Romo Needs Some Flag-Football

"I'm embarrassed. I really am. I am really embarrassed."
- Jerry Jones

"I wake up tomorrow and I keep living. If losing a game in a sporting event is the worst thing that happens to me, I've lived a pretty good life."
- Tony Romo


Does anyone else see anything wrong with those comments? So the quarterback of "America's Team" is so distraught by a season-ending loss...that he says that "much worse" has happened to him? That he is going to "keep on living?" That's it? No "I'm pissed! I apologize because I let a lot of fans down. I let my teammates down. I let me city down. I let myself down." None of that?

Instead, Jerry Jones has to be the person that comes out and says that he is "embarrassed" by the performance. Jerry wasn't playing. He wasn't calling plays. And yet, Jerry appears to be the only Cowboy pissed off and utterly embarrassed about the 44-6 loss in Philadelphia. That's a problem.

Look, my friends and I almost break into tears after losing a regular-season flag-football game. It doesn't even have to be the playoffs!! We will then spend the next 3-4 hours dissecting exactly what went wrong. Seriously, we can barely sleep that night...and we are talking about freaking FLAG-FOOTBALL!!!!! What is on the line for us? Nothing significant. But we still can't handle a loss because...well, because we hate losing...at ANYTHING.

Why do I get the feeling that, if Romo were there, after losing he would have been the first in line at the "handshake" line, would have joked with a few of the opponents and then asked us "who is down for a slurpy?!"

I'm sorry, but I don't want my quarterback feeling as though football is merely a game. My buddies and I lose sleep over flag-football contests and Romo, after losing a play-in game to his arch-rivals in the NFL, can only muster "I've had worse things happen to me."

I am not denying that there is something wrong with my friends and I, but there is also something not quite right about Romo. Great NFL quarterbacks don't suffer that kind of defeat and simply shrug it off. Great NFL quarterbacks don't turn the ball over three times in the most critical game of the season and say that they will simply "keep on living." They just don't.

If Peyton Manning throws three interceptions in a loss to San Diego, do you think he will be quoted as saying, "Well, I am going to just keep living and need to get ready to complete a few more hilarious commercials"...? Of course not.

I defend Romo in almost every possible scenario, but it's difficult to defend a guy that appears to take losses much better than the majority of fans do. And while I am holding on to hope that he spends the next six months on football, I have no doubt that we will soon see Tony and Jessica as judges on an upcoming version of MTV's "Skanks vs Sluts" or the new show "America's Got Talent...But We Can't Find It."