Romo had Jones over a barrel.
The Cowboys were down to a few thousand in cap space; the only way to free it up was to restructure Romo's deal.
There were no perceived QB alternatives in the Draft and no established starters in FA or being dangled as trade bait.
Romo demanded to be paid for doing Jones the "favor" of restructuring.
Before we go all Holier than Thou on Romo, let's all remember that the NFL is, first and foremost, a business and not everyone has a wife pulling down $30 or $40 mill a year to cushion the blow from taking one for the team.
Just to be clear, I have never been a fan of Tony Romo, don't particularly like the way he comes across in public and don't think he would be worth this money in the open market.
But this wasn't an "open market" transaction . It was a deal that Jones felt he had to make and, therefore, for this narrow window, Romo was, at this time, "worth it" to Jones, which, in this instance, redefined the "market."
You win some, you lose some. In this case, Romo won and Jones lost.
As much as I always appreciate your thoughts PFS74, I personally tend to disagree on some of them in this instance. For one thing here are Romo's stats (as much I will definitely agree that he has tended to be a choke artist and needs to make better decisions):
W/L---55/38 winning percentage of 60% of the time
QB rating career in 7 seasons---95.6 QBR
TD to INT 2/1 (his biggest problem..the untimely INT, but still an
average 2 to 1)
Career completion rate--64.7 %
These aren't exactly the kind of stats that scream "JaMarcus Russel," "Ryan Fitzpatrick," or "Mark Sanchez" at you. These are the kinds of stats that certainly qualify for an NFL status of 2nd--3rd tier of top Quarterbacks. The fact that he's proven to be able to score points and lead his team to a consistent competitor for a playoff berth pretty much justifies the new AAV of 17 million a year for QB's of this caliber. We're going to continue to see these ranges of 17-18-19 million AAV for QB's who have done even LESS than Tony Romo, so we'd better get used to it. It really isn't Tony Romo himself, but the whole shock factor that an "average QB" is now making 17 million a year that should be shocking people. The problem is that this is now acceptable market value for QB's in this range. We're also going to see much worse QB's making 15-16 million AAV in the future. It's just the way that it is now.
And, unfortunately my wife is a Cboys fan, so I end up hearing about them a bit too much. Romo and Jerry Jones have been discussing an extension for at least a season and a half now, so this is not exactly news. You can do a quick google search and see that they were discussing an extension pretty heavily from around the NFL owners meetings on, which occurred after FA started.
The Cowboys could have done a lot of other things from cutting the joke that is backup OL Doug Free at a 10 million dollar cap hit this year, to cutting Miles Austin (or forcing him to take a pay cut), or choosing to either pass on OR extend Anthony Spencer to clear up any cap space that they deemed "needed," instead of choosing to tag him 2 yrs in a row for an 11 million dollar hit. There were indeed more options available. They have been saying since before the FA period that they were heavy players last off-season and were not going into the mindset that they were going to be heavy-players 2 yrs in a row. There actually weren't even any negotiations with Romo until after FA had already started, which leads one to believe that they weren't as bent over the barrel as you may be seeing it, despite their low salary cap space..otherwise, they would have started negotiations earlier and/or decided to choose some other options in terms of potentially freeing up cap space. It seems that they simply decided in some form that they weren't going to compete in the FA period very much this year, just the same as PIT, NYG, and many other teams.
Of course there may be truth in both of our opinions, and we'll likely never know the difference, but I'm not seeing 17 million AAV as that big of a deal for today's QB in the NFL. It seems like many are trying to make this out to be a "Mark Sanchez" type of piss poor signing. It was either continue on with their QB who has a career rating of 95.6 and constantly has them competing for a playoff berth in the last week or two of the season or WC round, or choose to start over again with an unproven rookie.
I'm not sure about one side losing and the other winning etc, or anything about "having someone over a barrel," but I respect your thougts and opinion.
