Tony Romo Changed Sports Television. Now He’s out of a Job.
2026-10-02 19:54:00 • 50:34
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Hello media consumers.
Welcome to a special edition of the press box.
An emergency edition of the press box, if you will.
It's Brian Curtis along with Joel Anderson.
And we are here today to welcome Tony Romo to the Ringer podcast network.
Huh.
Well, can you, can you, can you, do you think you can?
I bet, I bet Bill would love to give him a podcast.
We have nothing to report.
Huh.
Though cousin Sal does have his number.
So is this, would they consider this an open invitation then to reach out with, we don't
get paid enough to make those kind of decisions.
We'll do that.
Well, if he wants to come on the show then, how about that, that's open invitation.
Our Friday news dump today is that Tony Romo is out at CBS.
It is the old mutual parting of ways, Joel.
A bit seemed inevitable.
The statement says CBS sports and Tony Romo have mutually agreed to part ways.
We thank Tony for his contributions over the past nine years, nine years and wish him
the best moving forward.
CBS also says JJ Wat will continue to partner with Jim Nancy Tracy Wilson on our lead NFL
announced team for the rest of the season.
Your first reactions to the ouster of Tony Romo.
I'm surprised that people lose their job over what he's losing his job for in this society.
I mean, that's my first reaction that I was like, it clearly seemed like it was going
in this way.
Like, we both talked about it didn't seem likely that they were going to bring him back.
Like they had already moved on to JJ Wat.
How do you devote him and bring back Tony?
And you know, it didn't seem like they were supportive, right?
It just seemed like Tony Romo was on his own handling whatever, you know, was demanded
of him in the circumstance and it's CBS had moved on.
So I'm not surprised, but the surprise to me is just how pure it is to fire somebody
for DUI or DWI in today's society.
But you know, maybe I'm wrong about what the standards offer everybody else other than
people that work in politics now.
What about you?
So go back to that O.W.I. as it's officially called Wisconsin operating while operating
a vehicle while intoxicated.
Okay.
Oh, not OVW.
It's called OW.
O.W.I.
Okay.
That was on July 23rd.
Yeah.
And Romo later pleaded no contest to that charge.
To me, what really got Tony Romo was not the charge.
It was the video.
Yeah.
You did say that.
I remember when this happened, you're like, the video was going to leave an impression.
Right.
I think there's two things that are the reason that he is leaving CBS today.
One is the video, which again, those those body camera videos are meant to protect people
that are stopped by the police.
They're also meant to protect the police in case somebody charges them with something
that they infected not do.
But what was the result of that in this case?
It was just incredibly embarrassing.
And there was just this video that got tweeted over and over again and meamed into oblivion
of Tony Romo.
And again, not to excuse Tony Romo for anything.
Of course.
None of that.
I'm just saying, I think that hits very, very differently than a mug shot of Tony Romo,
smiling sheepishly at the camera.
Do you think people are still talking about?
I haven't seen that video.
And maybe it's because I'm not on the racism app anymore.
The racism app is what I call Twitter.
So I'm not on that app anymore.
I haven't seen that video though.
I haven't seen it meme anymore.
I thought kind of like with everything else that something happens, the new cycle moves
on.
Maybe your bosses don't forget.
Maybe people within your circle don't forget.
But I just think it seemed like everybody had moved on.
I thought I think they don't forget it a conservative network like CBS.
That doesn't like drama.
To your other point, it did seem like this was a fate of complete.
From the very first edition of the NFL today on CBS, when James Brown was standing there
at the set in Minneapolis, with Jim Nance and Tony's replacement, JJ Watten said, Jim
Nance and JJ Watten, those names just roll off the tongue.
JB is not someone who goes rogue.
Like that just felt like CBS saying, these are the guys now.
Maybe this will take a couple of weeks to make an announcement.
Maybe we've got some negotiating to do behind the scenes, but these are the guys now.
You know, and we've talked about this before, if Tony Roma was Charles Barkley, this isn't
happening, right?
But the thing is that he's expendable now.
There you already displeased a lot of people who talked about how he had not improved at
his craft.
Some people even were treading into the ground of finding him annoying.
If none of that is going on, if he was the star that he was in 2019, they don't find
him for this, right?
Completely agree.
Yes, two parts here.
There's the O.W.I. arrest and the video.
And then there's this idea that Tony Roma is not great.
And maybe worse than that, that he's not trying to be great, that it didn't feel like he
was going out there and trying to improve as an announcer.
A guy who's a number one guy on CBS is calling huge games and who was being paid a ton of
money by CBS to call games.
Right.
I think you need both of those ingredients to get to where we are today.
Yeah, and it's interesting because if people don't think you're giving effort because
one of the things, you back me up here if I'm right or tell me if I'm wrong, one of the
things that made John Madden like so iconic is that it really seemed like he worked really
hard and spent all his time like going over the game plans, talking to people that he,
you know, that he lived this job with, whereas with Tony, it was like, he was really good at
it, but it didn't seem like it was a part of this life that he devoted to it.
Now, you could even say that for Chris Collinsworth, like it's like he, he is steeped in this game.
He spends his free time working on this and getting better at it and learning all the
data, talking to all the people, watching all the film, right?
