The Valley Ranch Review: Mini-camp Report Day 2 (Tony Romo edition)

The Cowboys held another practice this morning and will finish up this three-day mini-camp tomorrow with two practices. But a lot of that is getting upstaged by Tony Romo, who spoke at length for the first time in a while about his play and the franchise in general.

Let's talk practice first, Romo second.

DC.com with a report on Tuesday's practice.

Injury list:

The only players who seemed to be missing were Felix Jones (calf), Igor Olshansky (back) and rookie linebacker Stephen Hodge (knee). Nine other players were at Standridge Stadium but didn't dress out for some level of injury or rehab work. They were Nick Folk (hip), Sam Hurd (quad), Miles Austin (hamstring), Rodney Hannah, Justin Rogers, Kyle Kosier (foot), Kevin Ogletree and Isaiah Stanback (knee).

More practice notes from the DMN blog. Timmy Mac goes into detail.

Martellus Bennett is getting more chances in 2-TE sets.

Make the jump for Romo news.

Tony Romo speaks. Romo noticed a flaw in his footwork and has worked on correcting it.

"Now there are some days out here in the last month or so that I haven't performed up to what I thought," Romo said. "It's because you're trying it, you're going to see if it's going to work. And I'll tell you right now that I'm really excited that it's becoming a natural move for me. And that's the hard part when you change things is to make it natural. You need to make it so that in the game you're not thinking about a technical aspect of your motion or your feet or any of that stuff. It just becomes second nature. That's something you do all off-season. You have to do it a thousand times before it can get to that point."

Romo on turnovers.

"You just don't turn the ball over," Romo said. "There's no change other than the fact that you hold it with two hands when there are people around you, you don't throw to the other colored jersey. If it's questionable you probably hold onto it or you run, or you get rid of it out of bounds. "For me the big thing has been when someone else makes a mistake, you don't compound it with a mistake of your own."

More Romo on turnovers and making bad plays.

"Highlight reels don't win championships," Romo said. "The boring plays win championships — checking it down to your back, sliding in the pocket and overthrowing a guy that looked like, ‘Oh, he almost threw it to him and could have got a completion,' but it was really a smart, safe spot with the ball, punting the ball from your own 15-yard line instead of giving it to them. "Those are the things that win championships, and those are the things we're going to try and do better next season."

Meanwhile, Romo and Roy is a big subject around the water cooler.

[Roy] Williams barked at Romo on Monday after a ball didn’t come his way when he was open. "I was frustrated and I let him know," Williams said. "But that’s what we’re supposed to do. This is our job. His job is to deliver the ball. My job is to catch it and get open. That’s how you win, and that’s all I want to do."

After the outburst, the next two balls were thrown in Williams’ direction. He then caught an over-the-shoulder deep ball between two defenders for the catch of the day.

Hmm, that scene sounds a little familiar? I kid! (Sort of). More Romo quotes from Todd Archer.

And finally, we come to the "big" story of the day. As in, Romo-big. JFE does it again

Word from Valley Ranch is he had a come-to-Jesus meeting with QB Tony Romo this off-season where he basically told him to get his butt in better shape.

[snip]

Cowboys coaches believe Romo has a penchant for showing up for training camp in just good enough shape to allow him to get out to a good start in the first half. And it falls apart in the second half because he does. He is not able to outrun the same players. His mistakes go up. He is not the same QB.

Let the food fight begin!