Tony Romo's Public Statement Made Me Want To Start Drinking At Noon On A Wednesday

Romo's press conference.... "that's my quarterback □" pic.twitter.com/Ye4cl1wpbY

— Blow The Whistle (@BTWOnline) November 16, 2016

I really, really wish that headline was meant in a "I want to crack open a beer and raise it up high in honor of a man who is handling adversity about as well as a competitive, professional athlete can" sort of way. Unfortunately that speech made me want to sit alone in a dark room guzzling warm whiskey from the bottle while accepting that the quickest path to failure is trying. Holy shit Tony. Maybe next time give the viewing public a little heads up before you delve into the most depressing public appearance ever made by someone that wasn't just diagnosed with a terminal disease? You don't just casually turn on 'Marley And Me' if you don't have the urge to get emotional, so I would prefer to know beforehand if I'm going to subject myself to an afternoon full of second hand dejection by listening to a quarterback talk about the bleakness of his immediate future. 

You know how I know how painful it was for Romo to express his true feelings here? Half the damn statement was given from a second person point of you. It was a bunch "you this" and "you that" like it was a director explaining the plot of some fateful biographical film to the actors he was recruiting to play in it instead of a shell of man accepting the slow death of his prime. There were times throughout that you couldn't even tell he talking about his own career, and I think that's because his personal story has become so disheartening that he was actively trying to separate himself from it. I know it's been fun to rag on him for being an overly fragile player that's prone to disastrous 4th quarter interceptions, but the saddest part of all of this is that I instantly feel uncomfortable making Tony Romo jokes. It almost feels like that would be considered speaking ill of the deceased, because the man up there on that podium was as close to dead inside as someone with a pulse can possibly be. 

On the flip side, if there was anything that could get him his starting job back it's this video, because Dak Prescott might legitimately quit football just so he never has to go through what Tony Romo just went through in front of that microphone.