numbers five times during his career though, which is probably due to those “big plays” that Troy Aikman believes Romo gave the Cowboys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiBJrqQw1MM
When he appeared on 96.7-FM The Ticket with “The Musers” this past Thursday, Aikman elaborated upon his initial statement about the team missing Romo’s big plays.
“Some of that is because of [Tony] Romo’s willingness to take shots down the field or give his guys opportunities and that was missing last year. Like I said, you can always nitpick but what they lost in not getting big plays last year, they made up in not turning the ball over with some of the regularity that maybe they had in the past.”
While there may be some Dallas Cowboys who still want Tony Romo to suit up and take over at quarterback, the former Pro Bowler seems to have found his new calling, literally. There have been rave reviews so far, as Romo has found the same line of work as Troy Aikman. Numerous websites have reported on Romo’s amazing ability to predict the plays that will be run by teams before they run them.
As far as Dak Prescott goes, there are still 14 games left in this latest season to show he’s not in a slump and capable of still handling the pressure. Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys will get a chance at some early season redemption this weekend when they take on the Arizona Cardinals. Tony Romo will be miles away calling big plays for the Bengals vs. Packers game.
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