Dallas Cowboys Lose Opener -- Does Team Need Heimlich Maneuver?

The Dallas Cowboys lost their season opener to the New York Jets. And they did it in classic choke fashion, something that seems to have become a hallmark of Tony Romo's tenure as quarterback of the team. For Cowboys fans hoping for the start of a far better season than last year, it looks eerily akin the beginning of last year's horrible season.

They somehow managed to do it again -- lose another important game. The Dallas Cowboys lost their season opener to the New York Jets. To add insult to injury, a little trivia popped up on everyone's television just before the loss -- the Cowboys had never lost a game in franchise history when leading by 14 or more points in the 4th Quarter. But now they have. And they may have lost a little more than that -- the fans' patience with quarterback Tony Romo insofar as they just might want a replacement for the 31-year-old quarterback.

Why would the average Cowboys fan want to begin shopping around the NFL for a replacement for Tony Romo? After all, he did throw 36 passes, completing 23 of them for 342 yards and two touchdowns in the losing cause. He seemed to marshal his troops well and take them down the field several times.

But it is in the moments that matter most, when the pressure is on, that Romo seems to perform worst. And Sunday night's game on NBC was no exception.

And Dallas Cowboys fans (not to mention the Dallas sports media) will shortly demand (but who is kidding whom -- it began on the Internet as soon as it was becoming a near certainty that the Cowboys would lose the game) that team owner Jerry Jones begin a team Heimlich Maneuver to dislodge from the franchise its offending "choking" source -- namely, Tony Romo.

Leading by 7 with nearly 12 minutes to go in the game, Romo led the Cowboys down the field to the Jets 2-yard-line, where he decided to run the ball down the middle. He fumbled the ball. But all seemed balanced out when the Dallas defense held, forcing Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez to fumble the ball with the Cowboys recovering at the Jets 47 yard line.

But the Jets defense held. Then they blocked the ensuing punt, running it in for a touchdown to tie the game.

The two teams traded the ball back and forth for a possession each. Then, with 59 seconds to go in the game, Romo threw a short pass that was intercepted and subsequently turned into three points with a field goal (made -- as if Cowboys fans did not have enough things going wrong -- by ex-Dallas kicker Mark Folk).

In the 27 seconds left to attempt to gain enough field position to at least tie the game, Romo was hit in the chest with an errant snap for which he was not ready, fumbles, and manages an incomplete pass.

In short, the Dallas Cowboys fell apart.

Last year during the season opener against the Washington Redskins, a poorly performing Dallas team managed to mount a last-minute drive to the end zone. They actually scored a touchdown that would have tied the game with no time left on the scoreboard, but it was nullified by an offensive holding penalty. Game over. The arch-rival Redskins walked away victorious, 13-7.

The Cowboys had been predicted by quite a few to be contenders for the Super Bowl. However, they would eventually lose seven out of the next eight games and finish the season with a dismal 6-10 record overall. Romo himself would suffer a broken clavicle in the sixth game of the season and be knocked out for the season. Head coach Wade Phillips would be fired and replaced by Jason Garrett, who remains the current head coach of the Cowboys.

So what does any of this have to do with the average fan wanting a replacement for Tony Romo over a couple of losses that just so happened to occur in the waning minutes of the season openers from the last two years? Simply put: Tony Romo has acquired the reputation of a choker.

Losing close games and making mistakes are one thing, but it appears that Romo has been more prone to errors and losing close games, especially when they matter (although one could probably argue that almost all games matter and for various reasons). And those will undoubtedly be pointed out by Cowboys fans and members of the Dallas media in the coming days.

-- Like the time he fumbled the ball for a 19-yard (perhaps) game-winning field goal with just over a minute to go in the wild card playoff game in 2007 against the Seattle Seahawks.

-- Like the time he threw an interception to end further playoff hopes the following year against the New York Giants in a divisional playoff game.

-- Like when he committed three turnovers in a disastrous loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in December 2008, stopping the Cowboys' from entering the playoffs that season.

-- Like the following season's horrific performance against the Minnesota Vikings, where Romo threw an interception and fumbled the ball away twice.

-- Like the fact that Tony Romo's December record -- the months ramping up to the playoffs, arguably the most important time to win games -- is 7-10.

If one doubts that Tony Romo's "choker" label might not be liberally applied in various media venues throughout the country, there is a certainty that it will find industrial strength adhesion in Texas, causing some to maybe even consider becoming fans of the Houston Texans, who won their opener in fine fashion by defeating the Peyton Manning-less Indianapolis Colts, 34-7. Because if there was an important game for Romo to help win, especially after the team's poor showing last season, it was the first game of the 2011 regular season, if only to show that the Cowboys had put an embarrassing year behind them.

Instead, they find a mirror reflecting the last-minute loss that heralded a truly disappointing season. And nobody enjoys an unattractive reflection...

And though some may point out that at least they lost to the New York Jets in New York on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, something that the media there can certainly use metaphorically in recounting the comeback victory, that will serve as little solace to the fans of America's Team.

Cowboys fans and the Dallas press are accustomed to championship caliber football, having watched their home team play in eight Super Bowls, winning five Lombardy Trophies during their storied history. They have not been silent about Romo's caving under pressure in the past and have been adamantly vocal about the gagging sound coming from the Dallas franchise in the past five seasons. There is no doubt that they will be calling for that Heimlich Maneuver for much of the foreseeable future.

(photo credit: summertx, Creative Commons)

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