Is that, is that what you think?
One thing I've learned in covering sports television is the people that are great work
their asses off.
Yeah.
That's the thing they have in common.
And look, you can say that about a lot of places in life, but in sports TV, it is a grind.
Yeah.
It is a grind.
And when they see other people in the industry that they don't think are grinding like they
are or suspect aren't grinding like they are, that's the thing that gets them.
Well, that's the thing they cannot tolerate because they know how much of their lives they
have to devote to making that game look and sound good on TV.
Well, is the, and you know, far be it from us to talk out of school, is the assumption
or allegation or accusation that Tony Romo was not grinding tape?
Look, all you had to do was watch television.
And over the last couple of years, there were times when it didn't seem like he knew the
names of the linemen that were playing in the games.
Yeah.
All about Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow.
He knew about the receivers, but you just listen to him call a game and be like, did you
ask about the guards and the tackles in this game?
Yeah.
Like Chris Collins was giving me that.
John Madden, sure as hell gave us that back in the day.
It just felt like he was going in and studying if he was, you know, to the extent he was studying
was in a very, very narrow way.
And then the other complaint about him, which I think was true was in 2017 when he started
this job.
He was fresh off the field.
Yep.
So he just knew stuff.
And then we get along the way and it feels like, hey, are you now like working twice
as hard because you're not coming into the booth with knowledge about all these players
that you played against?
I mean, we're nine years in now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, it changes so fast.
I mean, part of another part of my job here at the ringer is to talk about football.
And people think there's an assumption because I used to play football in the 90s.
But I know all the verbiage and like, it was going on out there.
And it's not true.
Like I'm going to have to go to film school or I might have to grind tape with people because
like the game can change that quickly on you.
Like from not just from the turnover and personnel, but just the way the game is played, the
formations they use.
Like, again, this is my rudimentary knowledge.
There's so much more motion for instance in football now, like which is sort of a take
from the CFL.
And like, wasn't a thing that happened when I played.
Like, it was like exotic to put sense of out of emotion in 1997.
And so yeah, you can fall out of that information really, really quickly.
And it's just surprising that an NFL quarterback that that would ever happen to them, right?
Well, it's fine to talk about this because that's just all jobs.
Like if you and I were on here talking about politics and we're talking about the Obama
coalition, we would sound hopelessly out of step and out of touch with political
reality today.
And I'm sure a CPA thinks the same way and somebody who works in home construction and
everything else.
And just so happens, this guy is being paid $17 million a year to call football games
on television.
And we're all sitting there watching it.
And you could just feel that Tony Romo was not devoting himself to his craft in the
way that Tom Brady is.
Chris Collins worth is.
Those kind of guys are.
And by the way, this goes back to Tony Romo being a Dallas Cowboys quarter.
I just think again, I don't want to be one of those guys.
It's like, oh, you're lazy and you don't have the stuff it takes to win.
But as a Cowboys fan, I really love Tony Romo.
It was very apparent that he was built differently than Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.
And I'm not talking about talent.
I'm talking about it just meant something to him that was fundamentally different than
it meant to those guys.
That makes sense.
He's incapable of giving off try hard.
And he actually is doing all this stuff.
And he just can't fake it in the way that a lot of well, not fake it.
But he just can't, you know, they always used to say it's affect is what you're saying.
Well, because people used to say that a bit.
And this is a weird analogy.
Tracey McGregor.
It just seemed like he was a little bit, you know, lack of daisicle in terms of his opposed
to Kobe.
But my thought was, you don't get to be Tracey McGregor unless you're working really
hard.
Right?
Because you just can't become Tracey McGregor.
And I don't know, I mean, Tony Romo, I thought was a very good quarterback if you look at
his similarity scores.
Why was I looking at Tony Romo's similarity scores today?
But similar to Joe Namist, the God Steve McNair, Mark Brunel, some Jim Carly and Roger
Stullback, I mean, he, I just, yeah, I just wonder if, and if he would ever tell us,
like if Tony, please come on here and talk to us about like what your prep was like.
But I just wonder if like he just doesn't give off the same effect as those guys, right?
I think that's part of it.
But when you go through the game and you're not saying the lineman by their names, you
don't even have like one or two things to say about the left tackle, about the stud defensive
in.
I'm like, am I sure you know that?
Yeah.
That's right.
Wouldn't you get that in if you knew that?
I mean, that, that can be as big a part of the game as a quarterback.
He's a very, very quarterback centric announcer.
Yeah.
He was calling predominantly AFC games in a time of my homes and Alan and burrow.
Like, that's where the action was.
Right.
And by the way, that gave him a lot of his mojo over those years.
He had some great games to call some really epic playoff games between those guys.
Right.
And that's like Tony Romo was kind of in a way.
It was the guy you wanted, right?
And he could kind of paper over his lack of interest in the rest of the field.
Yeah.
But you're right.
I think there's a little bit of affect mixed in there somewhere.
I think some of it's, and he was like, again, he was very much like that as a quarterback
too, right?
Yeah.
He was not screaming a person on the sidelines.
He was not throwing iPads like Tom Brady.
Well, also, I mean, remember he got hit with going to Cancun or whatever.
Well, Cabo with Jessica Simpson.
