National Football League

Someone finally has Romo's ear at Valley Ranch

Published Oct. 1, 2014 1:09 p.m. ET

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In this most improbable start to the 2014 season, it appears the Dallas Cowboys have finally found a voice that resonates with Tony Romo. With all the quarterback's success from a statistical standpoint, he's never truly had any respect for authority.

I've argued before that his offseason trips to basketball games with head coach Jason Garrett aren't a good look. It's hard for a head coach in this league to have ultimate authority when he loves being pals with his starting quarterback. And that's why bringing in his former mentor Scott Linehan to call offensive plays looks like a genius move by Garrett. 

The arrangement he had with last season's playcaller, Bill Callahan, was doomed from the start. This was a Jerry Jones decision that didn't sit well with Garrett. Romo may have been OK with it initially because he seemed to have more authority in this offense than ever. Garrett likely took over the playcalling duties after the bye week last season, but no one wanted to confirm it out of respect to Jones. 

Now, the Cowboys have exactly what Jones hoped to accomplish by asking Garrett to focus on being a head coach. You can simply observe the sideline and see that Garrett has a lot more involvement with his entire roster. And though he arrived with a pass-first reputation, Linehan has been committed to establishing the running game. 

Through four games, DeMarco Murray is on pace to break Eric Dickerson's single-season record of 2,105 rushing yards. Murray's not going to keep this astounding pace, but he's not showing any signs of slowing down at this point. He has 534 yards on 98 carries. For some perspective, Barry Sanders had 327 yards after four games in 1998. That's the year he cracked the 2,000-yard barrier with 2,053. Linehan has wisely stuck with what's working, which has made life easier on Romo. And it was interesting to hear Romo go out of his way to praise the new playcaller after Sunday's win over New Orleans. Keep in mind that the question I asked him was about Rob Ryan, not Linehan.

"Scott is as good as I've ever seen adjusting after a series," Romo said. "He deserves a lot of credit for the in-game adjustments that he does. He took a play and ran the same protections, but just changed the routes based simply on a drive. We did that multiple times today and it worked out wonderful." 

Romo famously checked out of run calls in a crushing home loss to the Green Bay Packers last season. He then repeated that in the season-opening loss to the 49ers. He had a tendency to want the ball in his hands in those situations. And quite frankly, Garrett didn't do enough to correct that tendency. It now appears Linehan has broken through with Romo. 

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After the crowd around Jerry died down late Sunday night, he talked about what he's calling the "perfect triangle" that includes Garrett, Linehan and Romo. He gave a long explanation, but then he said something that really grabbed my attention. 

"When [Linehan] says, 'Tony, don't do something,' Tony doesn't do it.'" 

I don't think Jones intended that to be an indictment of his head coach, but it was an interesting statement. And if it's really true, maybe this could be a special season.

It's easy to understand why a prodigiously talented quarterback would try to do too much. Maybe the Cowboys have finally found a way to rein him in. 

But no matter how good this thing looks right now, I'm going to tap the brakes on this "perfect triangle" theory until this team's in the playoffs. 

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