Tony Romo isn’t worried about his surgically repaired collarbone heading into the 2016 season, and he doesn’t think it will be a problem going forward.
“I understand where I’m at in my career. I also understand that — I was hurt and banged up last year, but it’s a collarbone,” he said, via the team’s website. “I don’t think my collarbone is going to be anything that takes you out every year that you play football.”
It’s an interesting comment from a guy who has broken the same collarbone three times the past five years — twice in 2015. But truth be told, it is kind of a fluke-type injury for quarterbacks, seeing how it doesn’t happen all that often to the rest of the quarterback around the league.
The Dallas Cowboys quarterback is also convinced that the 2015 season was “an anomaly,” both for himself and his team.
“I guess what I’m trying to say, basically, is I feel like last year was an anomaly,” he said. “If we’re going to base it all on that, you have to come back and prove differently. But the fact that we went 4-12, whether I was playing or not — we have to do better. I think part of that is me being healthy, I think part of that is guys getting better and improving.”
Dallas should be much better offensively in 2016, provided Romo’s assessment of his long-term health holds true. When he’s healthy, the Cowboys typically score more than their opponents throughout the season.
Perhaps the biggest issue facing the ‘Boys this year, besides keeping Romo healthy, is how the defense will hold up. Both Randy Gregory and DeMarcus Lawrence have been suspended the first four games of the season, and rookie defensive tackle Maliek Collins is out 10-12 weeks with a broken foot. With problems up front, the back end of Dallas’ defense could suffer.
It’s going to be tough to employ the running game as Dallas would like if the Cowboys are always behind on the scoreboard due to a porous defense. This means Romo could end up throwing a lot more than the coaches would like, which puts a lot of pressure on the offensive line to keep him clean.
With all that in mind, Cowboys fans better hope Romo is correct in his assumption that last year was an anomaly.