It's some point I'm going to.
Oh, yeah, Jason.
Yeah, on, on, on, on during a by week, right?
And it was just like, it was a way to sort of undercut the idea that he cared about the
game in a way that the greats did.
But I would also say to, and this is really unfortunate for him if this is the case.
It's really tough to fake it or to not be the madness sort of guy that people want in that
role today because fans are just so much more educated than ever before.
They know so much more about football than they ever did even 10 years ago.
There's access to film people who like, I don't know why a regular person would watch
all 22, but that shit happens.
You know, I agree.
I don't know either, but it does happen.
And we demand more of these guys because of that.
Yeah, that's right.
Because our bait.
I'm again, like you and I just listen to the rear NFL show, listen to Soulac, read Barnwell
and you're like, just by osmosis, not even really paying attention.
I know more about football.
I can throw out some terms, even if I'm kind of faking it.
And we show what the mesh points.
Yeah, if you're an announcer, you kind of have to meet me halfway.
Yeah.
I can kind of tell something.
I also think his trajectory is very important here because he started off so hot as an
announcer.
Yeah.
Just like he started out as an undrafted quarterback.
And then what happened?
He levels off.
Yep.
Right.
He doesn't take that next step.
So when you see somebody like that, both as a player and as a broadcaster, you're like,
I'm projecting you as an Alzheimer.
Right.
And then when I check in in year nine and you're kind of the same guy you were in year
one, that makes him seem like I think that that makes it seem more disappointing than if
he'd just been this guy the whole time.
That's right.
That's fair.
I mean, he was a he was a phenomenon.
It's really hard to, I mean, it's just shocking that we're at this point now, but I remember
when Tony Romo got on there and he was a phenomenon calling out the plays before they
happened all that little, that little, you know, magic trick, right?
And, you know, it's just quick.
This is crazy how quickly things can turn on you.
I love that magic trick because I remember talking to people in the industry in 2017 when
he started and they're like, well, you know, my guy could do that.
He could do that if he wanted to.
It was like, well, he has a magic trick.
Like, sorry, you know, he did it.
He was willing to look dumb if he was wrong.
But most of the time he was right.
Yep.
Yeah.
I remember the Wall Street Journal did a piece that year that like tallied up Romo's
predictions.
Maybe it was maybe his 2018 like to tallied up like what percentage of his predictions
he got right.
And it was shockingly high.
It's actually pretty good.
I want to go over his history with you for just a second here.
Okay.
2016, Tony Romo was the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys.
In the preseason that year, he heard his back.
Remember that.
And Dak Prescott took over the starting job.
Tony Romo's on the shelf for a while.
Everybody thinks he's going to come back and guess what happens?
Dak Prescott and Zekela and their rookie years lead the Cowboys to a 13 and three season.
Cowboys are really good.
So when Romo comes back, he actually doesn't get his starting job back.
Sure.
Which is shocking.
And he gave this speech in Dallas when it was clear that the Cowboys were going to put
him back in the lineup.
This is November 2016.
It was like something that happens in a movie.
I've never seen a quarterback say, hey, I need to give a speech and concede that I'm
not the guy anymore in the middle of the season.
And Romo said this of Dak Prescott, he's earned the right to be our quarterback.
As hard as that is for me to say, he's earned that right.
And he continues, I think Dak knows I have his back and I know he has mine.
It was like this really emotional moment because people in Dallas are really attached.
Wasn't he tearing up?
I feel like he was crying when you get this right?
Yeah.
It was very emotional.
Yeah.
Very emotional.
So that's the end of his run in Dallas.
The following season 2017, CBS decides that Phil Sims, who was not very good, was not
going to be their number one color analyst anymore.
And they hired Tony Romo straight off the field or off the bench and make him their number
one guy immediately, which is an absolutely crazy thing to do, objectively crazy thing
to do.
Yeah.
I mean, I mean, it was just a testament to the power of the Cowboy star.
I thought, I mean, even though it sounded crazy and people that are on TV, you know, at
the time, I didn't follow this as closely as I did.
I'm just like, well, you know, he's former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and that what happens,
you know, Fox has this thing called no Kyron necessary when they hire certain people.
You get Derek Eater.
Yep.
You get big, big pop.
You obviously get Tom Brady.
Like you don't even need to put the name on the screen and tell you who it is.
Tony Romo was pretty close to that.
Yeah.
In 2017.
Remember, he was doing commercials.
I think it was Corona and Direct TV at that point.
I mean, again, it was that, I mean, because Tony Romo was not just, I mean, even while he
was playing, he was a celebrity.
I think that what do you think it was the Jessica Simpson thing that elevated him beyond
the plus Cowboys quarterback?
Yeah, plus Cowboys quarterback, but like that took it to the next level because that
put him in tabloids.
A whole other group of people are paying attention to him.
That's just something that didn't happen to everybody.
The trip to Mexico was a big part of it to the playoff disaster in Seattle.
Oh, man.
I felt so bad for him.
He was just kind of like, he had a lot of strange notoriety about him.
Yeah.
Even when he was a really good NFL quarterback, the Des non-catch in Green Bay.
Yeah.
Was it Tony Romo pass?
