In his early days as a broadcaster, Tony Romo became famous for predicting plays before they happened. While that aspect of his gameday repertoire has been toned down, he's making at least one more in the name of assessing his former employers' championship chances.
Romo has ensured that the Dallas Cowboys will have some form of representation at Super Bowl LVIII despite the franchise being stuck on five Vince Lombardi Trophies for nearly three full decades. The former Pokes passer is set to call his third Big Game for CBS alongside Jim Nantz when the Kansas City Chiefs do battle with the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday (5:30 p.m. CT, CBS).
Dallas is stuck watching the Super Bowl for the 28th consecutive season and the 2024 postseason yielded one of the most egregious misfires yet: the Cowboys went 12-5 in the regular season but endured a 48-32 shellacking at the hands of the seventh-seeded Green Bay Packers in the opening round of the NFC playoffs. Romo believes that the team's shortcomings lie in the mental side of the game, hinting that they can take inspiration from one of Sunday's participants.
“The Cowboys are so close,’’ Romo remarked, per David Moore of the Dallas Morning News. "There is a mental side that goes into this: a moment ago I just got done talking about (49ers quarterback) Brock Purdy. Two of his biggest challenges for this game will be the nerves of the Super Bowl, and the second will be the aura and mystique of Patrick Mahomes. It’s real. You expect him to be great. You’ve got to overcome that."
“I think the Cowboys, in some ways, they just need to go out and do their job. They’re knocking on the door. You can’t be this good year in and year out without breaking through at some point. I think they will very soon.’’
To Romo's point, the Cowboys have won 36 regular season games over the past three seasons, second to only the Chiefs. That stat, however, gets buried upon the realization that Dallas is the only team among the top seven (joined by San Francisco, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Baltimore) that has not partaken in a conference title game in that span.
Romo, obviously no stranger to the pressures and responsibilities placed on a Dallas headliner as its franchise man for over a decade (2006-16), indirectly advised his passing successor Dak Prescott to maintain a single-landed focus as he prepares to overcome one of the most brutal losses of his North Texas tenure.
“Any playoff loss is devastating for any fan base, for any quarterback, for any coach or player or anyone in the organization,’’ Romo said. “There is never an easy one. They all hurt. Like anything, you’ve got to go back to work."
“We know the Cowboys are good. The biggest thing is just the mental approach in games like that. That’s the part where I think sometimes you have to be able to understand, that’s the Super Bowl in some ways. They get talked about so much. I don’t want to say it’s nerve-wracking, but it’s real. You’ve just got to narrow your focus.’’
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