Tony Romo took a lot of heat for his performance against the Jets, but has been receiving an equal amount of praise for his gutsy performance against the 49ers. One guy that whacked him after the first week was Warren Sapp, who said Tony "was not made for the big stage". On Showtime's Inside the NFL, airing tonight at 9pm ET/PT, Tony answers back.
The pre-broadcast release has some quotes from Romo. First he talks about what he was thinking as he decided to go back into the 49ers game:
The biggest thing going through my brain was just, ‘You just don’t want to go 0-2 in the NFL.’ That, really, is just such a hole to be in. It’s so hard to come out of. That was really the thing that kept going through my brain…If I can do anything here. I just don’t want to be sitting here on Monday or Tuesday thinking that we’re 0-2.
Determination: Check.
His other quotes after the jump.
On criticism:
Criticism comes with playing this position. Warren has some, obviously, skins on the wall so he’s able to say different things. And you have to accept that. As a quarterback, I did. I played poorly and I did two things that cost us a football game in the first week.
Responsibility: Check.
The third quote is the one that most of the readers here will be going over to try and divine some meaning, because he talks a bit about whether he will be on the field Monday night.
On the rib side, just breathing, sometimes, is harder than I want it to be. I know that… If it’s a pain related thing, it sucks but you can usually play. Either you can go out and move around or you can’t. If it’s an in-between thing, usually you end up playing. It’s football season and usually football players play football during football season.
I find myself admiring him for his willingness to play through the pain. I also find myself worried about whether it is such a great idea to go back out too early and risk injuring himself even more because he is not as mobile with those bad ribs. But I have to love the line about football players playing football.
It sounds like he wants to go against Washington. It may come down to whether or not the medical staff bars him or not, because I would say that if they do not rule him absolutely out, he is going to have his helmet on Monday night.
Those of you who can watch it, feel free to share what else goes on in the comments.