WHY TONY ROMO BELONGS IN THE HOF, PART 2

So, did you review the numbers?  Did you take a stab at which QB's numbers were Romo's.  It surprised me when I started looking this over....

W	L	CMP	ATT	CMP%	Td	Td%	Int	Int%	Y/A	AY/A	Y/C	Y/G	Rat
147	93	4967	8358	59.4	420	5	252	3	7.3	7	12	253.6	86.4
186	122	6300	10169	62	508	5	336	3.3	7.1	6.6	11.4	237.9	86
78	49	2829	4335	65.3	248	5.7	117	2.7	7.9	7.8	12.1	219.1	97.1
123	60	3804	5932	64.1	301	5.1	160	2.7	7.9	7.7	12.3	253	94.1
98	62	3170	5374	59	234	4.4	117	2.2	6.9	6.8	11.8	223.2	85.6
90	45	3034	4657	65.1	397	6.4	72	1.5	7.9	8.5	12.1	259.3	104.1
183	52	5244	8224	63.8	456	5.5	152	1.8	7.5	7.8	11.7	259.8	97.2

Here they are in order top to bottom:

1) Dan Marino
2) Brett Favre
3) Tony Romo
4) Ben Roethlisberger
5) Donovan McNabb
6) Aaron Rodgers
7) Tom Brady

Mostly I wanted to compare him to his contemporaries, but the biggest gripe on Romo was that he didn't win anything.  That's where Marino comes in.

So the first row is Dan Marino.  Now, without a doubt, not only was he a prolific passer, I believe his passing offense actually changed football forever.   His RBs included names like Andra Franklin, Tony Nathan, Sammie Smith, Mark Higgs to name a few.  Any of those ring a bell?  So because the Dolphins rarely had a solid RB to rely on, Marino, Mark "Super" Duper and Mark Clayton, took to the skies in a way that perhaps only Dan Fouts had done before him.  When Marino took the reins in 1983, the Dolphins were 19th in passing yards.  By 1984 they were first, topping 5,000 passing yards in a season, the first and only franchise to ever surpass that total.  They would remain in the top five in passing yards throughout his tenure of his twelve winning seasons and even some of his subpar seasons.  He did win league MVP once, he was a nine-time Pro Bowl selection, three times All-Pro (starter).  But, zero Super Bowl wins and one appearance.

The second row is Brett Favre.  Favre slung the rock with reckless abandon, which his vast number of attempts and completions attest, as well as his 3.3% interception percentage, higher than the others listed.    Even so, he only averaged 238 yards per game.  However, he does have longevity to his name, playing for twenty seasons, eighteen as a starter.  His passer rating is also the lowest among these greats, again probably due to the largest number of attempts and greater number of interceptions. However, his completion percentage is incredibly high considering those same numbers.  He also had thirty-five fourth quarter comebacks and forty-five game-winning drives.  Three-time MVP, three-time All-Pro, eleven Pro Bowl selections and one Super Bowl Championship.










Third on the row is Tony Romo.  In his thirteen NFL seasons, just eleven as a starter,  he attempted the least amount of passes of all his counterparts. But in seasons where he was healthy (all but two), the Cowboys never had a losing record.  Worst was his full season of 8-8.  His worst partial season was 2010 at age 30 where he went 1-5 and was injured in Week 7.  He was also completing his second highest number of passes at the time 69.5% and was averaging 267 passing yards per contest.  Jon Kitna and then Stephen McGee would finish the season up under center respectively.  The Dallas defense was 31st in points against, second worst in all the league and they would finish 6-10.  More importantly perhaps, Romo's yards-per-attempt and average-yard-per-attempt are the highest of any QB on this list.  He's not tossing screens while compiling these numbers.  He's throwing downfield regularly.  We could also argue that career longevity in the NFL is decreasing.  According to an SI article in 1989, the average NFL career at that time was 4.05 years.  Today, it's 3.3. years.  The game has become increasingly dangerous.


The reason Ben Roethlisberger is on this list, besides the fact I'm a born and bred Steelers fan, is he's already won two Super Bowl rings, arguably manufacturing one of the greatest last

minute drives in Super Bowl history to win versus Arizona.  He is the fourth row down and his numbers are actually closest to Romo's in terms of accuracy and average yards on throws.  His win-loss percentage is much better as well.  And let's add one other fact -- few QBs are as hard to plan for as Big Ben.  His ability to improvise plays has made him a terror for defensive coordinators.  He's a five time pro bowler as well.  He's not necessarily a first ballot Hall of Famer, and he may find some opposition. But he's definitely a contemporary of the passing age in which Romo played.










The fifth row is Philadelphia Eagle's great Donovan McNabb, who was a key figure for a number of reasons.  He was a skilled and nifty quarterback, who came into the league known as much for his scrambling ability as his arm.  Three things that really hold McNabb back from easy Hall consideration: his lifetime completion percentage under sixty percent.  Sans Dan Marino, this has been a benchmark for QBs headed to the hall in the last decade or so.  Elway is the other exception, and actually has a lower passer rating too;  Second, his yards per attempt.  One can argue easily that this had a lot more to do with Andy Reid's West Coast offense, and his most talented cohort, running back Brian Westbrook.  Westbrook took a lot of short middle screens and flat passes which helped pad McNabb's stats.  However, this is no fault of McNabb's, and if their is a case for McNabb to be a Hall-of-Famer, it sits with John Elway. McNabb has even more rushing yards, and only three less rushing touchdowns than John Elway.  Even though I am not a fan of passer rating, his is much  better than Elway's, and his 2.2 interception rate is actually among the lowest.  So we can take number two off the table.  However, the third knock against McNabb is the impact he had for his team.  For all his years, he had just seventeen comeback wins and twenty-five game winning drives, well below the numbers of even Romo, who in his short tenure, engineered twenty-five and thirty respectively.

The sixth row is Aaron Rodgers, and looking at his numbers so far, it becomes very clear why people rave about him.  He is an easy first-ballot Hall-of-Famer, especially when you consider the era, the talent he's had around him (from incredible to average at times), and his ultra high completion rate, low turnovers and average yards per attempt. Rodgers throws the ball downfield a lot and yet is intercepted just 1.5 percent of the time.  I don't know if that's an anomaly that he can sustain throughout the rest of his career, but he's no doubt the most accurate thrower ever.



And the last, and perhaps the greatest once you consider his longevity, is Tom Brady.  Brady needs three wins to surpass Brett Favre as the winningest QB of all time, and yes, I used the word winningest.  Should Brady play a couple of more seasons, he could also pass Favre for most touchdowns.  Regardless, we all know that Brady has been the quarterback who has succeeded with the least natural talent around him, at least, according to most analysts' views, including mine.  The system that Bill Belichick has created in New England may be equally responsible, but again, it has allowed Tom Brady to become the starting quarterback to wear five Super Bowl rings.

These are Tony Romo's contemporaries, and a few of the quarterbacks before him to which he compares well, except for his lack of longevity.  But numbers wise, he pretty much deserves a vote for the Hall.  Don't you think?