There was just a lot there.
And you mentioned that we mentioned the Mexico thing.
The other one was there was this game where they lost to the Eagles in the last week of
the season.
And they had to beat the Eagles to make the playoffs.
And they got killed.
And when Romo met the sports writers, he said, if this is the worst thing that ever happens
to me, then I'll have lived a pretty good life.
And I remember at the time defending him because of course, he just got killed in Dallas.
Oh, yeah.
The next day.
I mean, the quarterback in the Cowboys was like, hey, man, when is the Eagles the worst thing
to have to do?
I mean, then I got it pretty good.
And I was like, guys, take this.
This is a guy telling the truth to you.
He's admitting that he's built differently than Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.
They would never say that, right?
They would never allow themselves probably even to think something like that.
This dude just built differently.
Take this as a very honest self-assessment from Tony Romo.
Yeah.
But again, that just created this idea that Romo was not just a really, really good quarterback
at the Cowboys, a famous quarterback, but also a guy who just had stuff attached to him
in the anyway.
There was a vulnerability to him that I think that also because, look, I hate it the Cowboys
growing up.
Like, I just didn't, you know, I'm going to be clear to me on this podcast before what?
Yeah.
But, you know, I'll tell you a couple of things.
Well, I'm not going to get too much of it.
Living in Dallas, the DFW area for like eight years, that helped to change it.
I really didn't like the way people attacked Tony Romo because I just thought people were
being stupid.
I was like, no, he's a really good quarterback.
It's hard to win a Super Bowl.
That's why Damirino didn't win one.
You know, sometimes, obviously, Damirino was a much better quarterback than Tony Romo,
but it's hard to win that.
And I felt like he just took the burden of that.
He was blamed for that unfairly.
But we're thinking about this vulnerability.
Let's think about who defended Tony Romo for a second.
Torell Owens.
He made Torell Owens cry and pulled it back.
That's my quarterback, man.
Yeah.
I mean, Tore Owens who hated Jeff Garcia, Donovan, and then get along and so got into a fight
with Hugh Douglas.
He was a notable, like, locker room cancer.
Or at least he, you know, he was always in the militia, but Tony Romo made him cry.
And so just said there was something about Tony Romo.
Now, I think that's also part of what came through on TV.
Like he just seemed very approachable, like just sort of a guy that not lucked up into
this, but just, hey, I'm here and I'm going to enjoy it.
And sometimes, you know, I'm just an everyday guy and shit, sometimes I'm just going to drop
this extra point hold, right?
Absolutely.
And that's why I defended him too, because I was just like, hey, this guy's actually
being honest.
What do we want?
Do we want athletes to like speak and fake cliches like, oh, this is really disappointing.
We'll get him next time.
Or do you want this moment where you're like, oh, we just learned something about this
dude today.
And we want to reward him for that.
Right?
You don't, you don't have to like the sentiment.
You can totally say, hey, look, I understand this is not the worst thing that happened in
your life, but you're paying millions of dollars.
You're playing for the Cowboys.
You understand the deal here, right?
I totally understand that.
But I'm like, you just learned something about it.
Like, if he's willing to give you that, take it.
Learn from it.
Understand him.
That's guy.
It was the nice version of LeBron calling people broke after he lost the finals.
And tomorrow, you guys are going to have to wake up as yourselves.
And I'm going to go live my life where Tony Rome was like, hey, this is the best thing.
It's not too bad.
That's a much nicer way, a much more humane way of explaining it to people.
So much more so.
So 2017, he's on CBS.
He's the number one guy.
He's doing his predictions.
Yeah.
He's really good.
It works.
Shockingly well on television.
Perhaps because of some of that vulnerability.
You and I were talking the other day.
I was like, what if ESPN went out and got Travis Kelsey next year and just put him on TV?
Yeah.
We'd be like, man, is that going to work?
Can this, can somebody just learn television and week one of year one?
Yeah.
Tony Romeo did.
Yeah.
He did.
I remember the AFC title game that first year was Patriots versus Jaguars.
Oh, man.
Oh, man, oh, man.
Oh, man.
Jaguars got him.
Yeah, man.
And the Jags had an early lead and Romeo doing that game and it was like, he feels like the right guy for a moment like this.
Mm-hmm.
He feels like a number one guy.
And that's some of what it is, right?
Like JJ Watt in year two, he's in year two now.
He wasn't as good as Romeo was in year one.
He's just not.
If you think that you're wrong.
He's just not.
I'm not even sure JJ Watt in year two is as good as Tony Romeo is right now.
Yeah.
Like, Romeo just had this presence about it.
And I think part of it was, he was excited to be there.
Yeah.
He was smiling.
He did not think of this as like, you know, oh, this is a terrible burden that I get to call the AFC game of the week.
He seemed happy.
Well, that's kind of why I'm just surprised.
And maybe I mean again, we're going to ride the fence here.
But I mean, do people really care about the offensive guards or do they want somebody that is conveying the enthusiasm and the excitement of being in a press box and watching it getting the opposite?
Because that's, I've always felt like that too.
Like, man, sometimes you're just like, man, I can't believe I'm doing this job, man.
It's so cool.
And Tony Romeo conveys that to people.
