September 20, 2015

It’s the most obnoxious question on social media: “Wanna feel old?” No, I don’t want to feel old, what kind of question is that? It’s very easy not to feel old, I just need to manage to walk the tightrope of watching without observing, since everything still looks the same. Credit to Jon Bois for this observation: HD television has forever altered our idea of history. In sports, everything from about 2008 onward is framerate smoothed into a perpetual present that makes things like Asante Samuel Junior playing in the NFL hit us suddenly like an uppercut. But the recent past is still the past, and debates that seemed endless have had their resolutions. Tony Romo has already been a universally beloved announcer for about half as long as he was the polarizing starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys.

Tony Romo was undrafted as a rookie in 2003, invited to the combine only to throw soft practice passes to receivers. The Cowboys decided to pursue him after the draft, however; offensive coordinator Sean Payton shared with Romo an alma mater, Eastern Illinois. Romo was guardian of the clipboard during a period of constant tumult for the Cowboys, remaining on the third-string as prospects like Quincy Carter and Chad Hutchison flamed out, and staid veterans like the ridiculous 41 year old Vinny Testaverde rolled through. With Payton taking over a new job as head coach of the Saints in 2006, he floated the idea of sending the Cowboys a third round draft pick in exchange for Romo. In a rare moment of prescience, Jones denied the offer, and Romo was able to take over when the statuesque Drew Bledsoe crumbled. Romo quickly captured the fanbase with his improvisational skills and daring, and it wasn’t the first time Drew Bledsoe was replaced midseason by an unheralded first-time starter.

Romo got the Cowboys to the playoffs in that 2006 season, but lost to the Seahawks after botching the snap on the would-be winning field goal. It became a microcosm of Romo’s whole career; the Cowboys wouldn’t have been in position to win at all if it weren’t for a drive where Romo went three for three, and wouldn’t have needed the field goal if tight end Jason Witten had reached for the first down marker. This became a strange pattern in Romo’s career, leading top heavy teams with negligible coaching and defense to overachievement and then getting blamed for their underachievement when their weaknesses finally caught up with them. People only remembered the interceptions, like the one at the end of a thriller to Peyton Manning’s Denver Broncos, and not the earth-shattering six touchdown performance before it. It was frustrating to go 8-8 in three consecutive years, but not enough people asked themselves what the team would look like without Romo there to drag the team to even terms.

In 2014, Romo had a year that quieted all the doubters, with a career low for interceptions in a 1 game season, and league-leading marks in completion percentage and yards per attempt. He had lost none of his aggression, but the risks were paying off. Even the eventual shortfall was not Romo’s fault, and no one dared to say it was. In the playoffs against the Packers, on a late 4th and two, the usually conservative coach Jason Garrett dialed up a long pass. Romo hit Dez Bryant in stride and Bryant appeared to catch it while stumbling, but after a lengthy review the officials ruled that Dez had not caught it. This is still a sore spot for many fans, but in the short run, having an injustice to rally against gave more optimism than having another mistake to blame would have. There was still a lot of confidence heading into 2015, optimism that was buoyed by the inscrutable goings on at their closest rival, Philadelphia.

The Eagles turned to the college ranks for leadership when they plucked Chip Kelly from Oregon in the 2013 offseason. Kelly had a lot of success with his hurry-up system. An echo of the K-Gun in Buffalo, Kelly added his own flair by still maintaining control of playcalls, communicating to his quarterback through inscrutable boards of symbols from the sideline. Every team uses the no-huddle situationally, but Kelly used it in all situations, running at light speed, trapping defenses in bad personnel matches and tiring them out. Between Sundays, Kelly was a huge believer in sports science, controlling the diets of players and making individualized smoothies to meet each player’s nutritional profile.

It’s hard not to read that and not come away with the vibes of a cult, but that may be true of all coaches, who are all trying to secure complete control over a very fractious and conflict-driven environment. Even on that line, though, individualized smoothies might be a touch too much. But the results, at first, were positive, with two 10-6 records and an offense with proficiency in both run and pass, but the hurry-up was working too well, and scoring drives took the same amount of time as three-and-outs, and three-and-outs took the time of a single play, meaning that the hurry-up was finding a way to tire out both the opposing defense and Philadelphia’s defense.

