The AT&T Stadium crowd of 90,909 turned as silent as mourners, their quarterback on the ground in pain, and their season in about the same shape. This whirlwind season for Tony Romo will come to a close for good and he can now rehab and try to regroup next season.
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The injury, suffered late in the third quarter of Thursday’s 33-14 loss to the Carolina Panthers, will sideline the 35-year-old Romo for the remaining five games of the regular season.
The Cowboys are all but out of the division race at 3-8, especially with Romo’s injury. This is Romo’s second game back from a broken collarbone that kept him out of all of Dallas’ games save for the first two.
Safety Kurt Coleman, from Ohio State, picked off Romo’s second pass of the game and took it 36 yards for a score to help the Panthers become the 16th National Football League team to start a season 11-0.
ARLINGTON, Texas – When Tony Romo returned to the Dallas Cowboys’ lineup Sunday against the Miami Dolphins, the thought was that Matt Cassel would return to the shadows as the backup quarterback.
During Thursday’s match, Romo was not able to show his best performance, as he was only able to throw three interceptions, which included two returned touchdowns.
Graham Gano kicked four field goals, including one from 50 yards, for Carolina who were playing on the US Thanksgiving holiday for the first time in franchise history. Coming off the bench Thursday, he completed 13 of 19 passes for 93 yards and had a 2-yard touchdown pass to Cole Beasley in the fourth quarter.
For the Cowboys something that would be extraordinary now is if the team could actually win a game without Romo.
Romo finished 11 of 21 for 106 yards with a 27.2 passer rating. They don’t play again until December 7 against the Washington Redskins, and players are off until Wednesday. The Cowboys wore all white uniforms and the Panthers were dressed in solid blue for the Thanksgiving Day game, part of the Nike Color Rush movement. This time, Kuechly jumped to haul in a pass over the middle intended for tight end Jason Witten.
“We obviously can not, I don’t care what kind of effort you have, have the kind of turnovers that we had and ever hope to compete against a team like Carolina”, Dallas owner Jerry Jones said.
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When last season ended the Cowboys, who went 13-5, thought they knew what a Super Bowl team looked like. “…As for Dallas, the Cowboys were no road block and really not much of a speed bump”. In the receiving end, Devin Funchess had 64 yards and one touchdown in four receptions while Jerricho Cotchery added 57 yards in four catches.
