The news not coming out of Irving the past few days is brilliant. Speculation on whether or not Romo will start because of a broken pinkie on his throwing hand has served it’s intended purpose: create a news frenzy that the local talking heads are filling the airwaves with and creating lead stories on all the major sports news networks.
While the Rams organization may be impervious to all this hype, it at least forces Jim Haslett and Rick Venturi to at least plan for QB both options: a mobile scrambling play maker, or a pocket passer care taker. That should give the Cowboys some edge early in the game.
I doubt that Romo plays, even though he may take a few snaps. As former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer detailed on ESPN, Romo has a circular motion that places torque on the ball, with a lot of control being imposed by the pinkie, as opposed to a raised motion which pulls the ball and relies very little on the pinkie.
Also worthy of consideration are how will the injury impact such fundamental activities such as hand offs and snaps? Romo developed a penchant for fumbling this season when he had both hands healthy. And what if a snap is errant or hand off gets botched and it compounds the injury to the pinkie. Instead of four weeks are we looking at IR?
This we know: right now Tony is out four weeks. The season is not a complete wash even if they lose three games and have a record of 4-5. Realistically Dallas could be 5-4 when Tony returns and the Cowboys travel to Washington. We need to win the divisional games more than we need to win against the West and South. But the spin on ‘whose your starter’ is off the chain.
