Whether Cowboys' fans like it or not, it seems likely that quarterback Tony Romo will be with the team for the long haul. As free agency is set to begin in a month, the Cowboys are not interested in investigating quarterback options for the 2013 season. Executive vice president Stephen Jones wants to give Romo a long-term extension, believing that he is the one key piece that will earn the team a championship.
"Tony is a key piece of what we're about going forward. We're certainly going to be looking at his situation in time. We've historically extended contracts with quarterbacks for the Dallas Cowboys ahead of time. We did it with Troy Aikman and we certainly want to look at that with Tony so we can all move forward in terms of how we want to play around our salary cap with our team. Tony is the key piece in terms of how your cap is represented," Jones said.
Romo currently counts nearly $17 million against the Cowboys' salary cap in 2013. He is entering into the final year of his contract and is scheduled to earn a base salary of $11.5 million in 2013. His salary cap is a team-high. The Cowboys must get under the $121 million salary cap by March 12. At the moment, they are $20 million over, so figuring out Romo's contract will be an important piece to that. A long-term contact would give the Cowboys fewer cap restraints during the offseason.
But has Romo earned a long-term deal? Has he proven his abilities to get the job done in Dallas? The 33-year old quarterback is 17-21 since being a starter in 2010. This past season he tied for the league lead in interceptions. He could have brought the Cowboys to the playoffs in the last game of the season, instead he threw three interceptions, giving the Washington Redskins the win and playoff spot.
Romo has never competed for the starting quarterback job. The position has been neglected by Jerry Jones who seems to be content with Romo leading the team. Since 2000, Jerry Jones has drafted two quarterbacks, just two. He has toyed a bit with free agents, but never following through with a deal. It has always been Romo. Has he played well enough to earn a big deal? Most Cowboys' fans would answer no, considering no quarterbacks since 2006 have fewer playoff wins than Romo.
Romo could demand a contract of a three to five year deal, upwards of $12 million in base salary. While signing him to the big contract makes sense for cap space now, what about the future? Even Baltimore made Joe Flacco play for his fbig contract. That worked out pretty well for them in the end.
Jones says he feel no pressure to get the deal done immediately. He wants Romo for the future and he knows the contract will get done in time to make him the center piece of the team.