Kelly’s solution to get his team over the hump was for the front office to give him more control. Kelly was granted control over personnel in the 2015 offseason, and while some moves were expected, like cutting malcontent cornerback Cary Williams, who complained about the intensity of practices, many moves went beyond unexpected into hieroglyphically mysterious. What did it even mean, for example, to trade fan favorite quarterback straight up to the Rams for Sam Bradford? Bradford was a former number one overall pick out of Oklahoma, but was a high-floor low-ceiling player in the pros, and was typically injured. Trading LeSean McCoy for middling linebacker Kiko Alonso made even less sense. McCoy was a pro bowl running back and veteran leader who had fully bought into the Chip system, smoothies and all. Alonso was a linebacker who Kelly had coached and recruited in college, and had missed the entire previous season for knee surgery. Maybe Kelly was ahead of the analytics curve with regard to star running backs and was willing to chance going young and cheap there. Why, then, did he sign two veteran feature backs in free agency to huge, lucrative long-term deals, getting DeMarco Murray from the Cowboys and Ryan Mathews from the Chargers?

Cowboys-Eagles was predicted to be the top two in some order in the NFC East, and when the Cowboys won on a last second comeback engineered by Romo, and the Eagles lost a competitive game against the Falcons, their week two matchup on September 20, 2015, was circled as an early pivot for the playoff picture. It also had a hook for revenge as DeMarco Murray was facing the team that had decided that he was not a sound long-term investment and let him go to the Eagles in free agency. Dallas dominated time of possession, but both of their scoring drives in the first half ended in short field goals, as the Eagles stiffened their back at the red zone. The halftime lead was a slim 6-0 margin for Dallas, but the Eagles had only one first down the entire first half, and it was the result of a penalty.

The Eagles started the first half with a twelve-yard completion, which was the first earned first down on the day, but was immediately undone when two DeMarco Murray rushes managed impossibly to net negative eleven yards. So much for vengeance; the Murray’s revenge storyline puttered out almost immediately. Murray finished the day with two yards on thirteen carries, which works out to about six inches a rush. The Eagles once again had to punt, and this one was blocked and returned for the game’s first touchdown. The Eagles defense finally made themselves known with a strip sack. and the Eagles offense, with this head start, finally got into the red zone, but Bradford’s pass into the end zone was intercepted by Sean Lee. Romo was ruled out of the game with a shoulder injury as a result of the earlier sack, and backup Brandon Weeden had to come in to steward the game to a victory. Weeden hit Terrence Williams on a slant and new signee Byron Maxwell showed only a passing interest in tackling him. With the 42-yard score, the Cowboys’ 2-0 start was sealed, and a buoyant Romo was seen on the sidelines in street clothes.

Nothing in football is as precise as a lab experiment. Too much is up to chance and the bounces of an oblong spheroid to isolate our variables, but very rarely, something like a natural lab presents itself. Here we saw two. Chip Kelly in a flurry of movement changed everything about his team except himself, and his limited playbook. The result was a complete collapse, proving that Chip’s smoothies were only as good as the players drinking them. Win and 2-0 record in hand, the 2015 Cowboys were about to prove or disprove the influence of Tony Romo, as the separated shoulder suffered in this game was projected to keep him out until November. The results were calamity. The team did not win again until Romo’s brief return the week before Thanksgiving, and in the middle of a lost cause to the undefeated Panthers on Thanksgiving day, Romo reinjured his shoulder. This time he was out for the year. Between and after, Cowboys fans saw some of the worst quarterbacking imaginable from a professional team, including one instance where Matt Cassel, the only non-Romo quarterback to win a game for Dallas, was called for intentional grounding on a pass that was intercepted. Without Romo, the same team that was a number one seed the season before collapsed helplessly like a sandcastle. Though the Cowboys are now in good hands with Dak Prescott, not everyone is happy. Some, the same who called Romo every word for deficient in the dictionary, wish they had Tony Romo back today for one more run at the title. As Townes Van Zandt once wrote, there’s no prettier sight than the town you left behind.