And, you know, like, he's like, I recognize that I'm privileged to be here.
But I guess the other side is that it's like, well, if it really is that much of a privilege and maybe you should indicate that you're working really hard at it.
So when you say, do people carry you talking about normal football fans, you talk about media critics.
Yeah.
Do you care about the guards?
Do you think I've been, I think I've been spoiled by the Collins worth.
Yep.
Types.
Like, I think when I learned something about that, you know how they always come back on NBC from the commercial.
And Chris calls me, I was like, might, let me tell you what, let me tell you what TJ Watt is doing to this left tackle right now.
And it's a little cut up.
And he explains it and shows the moves and everything.
And I'm like, I just feel smarter.
Have you watched that?
Sure.
30 seconds of tape.
Tony Romeo just didn't do that.
Right.
Right.
He just didn't do that.
But go back to your emotion point of view.
That is emotion was Tony Romeo superpower.
This job is not just about X's and knows.
It is about taking the things we feel when we're sitting at home watching a football game on the couch and dignifying them on television.
Yes.
Oh, I like that.
Yeah.
Tony Romeo was really good at that.
Oh, Jim.
I'm so nervous, Jim.
Here we go.
Was it corny?
Yes.
Was it grading after a few years?
Yes.
Do I think he was using his excitement to cover the fact that he might not have been as prepared as some other announcers?
Also, yes.
But it was a superpower.
He was good at it.
And guess what?
It worked.
It worked.
Like he was able to say, hey, this is a game that's not just about pulling guards and stuff like that.
This is a game that needs to be felt on television as well as explained.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, to convey the idea that man, all these guys and the how to like every there's million tens of thousands of people in the stadium, millions of people around the world are watching this game.
It hinges on this one play and somebody that can convey the like the tension in these moments.
I like that.
I enjoyed that.
Oh, Jim.
I'm so nervous, Jim.
Press boxes.
Let's we demand that we make Brian Curtis do his impersonations of Chris Collinsworth Tony.
I don't know what other ones you got.
We're going to do a special episode and Brian's going to drop all of his impersonations for you guys.
Oh, my God.
I need to work on that.
I got it.
I got it.
The college work was good.
The college work was good.
You should have done it when he was here.
That's me doing cousin Sal doing college work.
It's kind of a second second generation impersonation.
So go back to the emotions and the smiles.
That's why I believe Tony Romo changed television.
Wow.
Remember announcing in 2017 Chris Collinsworth on NBC was a gold standard.
Treyek went on Fox had not yet had the Renaissance.
Phil Sims on CBS was not biologically alive.
And over on ESPN we had way for it.
John Gruden.
Romo comes in.
He gets praised to the moon.
He's different.
He's new.
He's exciting to media critics like me.
And all of a sudden everybody starts to raise their game a little bit.
I mentioned the Eggman Renaissance, the Egg Manazons.
There's no way in hell that Troy Eggman in some part of his soul.
Was not fired up by the fact that Tony Romo was getting more praise than he was in 2017.
Well, yeah, that's the thing.
I guess it's just it's just shocking that.
You know, I know obviously you know that these guys are competitive.
I mean they're hyper competitive.
The most insanely competitive people in the world.
And can you just imagine like Troy Eggman who's been doing this job?
I mean since 25 years now.
25 years since I was in college, you know, just out of college.
And he's looking at Tony Romo and it's like what the fuck?
I've got to be emotional in front of you people now.
I've got to be excited for you people now.
And if you're Tony Robo you're like, I have three rings.
My career is a Dallas Cowboys quarterback.
I absolutely squashes this dudes.
And people are telling me that he's a better announcer than I am.
And the thing about Eggman was he didn't come in and do, oh Joe.
Oh, I'm so nervous.
His superpower turned out to be honesty.
Going and being a little brutal when he needed to about a coach or a quarterback.
True.
Tony could not do.
He had a different superpower.
He unleashed that.
All of a sudden we were like Troy Eggman's best in the business or right there.
He's really freaking great.
Can you take me back?
Because I don't remember what your thoughts were about Gruden.
Because you surprised the Gruden.
It was not a person credited with changing it because I mean he did the same kind of.
He was like not not a knockoff maddened, but like his enthusiasm was a part of the attraction.
It was.
And the whole spider wide been anything.
Yeah.
I think you saw him price straddling the world between X's and O's and getting up in his feelings
that we're talking about.
And the answers have to do.
I think the difference was money knife football on ESPN at that point was a really crappy package
of games.
That's right.
That's right.
It just was not as the prominent.
It felt like extra football rather than important football.
So I think that was part of it.
Also, I just think he was goofy.
It's weird to say that versus Roma, because Roma is also goofy and corny.
But just to me, whenever I watched Gruden in Toreco, again, what a given both men's trajectory
swallow, that is now a retrospect.
Exactly.
But think it and also Gruden and Sean McDonough did owe to that by the way.
But the idea that they were working together just seemed like Gruden was just, I don't know,
I never took him seriously as a broadcaster.
He was willing to laugh at himself or he was willing, he knew what people, the chucky thing
and the wake up at 417 in the morning.
