National Football League

Fans feel Romo's pain — well, to a point

Published Sep. 23, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

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A lone report had Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo sobbing at his Meadowlands locker after a Week 1 gag of his making.

This seems highly unlikely, knowing him, as he has endured much uglier times in a Dallas uniform with nary a tear — most recently, in that Jets aftermath that had him being hailed as average, not clutch, not a leader, incapable of winning big games.

And all he had to do was risk his life.

Romo again became a rock star by playing through and leading the Cowboys to a come-from-behind victory in San Francisco with a fractured rib and punctured lung. Sounds ballsy, right?

I thought so, too. Until my sister-in-law the doctor — which  probably is why my in-laws like her better — explained to me how lung punctures work.

Imagine two plastic bags. One is inside the other. The inside one is filled with water. If there is a hole in the inside bag, even a tiny hole, the water leaks out and the bag eventually collapses.

In a lung, it is air leaking out, and there is nowhere to go in the chest cavity. It is hard to breathe. It hurts like hell. And if you are not careful, it collapses, which apparently hurts like worse since you can barely breathe and all.

“That was a very severe injury that he was able to play with,” Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said. “Certainly was a courageous effort by him to come back and play.”

What the Romo situation does is reveal the “but” hiding in all of this safety talk.

After an offseason of ad naseum talk of player safety and protecting quarterbacks and taking violent hits out of games, it is clear that we care about safety right until we don’t.

Until the receiver coming across the middle is flattened and we wait for replays. Until the blitzing linebacker sacks the quarterback, or until we hear the "courageous" story of the guy playing through the aftermath.

“What we do is barbaric, and it is why you all love it,” linebacker Bradie James said. “Why do you pretend otherwise?”

Atlanta Falcons cornerback Dunta Robinson has to be asking the same question. He at very least has to be thinking “Wait, I was fined $40,000 for something that was far less dangerous than what Tony Romo is being called courageous for doing? What the hell?”

He actually should appeal on those two sentences.

I say this not to take anything away from what Romo did in San Fran, which truly was gutsy. Dude is a tough little cuss, always has been. For all the criticisms of him — playboy, too much golf, not a vocal leader — nobody ever accused him of being soft, or not anybody that knows him.

The Cowboys said they have not decided whether Romo plays Monday against Washington, though he was roundly praised for being the kind of guy who would be fighting to go.

Twitter turned into a 3-wood to bash Cutler, current NFL players lining up to say how they would have to be carted off in body bags and openly suggesting he had asked out out of cowardice or indifference.

News that he had a partially torn meniscus hardly helped his cause since a) the only danger is pain b) NFL players have played through this and c) NFL lore is littered with Romos, guys playing with concussions and separated shoulders and pain and apparently now punctured lungs.

So we praise Romo, and punish Cutler.

Probably deservedly so, at least a little.

Replays of the blind-side hit by Carlos Rogers that broke Romo’s rib and punctured his lung are brutal to watch. Almost as painful as watching Romo's celebration after his 77-yard pass that set up the winning field goal in overtime.

He is wincing. Walking like a 75-year-old man. Possibly crying.

His best friend on the team, Witten, said Romo had trouble breathing and nausea in addition to searing pain.

“That is who he is, that is why he is so respected,” Witten said.

Think about that for a second, and then recognize the truth in what Witten said.

What Romo did by playing through pain and endangering himself is what we want from our athletes, how they become legendary and loved. Media were verbally slobbering all over Romo for being a leader while kicking Robinson’s butt for being a menace to society.

“It’s different from the perspective of you make the decision” Witten said. “You don’t decide to get hit in head to head. You are defenseless. What Tony did was him deciding.”

Point taken, and valid.

But if the point is player safety, then what does it matter who is endangering it, opponent or self? The answer is we care about safety right until we don’t, until that moment Romo is engineering a dramatic victory with a punctured lung that stirs our imagination.

“The legend begins,” James said.

At what price, though? And is it still courageous if the little bag is jarred Monday against a Redskins team gunning for his ribs and Romo is lying on the ground struggling to breathe?

Romo did not talk Thursday to answer the question.

My guess is, if he asked Cutler, he’d tell him pain is better than being viewed as a coward.

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