There must be something special in the water at the new Dallas Cowboys team facilities. One day after it was reported by numerous NFL insiders that Tony Romo would likely miss at least the first half of the 2016 NFL season, head coach Jason Garrett isn’t ruling the quarterback out for Week 1.
“He just going to start getting into rehab and part of his rehab is he’s going to be wearing a back brace for now,” Garrett said Sunday morning, per David Moore of SportsDay. “So you’ll see him around wearing that.
“Again we’ll take his situation day by day like we do with every guy on our team and every injury that we have. He’ll do the things that he’s capable of doing and won’t do the things he’s not capable of doing and hopefully he’ll progress every day.”
Romo has a broken bone in his back and is reportedly expected to miss between six and 10 weeks of action. Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reported the injury could linger and that he might need epidural injections in order to play.
It’s the opinion of this scribe that Romo should be considering retirement more than rushing back onto the field at this point (read more on that here).
But Garrett had said on Saturday that he is confident about Romo returning to action this year. And based on his comments Sunday, it sounds like he’s expecting his 36-year-old injury-prone veteran back onto the field sooner, rather than later.
Meanwhile, rookie Dak Prescott will be practicing with the ones in preparation to potentially start the season behind center for Dallas in Romo’s stead.
Given his outstanding preseason work, it appears the Cowboys are in better hands this year than they were in 2015, when they went 1-11 in the 12 games Romo missed with his collarbone injuries.
Still, if he’s healthy, Romo is the undisputed leader of Dallas’ offense, and it’s clear the coaches want him back as soon as he’s able.
Time will tell if that’s going to work out well or if Romo, who has been seriously injured in each of the past four seasons, should have quit while he was still ahead.