That's, I mean, that is something that, I mean, for people that aren't old enough to remember,
when John Gruden was a head coach, the narrative was that he woke up at 417 in the morning
every morning when he was a coach, so he could get it there and get to the city.
Yeah.
Unlike those other coaches who roll in a noon, a glazer.
I mean, you know, Steve Spurry, Steve Spurry, we were involved.
I'm not willing to do that.
But yeah, it's just, yeah, it's just interesting because I just wondered if Gruden had anything to do
with changing that and it's just shocking that he was willing to give it all up in a way that people
not got to, he's remembered the way that he is, you know.
I guess in a way it was an interesting preview for his bar stool years, like he was willing to do bits
and commenting.
Obviously, there's some lot of reasons he's over on bar stool and not on,
basically, it worked any more, even though some people are weirdly trying to get it back.
You merged the bits with the racism.
He's a perfect place for him.
You found them, you found them magic.
You found them magic.
I found them in you.
Yeah, I worked for them.
So that was early Romo.
Some of the praise, I remember my friend Richard Dijts saying that he was going to be better
than John Madden as a broadcaster.
And I love Richard, but that's one of the times I wanted to do a wellness check.
I'm like, better than John Madden.
After a couple years, John Madden, the man who was not only revolutionary in terms of introducing
X's and O's and how football has played into a broadcast, but was also just like a great entertainer.
And that was one of the things about Romo.
We saw this later.
If the game was great, Romo was great.
If the game sucked, Romo sucked.
Madden, if the game sucked was like, I got this.
Yeah.
I'm funny.
I'm a comedian.
Oh, somebody's getting blown out in the Super Bowl.
We're doing Gatorade buckets now.
Like, I can just entertain you for the rest of this three hours.
This is one of my superpowers, right?
I'm just, I am just a genuinely entertaining person, even outside of a football telecast.
Romo, I think, relied on the big game.
He needed Patrick Mahomes going down the field in the fourth quarter to be great.
Yeah.
My man, you're mad as one of one.
That's a tough, that's a tough company.
That's like saying somebody's going to be Charles Barkley someday, you know.
And that role is just.
I love Richard.
I really do.
Yeah.
That's just like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Richard, I don't, I don't think you needed a wellness check.
I, I, I, I, I, I, I, what you're trying to do.
I get it.
It was just a take.
Yeah.
I mentioned the turn on Romo, which I think happens probably 21, 22 if I had to just
point at something that's hard to measure after the money, after the money.
The money happens right before the pandemic.
Mm hmm.
And there was a lot of stuff like, oh, man, if this had been, you know, if this had been a couple weeks later,
does Tony Romo really get that much?
Right.
If you remember, the money comes because ESPN was trying to steal him away from CBS.
Oh, that's right.
That's right.
ESPN had just done the Jason Witten and Booker Mobile experiment.
They were going to potentially pair Tony Romo with your test a tour.
This isn't we're now getting into interesting chapters of broadcasting history here.
Yeah.
I think they would have been great together, by the way.
I think it really works.
Mm hmm.
Pop together.
They didn't get him, but they drove the price up.
All of a sudden, $17 million a year was the new normal for a broadcaster.
Every sports TV executives had exploded at that moment.
It was like, dear God, what have we gotten into?
Mm hmm.
Right.
After that, all of a sudden, uh oh, he's not the shiny new toy anymore.
He's the highest paid broadcaster in the game.
We have expectations.
The money, when we know that you hit it big, it fucks it up for almost everybody.
And in sports, because then there's just a point.
It's like, all right, people want to see you earn it then.
You know what A-Rod was with the Rangers, right?
And he, he fought, signed that contract.
I do.
Yes, he is.
Right.
And I was there.
It was just like, he never could make anybody happy.
Because the money, the money was what elevated him and people.
All right.
They say you work $250 million.
Prove it.
And this is the side of the thing with Roma was a $250 million.
I don't know.
I think that was the, the A-Rod number.
That was a right number.
Yeah.
And so, which was crazy at the time.
I mean, it's still, I still kind of sounds crazy out.
But is that fair to Tony Roma?
No.
Because he earned it, right?
Like he was making that much money because one, he had been good.
And two, there was a market for it.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
I mean, I never felt bad for CBS that they were paying that much money.
I was always somebody who said like, I can criticize his performance because that's what, that's what.
That's what, that's what I do, right?
I'm going to watch television and tell you, do I think this guy's good or bad or in what ways do I find him deficient?
Mm-hmm.
And I certainly did that with Tony Roma.
But it was, to me, it was never the problem, it was never that he was making that much money.
Who cares?
Right.
Like, this is billions of dollars these networks are paying for the NFL.
You're not going to pay the lead announcer.
Yeah.
That much money to be the face of the network.
Right.
To carry this huge package for you along with Jim Nance.
Mm-hmm.
It, it, I, I wasn't really aware of what the salary scale was there.
And it did sound like a lot of money.
But, you know, I remember, once by the time when I used to listen to Daily Sports Talk Radio,
and somebody told me the Jim Romay, like $30 million a year.
And I was like, well, Jim Romayks, third, you know what I mean?
I was just like, these guys, I don't know how to quantify their value.
But I'm assuming that the TV executives do.
And if he made the 17 million, I was like, sounds about right.
And look, you know, quantify the values.
