Archer: Tony Romo balances safe vs. carefree

[Cotton]

Tony Romo balances safe vs. carefree
September, 11, 2014

By Todd Archer | ESPNDallas.com

IRVING, Texas -- Tony Romo's poor outing in the season opener has been dissected thousands of times over the last few days.

The Dallas Cowboys quarterback said he was not as mentally sharp as he needed to be, which played a part in his three-interception game against the San Francisco 49ers. Blame lack of preseason work, blame rust or blame it on just a bad game.

Whatever it is, the Cowboys can't have it happen again Sunday against the Tennessee Titans, but is there a tendency to have an over-correction where Romo would play it too safe?

Romo has had 11 games in which he has had three or more interceptions in his career. He has responded the following weeks with 15 touchdown passes and eight interceptions. But he has had only two 300-yard games in that mix.

"I think you have to go off what the defense is doing," Romo said. "Like I told you, it's about my thought process through it. I don't think you think about anything other than what's happening right in front of you on that specific play and what you know you're going to be able to do a little more versus certain defenses than others. I think you've got to forget about the week before, good, bad, whatever it is, and move on to the next game. That's part of playing this position at a high level."

Romo will be seeing a 3-4 defense for the second straight game, but there are a lot of differences in how Titans defensive coordinator Ray Horton runs his 3-4 scheme and how Vic Fangio operates his in San Francisco.

"These guys will move a lot more," Romo said. "They'll want to slant, move and do some things to create some movement up front I think. They'll still play a form of 3-4, but they're a little different."

 

[Cowboysrock55]

It wasn't that Romo was being carefree against the 49ers it was that he was throwing into tight coverage while other guys were running wide open. He saw the field like shit. It wasn't a matter of no one being open and Romo taking a chance. It was Romo just not seeing the open players and instead forcing the ball into double coverage.

Then later in the game he was just straight out missing receivers.

 

[Cotton]

Why Cowboys trust that Tony Romo is past his mental rust, ready for Titans

BRANDON GEORGE Staff Writer
bgeorge@dallasnews.com
Published: 10 September 2014 08:00 PM
Updated: 10 September 2014 11:24 PM

IRVING — Tony Romo worked “boom, boom, boom” and “blah, blah, blah” into his 15-minute dialogue with media members Wednesday.
This was three days after pick, pick, pick.

In explaining his three-interception game in the opening loss to San Francisco, the Cowboys quarterback acknowledged that he had some mental rust but was OK physically.

Romo said his surgically repaired back didn’t bother him against the 49ers and has held up just fine over the last three days since San Francisco sacked him three times and hit him four more times.
“Physically, I did a lot of things well,” Romo said. “Mentally, I felt like I wasn’t as sharp as I needed to be. That’s what stood out to me.”
Everyone feel enlightened?

Romo threw interceptions on three consecutive first-half possessions Sunday — all on first-down passes — as the Cowboys fell behind San Francisco 28-3 at halftime. Romo was sharper in the second half, finishing the game 23 for 37 passing for 281 yards.

Romo was limited in the offseason and never practiced more than two consecutive days throughout training camp as the Cowboys monitored his back following December surgery to repair a herniated disk. He played in just two preseason games.

Romo imitated that because of his reduced repetitions in the preseason his mental checklist wasn’t on point for the opener.

“The stuff that obviously gets affected is your checklist, and mental for me is probably the most important thing because there are multiple things that you need to go through before you ever take a snap,” Romo said. “Situationally, when you’re in it, you need to be boom, boom, boom [when] you go through it and after the snap. Without them, you’re just playing. And if you’re just playing over the course of 30 throws you’re going to have some you don’t necessarily feel comfortable with. Each one needs to be the most important throw of the game, and you need to have that mental thought process among some other things that give you the advantages.

“What you find is these were more mental mistakes for me. I started to kind of get into it in the second half, sharper with the things that you really need to be. You can’t be on 90 percent of the time with the mental checklist that you have to go through as a quarterback. It’s got to be 100 percent of the time, and I just needed to do that sooner than the second half.”

Romo has now moved onto his preparation for the Cowboys’ Week 2 game at Tennessee.

He’s making his mental checklist and checking it twice.

“Maybe what I found is I needed to get that part of it sharper and that comes with playing, and I needed that,” Romo said. “I’m disappointed it obviously took a game to get to that point, but it’ll be different going forward.”

The challenge now for Romo is forgetting about Sunday’s woeful start and not playing it too safe against a Titans team coming off of a double-digit road win at Kansas City.

“It’s never a fun week. It’s never good. All quarterbacks go through it,” Romo said. “You never want to have games where you throw multiple interceptions. But what makes the best quarterbacks is how they respond to it. So you got to come back and you got to play your best football for the next, for the rest of the season, multiple weeks, blah, blah, blah.”
Romo didn’t have a three-interception game last season.

Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones said Wednesday he’s confident Romo will have a “good comeback” against the Titans.
“He plays well after that type of outing,” Jones said. “He’s been pretty good about coming back off of that.”

Romo has thrown at least three interceptions in a game 10 times. The Cowboys have gone 5-5 in the next game.
“The NFL is a great week-to-week thing,” Romo said. “It’s who you are until you change it.

“You’ve got to forget about the week before, good, bad, whatever it is, and move on to the next game. That’s part of playing this position at a high level.”

 

[dallen]

It wasn't that Romo was being carefree against the 49ers it was that he was throwing into tight coverage while other guys were running wide open. He saw the field like shit. It wasn't a matter of no one being open and Romo taking a chance. It was Romo just not seeing the open players and instead forcing the ball into double coverage.

Then later in the game he was just straight out missing receivers.

Exactly. He was just making the wrong calls the entire game. He wasn't gambling. He was just f-ing up

 

[BipolarFuk]

He looked like a guy playing his first game of Madden.

 

[Cotton]

Careless fits better than carefree.

 

[L.T. Fan]

Careless fits better than carefree.

That's a fact.

 

[ravidubey]

Romo was in some kind of bizarre fugue state. I felt terrible for guys like Dwayne Harris and Terrance Williams who've elevated their games and were rewarded for breaking wide open with forced passes to receivers who were double and triple covered. Martin played very well in his first game only to have his effort wasted.

It's amazing how much one guy can fuck things up and how easy it is to do.

 

[DLK150]

Yeah, that was one of his worst games ever, even worse than the games were he actually committed more turnovers but at least kept us in the game until the end. Maybe we're in it if those picks are spread out but three in a row? With an "Eh" defense unable to pick up the slack, you're likely never going to regain any real momentum.

I'm dubious that he is past the "mental rust". The kind of rust on display last Sunday isn't going to be taken care of with a shot of WD40. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[Clay_Allison]

Romo won't probably be great against Tenn, but I've seen Romo go into a Brad Johnson shell and get conservative as hell a lot of the time in recent (last two) years. I think we'll see a lot less of him trying to take over the offense and a lot of checkdown Romo.

 

[ravidubey]

Romo was very rusty Sunday, that much was clear. His mistakes in the first half buried the team though he steadily improved to have a much better second half. He needs to play through the rust and first week soreness, but I expect steady improvement.

It's funny how Tony Romo's turnovers always make headlines. He might not have three total interceptions in the next four games, but that won't matter to public perception. Then he'll have one vs Seattle on Fox's national game and the whole country will go apeshit again.

 

[Cotton]

As rusty as he was, it won't matter if he can't get out of this playing scared act he has been doing the last year or so. He is feeling ghost pressure and it will be the downfall of this offense this year if he continues it.