Romo's affect on this team since his injury.

The victory over the colts was great, it always feels good to beat a veteran team in their stadium.  The team came together and scraped out a victory.  I was listening to some post game commentary from the cowboys post game show with brad sham and another with Norm Hitzges.  I was a little suprised that a number of fans feel that Kitna has the team playing better now than when romo was under center; to imply that Kitna is behind the team's resurrgence.  I know the people calling into a radio show only represent a small sample size of the fandom.  But even on this site we have the question being raised: does this team respond better with Kitna?

I am here to explain my theory that Romo's injury was a blessing and a curse (more of a bittersweat blessing); take a small look back to the last game Romo played.  The giants were in dallas, the team was at a record of 1-4 riding a two game winning streak the team seemed to be in an unending spiral of self-inflicted wounds (penalties, turnovers, missed assignments, missed tackles, missed opportunities) would occur at the most inopportune time.  Romo gets knocked out of the game and the demenor of the team changes, instead of rallying to aid the back-up who had limited snaps they succumbed to the pressure of the moment and were beaten by the giants.  Kitna now the starter comes in and takes the reigns but the results are not much different, the team struggles against Jacksonville and then completely craters against a good GB team.

The team took the loss of Romo pretty hard, they knew what he brought to the table in terms of QB play and were not sure about Kitna; it's reasonable considering he did not play at all last year and some may have worried that this was going to be Brad Johnson all over again.  The team went into a funk and it was becoming clear that WP could not get the team to respond to the challenge; this led to the defense to collapse completely and would lead to WP being fired.  Romo's injury was a blessing (in a small way, I am not saying it was a miracle) because without his abilties the team's short comings were exposed in greater detail; primarily the O-line and the defense's inability to generate TO's.  Romo's ability to weave away and escape defenders made up for alot of errors created by an O-line that was not protecting him.  I think the loss of Romo helped to show how many holes this team has and why it was not going to go very far even if he did not get injured.

The loss of Romo also exposed WP, it showed that he no longer had any control over the team's effort on the field, his message and philosophy were falling on deaf ears.  I consider this to be a blessing because the adversity faced by the team revealed the character of the HC to be lacking; and it made it clear enough to JJ that he had to eat his words and fire WP before the season was over.  JG came in and made changes to how the team practiced, studied and operated and the jolt to the system (full pads in practice), along with the change of his responsibilities have helped improve the play of the team.  JG the HC now has to be aware of everything, specifically in how he calls his offense affects his defense; so now he has shown more balance in the playcalling.  I also consider this to be a blessing, a new set of priorities helps JG refocus the run game (that has been helped by pad practice which leads to better run blocking) will help Romo ease back into his starting role.  A running game you can count on more often, I am sure Romo will love to have that under his belt.  The line still cannot get a push on short goal line situations, so the issues with the O-line have not gone away because the line is in need of new talent and some youth.

The injury is a curse because of the waiting period for Romo's return and that without the injury the changes we now see may never have happened and the playoffs were lost this year as well.  It is pretty similar to how Miles made his breakout year, he did so only after a player who was being overpaid RW was hurt; if not for that event we might not have known what we have in Miles.  I think this week we have seen a new example of that, Tashard has the opportunity next week to show what he can do at home against the iggles, but his new opportunity was also a product of injury, not because a tough decision was made.

With all that said, I am not under the illusion that Romo is Peyton Manning or has some intangibles that we must have faith in; but I am saying his loss has had a big effect as serving as a catalyst for the changes we see now.  So I want to give credit to the event of his injury as a positive one; in how it has accelerate changes in the team's structure that I hope will carry over into next year's squad.

GO COWBOYS!!!!!