Backup quarterback Brandon Weeden doesn’t want to play a single snap for the Dallas Cowboys this year. He’d much rather watch Tony Romo and the starting offense roll through the competition.
“God forbid I am forced to play,” he said, via Rainer Sabin of The Dallas Morning News.
This isn’t the kind of talk we’re used to hearing from professional athletes. Most players, no matter where they reside on the depth chart, are much closer to DeSean Jackson (who recently declared that neither Darrelle Revis nor Richard Sherman could stop him) than they are to where Weeden’s coming from.
Weeden isn’t saying he wants to be a clipboard-holder forever, though. He just appreciates what the Cowboys have going for them with starting quarterback Tony Romo.
“I wouldn’t want to be a backup my whole life,” Weeden said, per Sabin. “But if I am going to be a backup, what’s a better situation to be in than with these guys and be behind him?”
The Cowboys feature the league’s most impressive offensive line, a top-five quarterback in Romo, a top-three receiver in Dez Bryant and an impressive array of playmakers that can do just about anything conceivable offensively.
Weeden isn’t foolish enough to think he can do for the Cowboys what Romo can do, and it’s refreshing that he is secure enough in himself to admit as much.
The Cowboys have what it takes to get to, and win, Super Bowl 50—but only if Romo is the one behind center. Perhaps one day in the future, when it’s time for Romo to hang up the cleats for good, Weeden will have developed into the kind of quarterback that could follow successfully in Romo’s footsteps.
But that time isn’t now.
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