Tony Romo Named Cowboys' Ed Block Courage Award Winner

The Dallas Cowboys have selected quarterback Tony Romo as their 2011 Ed Block Courage Award recipient, according to the organization's website. The players from each NFL team vote on who gets to receive the award for their team.

Here's what the award is all about:

Each year, the Ed Block Courage Awards honors those National Football League players who exemplify commitments to the principles of sportsmanship and courage. Recipients are selected by their teammates for team effort, as well as individual performance.

The Ed Block Courage Award recipient symbolizes professionalism, great strength and dedication. He is also a community role model. With this honor, he enters into an association which contrasts his fierce profession by becoming a major component of the Courage House National Support Network for Kids. He becomes an Ambassador of Courage for victims of abuse, violence and neglect.

Tony Romo won the award for playing with and through multiple injuries that included broken ribs, a punctured lung and a severe hand contusion. This is one of the lesser known awards in the league, and while it was actually already awarded in March of this year, Romo was only officially recognized at a team event today as the award winner, according to a Tweet from ESPN's Todd Archer.

Having your teammates vote for you is always a good thing, so here's to you, Tony Romo.

A full list of the previous award winners can be found here. Typically, the award goes to the Cowboys player who has battled through a significant injury. Previous winners for the Cowboys include Sam Hurd, Kyle Kosier, Keith Davis, Jay Ratliff and Flozell Adams. With the way things are going, Jason Witten is the early favorite for the 2012 award. Witten had the scan of his spleen done this morning, the results should become available some time later today.