Since "Start Romo" Is Destined To Be A Thing, I Might As Well Get Out Ahead Of It

I'm about to do something incredibly dangerous here. I am going to give the media the undeserved benefit of the doubt. I am going to assume that the overwhelming majority of those whose sports opinions are "valued" aren't clamoring for a quarterback who lost his second game of the season in mid-December to be placed on the bench. I am going to choose to believe - mostly for the sake of my own sanity - that hot takes like this are the exception, and not the norm...

When you finish your paper two weeks before it's due...https://t.co/J5VxANEjjU

— Robbie Fulton (@misconduct_22) December 12, 2016

It’s time for the Dallas Cowboys to bench Dak Prescott https://t.co/cLi78TroSI

— For The Win (@ForTheWin) December 12, 2016

That said, a quick twitter search of "put Romo in" during the 4th quarter of a game that was still very much in doubt is proof positive that sentiment is growing with each and every Dak Prescott incompletion. That's why I have no choice but to get out ahead of it now before the cries for an 11-2 team to replace their starting quarterback mere weeks before the playof become deafening.

I have all the respect in the world for Tony Romo as a competitor, but if he has one fatal flaw it's that he crumbles under pressure. I agree that that narrative is drastically overstated by Cowboys' haters that like to treat a botched snap of a potential game winning field goal from a decade ago as if it is symbolic of a starting quarterback's entire career under center. Still, it is undeniable that Tony Romo has saved his worst performances for when the stakes were at their highest, and stakes don't get higher than heading into the postseason as the #1 seed in an exceedingly winnable conference.

Forget for a second how silly it seems for a team to compromise it's chemistry by making a change at the most important position on the field when the person that has been playing that position has been bringing up the rear in the MVP race. I am much more concerned with what a playoff loss could do to the psyche of a man who is a month removed from standing in front of a microphone as nothing more than a mouthpiece for what appeared to be a Westworld-esque shell of a human being. Simply put, you have never seen an evisceration of a quarterback quite like the evisceration you will see if a Romo-led Cowboys team produces anything less than a Super Bowl appearance. It won't even matter if it's his fault or not. Hell, it rarely ever has. Tony Romo has always been an easy target and there would be crosshairs on crosshairs on crosshairs if he was even slightly responsible for flipping an unbelievably successful regular season into an early playoff exit. I wish that amount of potential resentment and neverending criticism on no man.