Jerry Jones told Jason Garrett that Tony Romo ‘would be back in’
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones watched his team’s quarterback, Tony Romo, suffer a back injury against the Washington Redskins on Monday night, eventually made his way down to the trainers’ room where Romo was being evaluated and then followed Romo out to the field in the game’s waning minutes to act as messenger.
Jones told head coach Jason Garrett that Romo was good to go. You know, if Garrett needed him or anything.
“I was here during the tail end of the examination and knew he planned to come back out and play if he were needed,” Jones said, via the Fort Worth Star Telegram. “Of course he was needed. I felt good that he could come back out. When he saw the opportunity he did. I told Jason that he would be back in.”
Truly a do-it-all owner if there ever was one.
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On other teams, the sight of a team owner on the team’s sideline late in a game is nothing unorthodox. But seeing one talking to the head coach while the game, a 17-17 tie at that point, hung in the balance is something else entirely.
Of course, this is Jones we’re talking about.
Jones, of course, was concerned about his quarterback’s health. Romo has undergone two back procedures in the past two seasons and was held out for much of the offseason as he worked his way back into shape through increasing work in training camp and the preseason.
Seeing Romo take a knee to the back on a sack by linebacker Keenan Robinson in the third quarter set off alarms for everyone, as AT&T Stadium fell silent while Romo sat on the turf for a few minutes after the hit.
Jones said that sending Romo back into the game for the final two minutes of regulation and then overtime was a no-brainer once Romo checked out medically.
“We knew there were no structural issues when they gave him the X-rays,” Jones said. “I very concerned the fact that he laid there as long as he laid there. After we looked at the play and saw that was a knee kind of to the side of the back, then we felt better about it.
“We got him in here and looked at it real carefully everybody felt better about it. But he was certainly limited when he first got in here, but he loosened it up real good and went back out.”
Is this a case of Jones just being Jones?
Should Garrett have stuck with backup Brandon Weeden, who completed four of six passes for 69 yards and a touchdown, leading two scoring drives in relief?
Is there concern that Romo might have hurt his chances to play on Sunday against the 6-1 Arizona Cardinals by going back out there, admittedly, at less than 100 percent?
These are the questions we’ll chew on while the 6-2 Cowboys season showed its first real signs of weakness since Week 1. You knew it was not going to be that easy the rest of the way after winning six straight coming into Monday’s 20-17 overtime loss.
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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm
