In April 2017, Tony Romo retired from football after 14 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys. His mostly terrific playing career ended in frustration after he missed the majority of his final two seasons due to injuries and was likely to be traded by the Cowboys prior to his retirement.
How Tony Romo became the best color commentator in the NFL
Tony Romo will call Super Bowl 53, and he earned that lofty job by being great at his job from the jump.
Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images
Romo passed on the opportunity to be a starter elsewhere so he could become a color commentator at CBS. At the time, a lot of people were skeptical about just how retired he actually was.
Less than two years later, it’s clear the decision to join the commentary booth was the right one. Romo hasn’t just excelled in his new career path, he’s already the best color commentator in the NFL.
Is he universally loved? No. Frankly, that’s impossible for a color commentator. Just the fact that Romo isn’t generally reviled is a testament to how great he’s doing.
“I was pleasantly surprised, because social media by and large is very negative, for everybody, for all announcers and all networks,” CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said after Romo’s CBS debut in September 2017, via Newsday. “The fact that it was positive is satisfying for me, but I also take it with a grain of salt.
“It’s certainly better to have positive reviews than negative reviews.”
On Sunday, he’ll be in the booth for Super Bowl 53 between the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams. That’s something you should be excited about. Here’s why:
Romo’s ability to diagnose plays is impressive
No, Romo isn’t a fortune teller. He’s just a former quarterback who is able to see what’s happening in the offensive and defensive pre-snap alignments and tell you how a quarterback will handle it.
You’d think the long list of former quarterbacks who have transitioned into the role of color commentator — Dan Fouts, Rich Gannon, Phil Simms, and Troy Aikman, to name a few — would be able to do that. But few of them actually have.
The typical broadcast consists of a play-by-play announcer telling viewers what is happening in the present, and a color commentator explaining why it happened after the fact.
But with Romo, pre-snap interjections help the audience understand exactly what an offense is seeing ahead of time. And when his explanations or predictions come to fruition, the audience gets a better understanding and appreciation of what they’re watching.
It didn’t take Romo long to figure all this out either. He was great at the job from the jump. In his Week 1 debut during the 2017 season, Romo was already calling out blitzes and diagnosing how the Raiders offense would counter the Titans defense.
Romo not only breaks down the X’s and O’s of a football game to viewers, and he can also give insights into the tinier details that make a difference in the NFL.
In Week 2 of his debut season, Romo gave a glimpse into the mind of Bill Belichick — something few have managed to do over the last two decades. The Patriots gave up a touchdown to the Saints, but Romo explained that it wasn’t a defensive mistake for New England, but an intentional throw away call by Belichick.
Romo has only continued to stay sharp. When he was in the booth for the AFC Championship between the Chiefs and Patriots, he showed off his prediction skills to a national audience.
Over and over again, Romo told the audience what Tom Brady was seeing and how he’d attack the Kansas City defense.
His psychic abilities are less magic and more football intuition and understanding. But Romo’s ascension to become the best in the game is more than just that.
Romo can’t contain his enthusiasm — no matter the score
Sometimes football games just aren’t good. In Week 8 of the 2017 season, Romo was on the call for a Thursday Night Football game that ended up being a 40-0 win for the Ravens over the Dolphins.
The highlight of the game was Romo giving commentary of a kitten that ran on the field:
You don’t need to be a football genius to be a goofy and energetic commentator. The problem with Jason Witten on ESPN’s Monday Night Football isn’t just that he fumbles words — it’s that he’s boring.
Romo is enthusiastic, witty, and adds to the broadcast in a way few color commentators do.
Romo is still relatively new to his career in the broadcast business and there’s a chance it will be short-lived.
For now, he’s the best NFL color commentator in the business and his spot in the booth at Super Bowl 53 is well deserved.
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