"I'll take the way he's been playing," team owner and general manager Jerry Jones said Wednesday, per The Dallas Morning News. "I will take it and call it a day right now, if you'll give me the whole year like that. I wouldn't dare have higher expectations, other than I'd like to have held the ball ... and beat Green Bay. Other than that, we might have been sitting here talking about a dream season for Tony."
Jerry's right. Outside of the team's painful loss to the Packers in the divisional round of the playoffs, Romo couldn't have engineered a better season in Big D. Recording personal bests in completion percentage (69.9), touchdown percentage (7.8), yards per attempt (8.5) and Total QBR (82.75), the veteran passer played through the pain of a nagging back injury to guide the team to its first NFC East title since 2009.
Jones is just as thrilled to see Romo, 35, fully participate in the offseason with no lingering back discomfort. With All-Pro wideout Dez Bryant a no-show at practices due to a contract dispute, Romo has worked closely with the team's less-experienced pass-catchers, leaving Jones to say: "Last year these young receivers wouldn't have had him throwing to them as much, at all, so we've been really able to evaluate a lot of these guys."
With his gritty offensive line still intact, Romo figures to produce another strong season. The variable rests in the backfield, where last year's Offensive Player of the Year, DeMarco Murray, has been replaced by the lesser Darren McFadden -- and, of course, at wideout, where Bryant, the team's finest player, is nowhere to be seen.
The latest Around The NFL Podcast discusses Dez Bryant's contract situation and ranks the best backfields for the 2015 season. Find more Around The NFL content on NFL NOW.