It's just a funny thing, right?
Because it was a one on one thing.
ESP was really desperate.
Mm-hmm.
The desperation would not pay off for a few years until he went and got pregnant.
Who's wrapped up in the story again.
Eight monocons.
Eight monocons.
The Eight Monocons.
And pay, even more than Tony Romo was making.
Mm-hmm.
But he will be remembered, I think, partly for changing the market.
Every now and sir.
Thank you, Mr. Romo.
Yeah, man.
You made me a lot more money.
Even people that didn't get to 17, they got a bump.
Mm-hmm.
Because all of a sudden, the going rate was different.
And then Brady comes in and gets 35.
And it's like, oh, this is now a really interesting thing.
This makes me want to see what would be easily reased made.
Because when I was a kid, when I was a kid, I was used to, the Houston Oilers one, you know, I guess CBS did AFC back in the day.
And so they, you and Houston Oilers one, you know, they went on the road because you could never watch them at home because they never saw a lot of NBC.
NBC, what have done the NBC?
Was NBC.
That's right.
Okay, it was NBC.
And they never, they never with a lead game.
Even until, until a little bit later, you know, when I was a teenager, but early on, they were always like the four string guys.
So, Beasley, we, I heard so many games called Bob Beasley Reese.
And I'm just, I would love to know what Beasley Reese made.
Do you think it was seven figures?
Oh, man.
I don't think so.
Probably that.
Oh, hell no.
Oh, man.
Beasley Reese made $200,000.
Was it six figures?
He made $200,000.
Beasley Reese right in and let us know what you made.
The world has changed so much since then.
So, Ramos Legacy.
We talked about the money.
Yep.
I think he will be known if this is it.
And he says, by the way, in a statement, which I should read to you because this is also interesting.
Yeah.
Proud of what I accomplished CBS Sports of the last nine years, I approached my role as a game analyst
that way I've approached everything in my life with a desire to win and be the best that I can be.
I'm going to use this time to take a break, something I've never done before, and focus on my health and my family
before moving on to my next opportunity.
I am grateful for my time with CBS Sports and for the continued support of my family and friends
as well as the NFL community and fans.
So, if he does take a break, and who knows if he ever comes back to broadcasting?
Because if you come back and you're not a number one guy, you really have to want to come back.
Yeah.
Because the money won't be the same, the games won't be the same, the Super Bowls won't be the same.
By the way, CBS calls the Super Bowl after this one.
So, they got to figure this out pretty much like.
Tony Robo would have been calling the 2028 Super Bowl.
Yeah.
He won't be anymore.
But to me, if I have to think of a legacy of him as an announcer, it's like that guy that plays football or basketball
who's not a Hall of Famer, but is exciting and changes the game in a substantial way.
When you look back and you're like, we needed this person at this particular time because they affected everyone
that came after them, even if they were not the greatest ever to do it.
We need to come up with the analogy for that now.
So, I was sitting there this morning and I was like, comparing Tony Robo to Michael Vick is really weird for 800 reasons,
but like, that's a really good one.
Something like that.
Something like that who came in and you're like, now playing quarterback is different than it was five minutes ago.
The expectation has changed for guys, right?
And then they were still captivating.
They were a star.
Even if Michael Vick didn't make the Hall of Fame, he will, I mean, he is a legend.
He's an Atlanta legend.
He's a football legend because of who he was.
So, yeah, that's a really good one.
Yeah.
Reggie Bush.
Reggie Bush is a good one.
Yeah.
Reggie Bush.
Reggie Bush is a good one.
These are all weird comps because Tony Robo played at the same time.
Yeah, he was football player, right?
Yeah, right.
But it's somebody who was a star, Tony Romo was a star in broadcasting.
Somebody who did things differently.
Again, I think that Tony Romo, that's more of an emotional element than everything else,
even though he gets so much credit for the predicted plays.
It's a presence.
It's a smile.
It's, you know, an emotional bond with the audience until it wasn't.
That's him for me.
And again, everything we said, if that does not happen in Wisconsin, back in July,
he's still calling games for CBS.
Absolutely.
This is like media critics.
You know, again, I think there's probably a lot of people that, well, I knew that, you know,
Tony Romo was, was, you know, not as great as everybody made him out to be early on.
Guys, the bad reviews are part of this.
But without those events in July, Tony Romo is still calling games.
Is there any doubt in your mind that that's the case?
Absolutely.
And I'll just add to this because, you know, you're the, you're the expert here.
I trust you.
I depend on you to do this.
But if I have to remember anything about Tony Romo's time on TV, and I hope he gets a chance to get back on TV,
I mean, man, Marv Albert, Greg Anthony, Michael Irvin, all these people got back on TV, man, you know.
And so I think there is a path back for him.
But for me, with Tony Romo has always been, is a guy that is comfortable being himself on camera.
That is really hard to do.
You know, that is really hard to do in the face of criticism.
I mean, I mean, and I'm sure you learn a lot being the quarterback of the Cowboys about that.
Oh, God.
Yeah.
I'm sorry, Brian Curtis and Andrew Marchand, Richard Dij, just not, it's not the same spotlight.
