As Tim noted in Leading Off, erstwhile Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo is reportedly retiring from football to start his broadcast career. While it has been something of a fait accompli that Romo would easily slide into the booth (or in a studio with other ex-jocks overlaughing at non-jokes) once he was done throwing back-breaking interceptions, it’s not guaranteed that he will have the skill set for it. There are plenty of telegenic former QBs who have been abject failures — Joe Montana springs to mind. Troy Aikman is good, sure, but he’s kind of a robot whose main move is to chuckle to himself while wondering if (fill in the blank) didn’t get away with something there, Joe.
So it’s worth asking: will Tony Romo be a good broadcaster?
In his favor, he is blandly handsome and can absolutely handle himself behind a microphone, whether he is talking to the media after a bad season-ending defeat, a painful playoff loss, or when nobly stepping aside from a job that had already been taken from him. And, the theory goes, he is hungry to prove himself, since injuries have more or less robbed him of his last two seasons of competitive football. If you subscribe to that line of thinking, then you believe that Romo will, whether in the booth or the studio, work hard to get a competitive edge.
As for the con list, the main deficiency that I keep coming back to, since hearing the news a few hours ago, is that, over the past decade, Tony Romo has become — and I’m trying to think of the exact right way to put this — super boring.
It’s not his fault. The media (and more than a few fans) repeatedly kicked him in the jeans over his ill-timed trip to Mexico, and for jumping onstage with that hair-metal cover band all the time, and for saying that if a loss to the Eagles was the worst thing that happened to him then he’d had a pretty good life, and on and on and on. Now he’s pretty much a caption for an Instagram photo posted by a second-tier but striving athleisure brand. The speech Romo made formally ceding the Cowboys QB job to Dak Prescott was the first interesting thing he’s said in maybe five years.
To be sure, being boring and being a broadcaster are not mutually exclusive. Romo can certainly do a fine job. Adroit. Workmanlike. But to be truly great at it, he needs a part of his personality that might not exist anymore.
