Tony Romo at his very worst wouldn’t be as bad as the Cowboys’ backup quarterbacks

The Dallas Cowboys are 2-5. It’s worth noting that they won their first two games of the season, and have lost their last five.

With the exception of a 30-6 loss to the Patriots, the Cowboys’ losses have been winnable games. Dallas blew a two-touchdown lead to Atlanta, turning a 28-14 advantage into a 39-28 loss. The Cowboys lost in overtime to the Saints. The Cowboys lost 27-20 to the Giants, a game they had tied with seven minutes to go. The Cowboys lost by one point to the Seahawks, and had the ball down 13-12 with an opportunity to win.

It’s also worth noting that Tony Romo, the Cowboys’ four-time Pro Bowl QB, was injured in the team’s second game of the year, the last one the Cowboys won. It’s not exactly groundbreaking to say the Cowboys are struggling because of Romo’s injury, but it’s deeper than that.

The Cowboys are losing winnable games because the performances by Tony Romo’s replacements have been worse than the worst games Tony Romo has ever played.

At face value, Brandon Weeden’s stats from his four games this season look decent. He completed 72.4 percent of his passes! That’d be an NFL record if he did it for a whole season!

But there was a catch: Weeden’s impressively high completion percentage was a product of his inability to throw difficult passes. In his first start, he completed 22 of 26 passes, but 18 of those were to running backs or tight ends, and the other four were to slot receiver Cole Beasley. He didn’t complete a single pass to a true wide receiver. He banked on easy throws and check downs, and the Cowboys’ offense stalled as the Falcons mounted a major comeback.

In his third start, Weeden again had a nice completion percentage, hitting on 26 of 39 passes. But on almost 40 attempts, he threw for just 187 yards, 4.8 yards per attempt. In Tony Romo’s 153 career games, this would’ve been the fourth-lowest YPA by Romo, and that’s including a game where Romo went 0-for-2 passing.

After complete stagnation under Weeden, the Cowboys turned to Matt Cassel, who had thrown four interceptions in his last full game with the Vikings. He turned around and threw three picks and only 227 yards against the Giants. Romo has only thrown three interceptions and fewer than 250 yards four times in his career. The Cowboys lost by seven.

And last week against the Seahawks, Cassell threw 25 passes for 97 yards. This would have been the worst performance of Romo’s career on several fronts. For starters, it was just 3.88 yards per attempt, which would be the lowest YPA of Romo’s career. And in 125 starts, Romo has never thrown for fewer than 100 yards in a game he’s finished: He threw for 39 in a 2010 game where he broke his collarbone, and 86 in a Week 17 game in 2007 where he was pulled to preserve himself for the playoffs. The Cowboys lost to the Seahawks by one point, and had the opportunity to win at the end. (It didn’t go well.)

Romo is slated to come back Week 11, which means even if the Cowboys lose all seven games with him out of the lineup, he could lead the Cowboys back to a .500 or better record. In the NFC East, .500 might be good enough for the playoffs.

But it’s obvious that the drop off from a quality NFL QB in Romo to replacement level options in Weeden and Cassel put an enormous dent in the Cowboys’ hopes this season. With their defense, they would be one of the NFL’s top teams. But their close losses in four -- maybe more -- winnable games without Romo will haunt them.

This is a lesson to Cowboys fans and all NFL fans. If your starting quarterback is good, love your starting quarterback.

Tony Romo probably isn’t the best quarterback in the NFL. He’s a very good quarterback, certainly amongst the top 10 in the NFL, but he probably isn’t the best. If your team has Romo, or a quarterback of the same skill level, you will occasionally be unhappy with him. Romo has earned a reputation for throwing interceptions at bad times, even though he leads the NFL in game-winning drives since he took over as the Cowboys’ full-time starter in 2006.

In those moments where your team’s very, very good quarterback fails, don’t get upset at them. Understand that there are maybe 15-20 people in the world capable of being quality NFL quarterbacks, and that your team is very lucky to have one.

The case of the Cowboys hopefully illustrates this. A good NFL QB like Romo can play poorly and still win you games. A replacement-level NFL QB can barely even play as well as a good NFL QB at their literal worst.

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