Yeah, just, I mean, some people like, I remember I was in Dallas when Quincy Carter was the quarterback of the Cowboys.
And like that can, it can crush you.
The expectations, the fame, all that stuff that are on that.
And like Tony Romo, at least to me, has seemed like he's always been himself wherever he went, which is why he was able to go on TV and excel immediately.
Because it didn't, it didn't scare him. He was comfortable.
And he, I think I would kind of gave the sense of, I'm not even supposed to be here.
Ooh, that's a really good way to put it.
I'm just like, what am I, it's almost like that, me, me, you better, you might ask what I'm doing here.
You know, he just had that kind of look about him.
Yeah.
How did I get here?
Starting quarterback of the Cowboys.
I'm from Eastern Illinois, man.
Anything that happens that that is gravy.
It's such a good way to put it.
Two more things to hit you with.
Yeah.
The statement he made in September, where he said, he talked about the back pain and the back surgeries.
I mentioned that one on 2016 with the Cowboys, the back injury.
And he said it led to a dependence on pain medication.
And my efforts to get off those medications led to an overreliance on alcohol.
He also said, none of this is an excuse.
These are my failures and I take responsibility for them.
But that hit me a little bit.
Yeah.
Again, you don't have to make excuses.
He's not making excuses.
But when you think about these guys that are talking to us on television and the injuries they had and the pain that they're in, that should be somewhere in the story of Tony Romo.
The other thing I want to hit you with, Joel, is the game of musical chairs that we are about to enjoy and broadcast it.
Tom Brady's not going anywhere on Fox.
Chris Collins, we're not going anywhere on NBC.
That's basically all I can tell you.
Because herbie signed an extension with Amazon.
But then there's this weird out in the extension that says Amazon can pursue other people.
One of those people is Sean McVey if he decides to retire from broadcasting.
He's been one of those guys like Tom let everybody's like he's going to be really good.
Yeah.
But there might be other people.
We don't know.
We don't know if these, that means like other big name broadcasters as well.
So there's that.
We've got ESPN which has not signed for eight minutes to an extension though it was already signed Joe Buck to an extension.
And according to Martian is not going to deal with this until after the season until after eight minutes calls the Super Bowl.
I can you, I mean, that's, I feel like whenever whenever I've heard of a situation, we're not going to talk about this to the end of the season.
It's already bad.
Does it ever go well?
It's already bad.
Yeah.
We're going to call after the season like, Hey, we want to give you exactly what you want.
We're just sorry.
He's got time got away from us.
We got Greg Olson who's contracted stuff at Fox after this year who's looking for a number one job.
And really good enough to do that.
And then we've got the situation at CBS where they're going to take a look at JJ waters the number one guy for the rest of the year.
But they're not obliged to give him that job beyond that.
Again, they've got a Super Bowl the year after this one.
They be interested in Trayekman.
Greg Olson.
Travis Kelsey that seemed wacky even by the standards of CBS hiring Tony Romo.
There's a lot of uncertainty out there in the world right now.
I thought we kind of got this out of our system TV wise with Buck and Eggman.
It just feels like the whole world could look different next year.
Mark is going to be reset again.
Yeah, nobody's nobody's taking a pay cut.
Are they?
Oh.
I mean, if you got a bad agent, if you do.
I mean, these agents, I mean, I'm sure there's going to be reporting on this.
These agents are already working on this stuff right now.
Right now, though, right?
Probably even before Tony Romo, this announcement came today, right?
There's already this sort of back room maneuvering for what's next.
Yeah, because they owed him a lot of money.
You can't just be like, okay, goodbye.
Yeah.
But even if Sean McVey kind of surprised me if Sean McVey actually leaves the ramps to do this.
He's one of those coaches speaking of things they talk about all the time.
Oh, I'm burned out.
Maybe I should just step away.
But you mentioned how much it was going to cost to get Sean McVey to leave coaching and call for.
Paul games.
Come on.
It's gonna be a lot of money.
Yeah, man.
He's not.
Yeah.
Oh, the Sean McVey again.
He's not.
Is even 45.
He's.
Let's see.
Sean McVey is 40.
He's 40 years old.
He's 40 years old.
That's.
I mean, man, I'm saying this isn't for you.
That seems so young.
And that's the thing.
That's the thing about Madden that made him so interesting as a broadcaster is he was in his 40s, right?
Yeah.
And he committed to this and he never went back.
So we got to spend forever with John Madden on television.
How fortunate would we to grow up with John Madden and Pat Summaryll, man?
John Madden was the best.
He really was.
And then there was Pat Summaryll with that very spirit of delivery.
All right.
He's Joel Anderson.
I'm Brian Curtis.
Production Belgium.
By Isaiah Blakely and John Notbone Jones doing us a great favor by squeezing in one more podcast this week.
Coming up on the press box, Joel and I are back on Monday with me.
Have a special guest on Monday.
Oh, am I going to be invited?
Don't look at me.
Don't look at me like that.
What am I invited?
I don't know.
All right.
Well, let's talk about this.
We'll talk about it.
I'm, yes, is the answer, but let's coordinate.
We got to figure it out.
Instagram press box ringer email press box ringer or gmail.com.
Hit us up on both of those places.
Joel, see you Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media.
Can't wait.