Cowboys: Romo Saves Season – But For Now

“Romo made a difference; he made a difference”, Mincey said, per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

This, from the owner, comes during the same time when Dallas DE Jeremy Mincey called Romo “the savior of [the] season”. Be it finding the open receiver, getting the offense into the right play pre-snap, or extending the play with his creativeness, this team now and always has, goes as Romo goes.

Derrick Shelby also had himself a good game with a key fourth quarter sack, while as a group, they managed to hold the Cowboys run game until the end of the game.

“To give you an idea, if you ever want to make a picture of his positive competitive mentality, do it when he came back off a shoulder that had six fractures”, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said. “OK? Six. OK!” But Tannehill didn’t see middle linebacker Rolando McClain, who reached up and intercepted the pass, trotting in for a 12-yard touchdown and a 7-0 Dallas lead. He’s a savvy veteran. “He brings great energy”. But outside of that the Dolphins were shut down in the passing game.

Many of the Cowboys’ offensive struggles over the last two months were directly linked to Romo’s absence, who was sidelined since Week 2 with a broken collarbone. Witten broke Bob Lilly’s franchise record for consecutive games played with his 197th. Just once did he do a straight dropback from under center.

Romo connected with wide receiver Terrence Williams in the second quarter for his first touchdown pass (31 yards).

Coming into this game, the Cowboys had failed to score a touchdown in three of the previous five games. It’s probably their best chance of the season, as only a loss to the AFC’s New England Patriots back in October looms as a game in which Dallas didn’t appear worthy of even being on the same field – thank you Brandon Weeden.

Washington enjoyed similar ground gains against the Saints in Week 10 but were stymied by Carolina on Sunday. McFadden went from averaging 3.2 yards per attempt to 4.4 yards per carry for the game because of those 12 carries.

“There’s gusting winds, we’ve got rain, we’ve got maybe the best defensive line we’ll go up against, their defense is changing coverages, [Ndamukong] Suh moves after not moving around all year … but you look at it and say, ‘That’s the way it’s supposed to be”. Pulling it off likely see them earning a spot in the playoffs with a shot to be a dark horse contender to run the table. Jarvis Landry elected not to catch a kickoff in the end zone, instead letting it bounce out of the end zone and to the four-yard line, setting up the offense in bad field position late in the game. It really is going to come down to fundamentals. “I feel like when it happened again on Sunday, it kind of felt like it was going to go down that same path, but our team fought back out of it, we never gave up”. He threw an inexcusable interception in the red zone when pressured with a blitz in the first quarter.

The Dolphins entered the game second-to-last in rushing defense at 135.6 yards allowed per game.

Before that game, then-head coach Bill Parcells approached Romo and told him that the game was in his hands, that Parcells would be relying heavily on his new quarterback.

“We laughed pretty good and came out the next day and had a pretty good day”, Rivera said. “You can’t let a guy with his ability get comfortable back there”.