Mr. Tony Romo has bobbled field goal snaps, dated dingbats, been the butt of many jokes and the donner of many a newsboy’s hat from the 3o’s.  I’m here to give him a little hype. At this point he is not elite. He could be, but it’s not a lock. He is an above average QB, similar to Matt Schaub in the fantasy realm. We saw how Schaub could go from elite numbers to not so elite fairly quickly and that’s not something you see with someone like Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers. They are elite because they stay that way from year to year. Will Romo ever be able to do that?  Looking at his numbers so far it wouldn’t take a huge jump, but it would take a jump in consistency and health.
In Romo’s two complete seasons he was (depending on your scoring) 2nd in ’07 and 5th in ’09 in fantasy points by quarterbacks, which is officially elite in fantasy land, where we reside. But of course 2008 and 2010 were different stories; stories marred by injuries, inconsistency, and a lot of America’s Team BS. If we go with the completely arbitrary statistic of Romo having a good year every other season, this will be his year!! End of post.
Ok, I’ll see if there is anything else about Mr. Romo we can discern.  He has always had good players around him. In 07/08 he had Terrell Owens and Jason Witten leading in receiving and then in 09 TO was replaced by Miles Austin seamlessly, and of course Witten was right there. But 2010 saw the addition of one Mr. Dez Bryant. While the previous three years Patrick Crayton and Roy Williams were the compliments or more accurately, the put downs for the passing offense, Dez Bryant is a different breed. He has greatness dripping off him like oddly colored Gatorade sweat. Our man Romo didn’t get much of a chance to reap the benefits of having Austin, Witten and Bryant all in at the same time before he was injured, but was still on pace for one of his best statistical seasons (if not his worst win/loss seasons). In his five games before being injured he was averaging 2 TDs a game and over 300 yards passing. His interceptions were up, but in fantasy that’s not always the end of the world.
We then saw Dez Bryant flash greatness. Well, more than a flash; he was just great. His size, speed, jumping ability, and hands are already elite. Only time is needed for him to become truly an all around great player. In a six game stretch last season he scored 6 touchdowns. He is almost unstoppable in the end zone. I’m finding it difficult to rank Miles Austin over Bryant for next season, but that’s for another post. Suffice it to say, Romo has two awesome receivers and then some guy named Jason Witten to throw to. Oh, and wait! There’s this little injury prone scrapper Felix Jones to keep in mind. He was a bust fantasy wise, but still put up some interesting numbers, including 48 receptions, which is a lot more than his previous high of 19. In a lot of ways that’s a whole new outlet for Romo since he wasn’t around much last season. The lack of a true every down back should give him even more chances for passing stats through Jones.
Jason Garrett has been Romo’s offensive coordinator for every one of his NFL starts and he has trusted him to throw the ball. His offense isn’t Martzian, but it has averaged 551 pass attempts to 421 rush attempts in his four years as coordinator. If Romo stays healthy and gets his 500+ attempts and Dez Bryant doesn’t come to camp pushing 300 lbs, Romo will be a top 5 QB without much trouble. Those are a lot of ifs and ifs kinda suck, but I won’t be drafting a QB in the first three rounds and I could see Romo falling this season to the 4th round or at least late in the the 3rd round. Last season he went before Rivers and of course Vick, which won’t happen this time around. His value is completely dependent on where his ADP is, but I have a feeling he’ll be the 7th or 8th QB taken and there is value there. So there!
This isn’t a sleeper post. Romo will be a high pick, but if Romo plays 16 games we can almost be assured that he’ll be a top 5 QB and with the addition of Bryant his ceiling is even higher. That’s the kind of gamble I like to take.
My preliminary prognostication prediction is 360/550, 4,400 yds, 32 TDs, 17 ints and some rushing yards and maybe a TD.
