Tony Romo’s Cowboys career ended with a choice that still hangs over the franchise: keep fighting for a job in Dallas, or walk away rather than stand in the way of what he believed was a Super Bowl push.
Romo said on Pardon My Take that leaving the Cowboys for another team was on the table, but the bigger question was whether that would even feel right after everything he had already given to the game.
"But at the end it was like, I could go somewhere else and do it. Because I was like, I got to win a Super Bowl.
It's literally what you play the game for. Nothing else matters.
And it just was like, but would that be the same? If I went somewhere else and did it?
Because at that point I'd known the game at such a high level. In my last 20 to 25 games, we were pretty successful when healthy.
But I was getting injured more often," the former Cowboys star quarterback declared.
That crossroads came after 13 seasons in Dallas, a run that included four Pro Bowl selections and two trips to the NFL Divisional Round. Even as Jerry Jones and the front office began leaning toward Dak Prescott, Romo still had three paths in front of him: stay and battle for QB1, retire, or try to continue elsewhere.
He chose retirement.
By the time he stepped away, Romo had played 156 games, thrown for 34,183 passing yards and 248 passing touchdowns. He said the physical toll mattered just as much as the football decision.
"The body breaks down in some ways through the years. I think it was as simple as it just wouldn't feel as important; it would be important to me, but it was for the people I was around. All the fans that we had," he added.
Dallas still hasn’t won a Super Bowl since Romo left. Jones and Prescott now have their best chance in the upcoming 2026 season, and the question lingers: can they finish the job Romo walked away hoping someone else would complete?
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