​It’s been a tough stretch for Tony Romo, and the past several months have done little to reverse the trend. The former Dallas Cowboys quarterback came to CBS in 2017 as something of a revelation, predicting plays before they unfolded and injecting a spark into a broadcast booth that had grown stagnant under Phil Simms. Watching football with Romo felt like spending time with the sharpest mind in your fantasy league. The network rewarded him with a 10-year, $180 million contract in 2020, making him the highest-paid analyst in television history. Since then, his play predictions have faded, his analysis has grown more surface-level, the criticism has become harder to ignore, and rumors that he stopped dedicating the rigorous film study that once defined his prep have become tougher to dismiss.
Romo has acknowledged some of the criticism as warranted in the past, though he addressed it anew in a recent appearance on Pardon My Take. When asked whether he pays attention to the critiques, he replied, “You’re live on air for three, three and a half hours every week. It’s like you’re probably going to do something right. I mean, we do more right than wrong; otherwise, you wouldn’t be in the position you’re in. But I think, like anything, you’re going to do something wrong. I just always want — in the back of your brain you’re literally thinking about you guys watching at home, and it’s like, what would I want?”
That line of reasoning is fair to an extent. Calling live football for three hours every Sunday is immensely challenging, and no analyst is mistake-free. Yet the criticisms directed at Romo in recent years go beyond occasional missteps; they center on a noticeable and sustained decline in the depth and quality of his analysis, which has made his standout moments harder to locate.
“Sometimes they don’t talk about something, and I’m like, ‘Tell me. Tell me about that thing. Was that a catch? Was that not? Was he in bounds? What do you think?’ And then deeper than that, it goes to I want to teach, and I think that’s one of the biggest things is I want people to understand why, because there’s so much of that that goes into it,” Romo continued.
That instinct — to illuminate the decision-making behind what viewers are seeing rather than merely describe the action — was the hallmark of Romo’s early brilliance in the booth. The bigger issue, as Awful Announcing noted last fall, is whether that instinct is still supported by the preparation required to execute it week after week. “Why did they make that decision? Why did they run the ball on fourth-and-2? Well, because of the numbers in the box and blah, blah, blah, or because of this,” Romo said. “I just feel like that’s what people want. And the more people I talk to, they love it and everything. It’s been a rewarding experience.”
The PMT hosts also pressed Romo on how he’s had to adjust to better SEO in a modern media landscape.