BRADSHAW RIPS ROMO
Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw, who knows a thing or two about playoff football, has questioned the decision of Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo to take a trip to Mexico with Jessica Simpson on the weekend before a divisional playoff game.
"For an athlete, there's no time off . . . until it's over," Bradshaw told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "You don't take a mental break.
"If only Tony had called me and said, 'Terry, Jessica and I are going to go to Mexico,' I would've told him: 'You crazy? Don't do that! The paparazzi is going to find you, man. You're a star. She's a star. It's just going to happen.'
"Everybody in Dallas knows you played horribly when Jessica showed up [against Philadelphia]. OK, now what if you play poorly [against the Giants]? You haven't exactly lit up the place lately. I don't understand. Why set yourself up?"
Amen.
Can anyone imagine Tom Brady doing something like this? Peyton Manning? Preparation is critical for quarterbacks at the NFL level, since they're making key decisions on virtually every play. Relying on talent and instincts only takes a guy so far; to win in January, the quarterback needs to know the opponents' tendencies, schemes, and anything else that can be gleaned from studying tape.
Why not wait until after the Super Bowl to go to Mexico or wherever, with Simpson or whoever? That's when the vacation starts.
The other thing Romo needs to ask himself is why Simpson is so interested in him. Is it because he looks like a young Jim Nabors? Or because being his girlfriend is the best kind of publicity that a straight-to-DVD actress can dredge up right now?
It's too bad Bill Parcells took that job with the Fins; we'd love to hear what he'd have to say on ESPN about this one, especially the stuff that would get bleeped.
Meanwhile, Romo has put even more pressure on himself to atone for last year's bobble of a snap on a field goal attempt that prevented the Cowboys from beating the Seahawks. Though he acts like it's all no big deal on the outside, we suspect that a storm is raging on the inside -- and that he'll be pressing early in Sunday's game to make something good happen in order to prove that the trip to Mexico wasn't a distraction. And that's all the evidence we'd need to conclude that it was.
