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DALLAS COWBOYS
Tony Romo

Tony Romo's performance makes case to join MVP talk

Lindsay H. Jones
USA TODAY Sports
Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo has put together a performance the last few weeks that has sparked MVP talk.

IRVING, TEXAS -- Tony Romo was about to say what the rest of the NFL world has seen over the past month, but he caught himself.

"It's been a really good year. I'm playing, probably …. I don't want to give you headline on that," Romo said, smirking. "But it's been good."

The Dallas Cowboys quarterback isn't just playing well. He's playing so well lately that not only has he led the Cowboys back to the playoffs for the first time since 2009, he's played his way into the conversation about the league's Most Valuable Player.

After the Cowboys clinched the NFC East title Sunday, Romo dumped a bucket of Gatorade on Cowboys coach Jason Garrett, but perhaps it should have been the other way around.

In the three-game winning streak that enabled Dallas to clinch the division, Romo has thrown 10 touchdowns without an interception while completing 79.2 % of his passes. In Sunday's 42-7 win against the Indianapolis Colts, he completed 90% of his throws and passed Troy Aikman for the Cowboys' career passing record.

"He's a stud. We've said it all along, and we paid him accordingly. He's one of the best in the business, if not the best," said Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones, who along with his father, Jerry, gave Romo a $108 million contract last year. "The only thing he's missing is a championship. I don't know when that's coming. Hopefully it's sooner rather than later, but when that comes, he'll go down as one of the all-time greats."

Romo's 2014 season will be defined by what happens in January, by if the quarterback who developed a reputation for choking can lead the Cowboys on a postseason run. But for now, it's worth looking at the impressive year Romo has put together, under the most unlikely of circumstances.

Back trouble

If anything, this should have been the season when Romo would have had excuses if his accuracy was off, or if he couldn't move in the pocket or scramble for first downs or throw on the run.

His year started with surgery to repair a herniated disk, a procedure that included an arduous rehabilitation process that kept him out of the Cowboys' offseason workouts, limited his work in training camp and has kept him sidelined for one practice a week through the regular season.

His season got more challenging in October, when he took a knee to the back in a game against Washington, suffering two small fractures to the transverse process in his back – not a major injury, but a painful one, and one that forced him to miss one game.

But he survived, and the Cowboys did too, thanks to an offense designed to help Romo, with a workhorse running back in DeMarco Murray, the NFL's rushing leader, an offensive line that includes three recent first-round picks, and a deep group of receiving threats.

"To see how he's worked, all offseason with what he went through, and the way he's battled through it and just stayed positive, I think more than anything, not only is he playing at a high level, but he demands people around him to play at a high level, with the way they approach the game, and his expectations for them," veteran tight end Jason Witten told USA TODAY Sports. "You're seeing that with the way he's throwing it to a lot of different guys, he has a lot of confidence in them and just really the development of some of those players that have played key roles for us."

Bringing it together

Murray was an MVP candidate for much of the year, and could still wind up with a few votes, though he fell off the 2,000-yard pace – typically the threshold for an MVP tailback, but it is clear around Valley Ranch that while Cowboys players respect Murray and have a profound appreciation for what his tough running has meant for their offense, they revere Romo.

"I told you all from Day 1 he's a beast. I told you he's a warrior. I know a lot of people don't like listening, but hopefully they'll start," Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant said. "Tony, he's doing what Tony [does]."

But what exactly is it that Romo is doing? The quarterback said Sunday it has taken lots of time and lots of work to feel comfortable with all of the fundamentals of playing quarterback, to know what his feet are supposed to be doing, to correct the right angles of his torso and his shoulder so he can make the tough throws feel comfortable.

"Those are things you try to work through your whole career so that it is not dependent on things going perfect to do it," Romo said. "Those are things that come with age and experience and working your butt off to technically perfect your craft. When you're feeling good in that rhythm throwing it, I always felt like I could read it and see it, but you need that fundamental aspect of the game to take it to the next level."

That was his worry this offseason while he worked his way back from the surgery, that what if he lost all of those technical things he had been working on improving? He certainly had his doubts back in September, especially after throwing three interceptions in a Week 1 loss to the San Francisco 49ers.

"Playing in the first game of the year, I literally felt maybe I wasn't as good as I once was. That was tough," Romo said. "I didn't physically feel right. Since then, the stuff that I've done, it's been great to see that all the stuff technically that I've worked at came back when the physical stuff did."

He's not the same old Romo. He's older but better, and he's made the Cowboys better, too.

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Follow Lindsay H. Jones on Twitter @bylindsayhjones

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