It feels strange to be able to accurately compare Tony Romo and Dak Prescott. For some of us, we correlate Romo with being young and on the rise; now, his successor’s career is even beyond that stage.
Prescott, soon to be 32, will begin his tenth NFL season this September. At that point in Romo’s career, he only had three seasons left; injuries and the emergence of a fresh face knocked him out far faster than fans could have imagined.
Before the now-CBS broadcaster experienced that swift fall from franchise quarterback to rookie mentor, Romo was in a resurgence, posting some of the best numbers of his career, especially following down seasons.
Romo’s bounce-backs became part of his career lore, and in 2025, Prescott is aiming to do the same. If he doesn’t, his future could get murky fast.
Having finished second in Comeback Player of the Year voting once, and following a career-high interceptions season with an MVP runner-up one, Prescott needs to have one more big return this season. Lucky for him, there’s a clear precedent for it.
Tony Romo’s 2010-2011 Bounce Back: Turning Decline Into Dominance
The 2010 Dallas Cowboys’ season was one (of many in that era) to forget.
Romo, coming off an 11-5 season and a Pro Bowl nod, quickly failed to replicate his 2009 success. He was the front man to a 1-5 start for Dallas, throwing just 11 touchdowns and seven interceptions in that six-week slump.
In Week 7, the walls came tumbling down as he broke his collarbone and Jon Kitna failed to get a win in relief; the Cowboys had fallen to 1-7, and lost their franchise quarterback for the season.
One year later, amidst questions about Romo’s future in Dallas, he delivered 31 touchdowns and near-career highs, or lows, in all the important categories.
September 18, 2011: On the Cowboys’ first offensive play in OT, @TonyRomo, who was playing w/ a punctured lung, finds WR Jesse Holley (@Mr4thAndLong) who takes it 77 yds to the 49ers one-yard line to set up g/w FG for a Cowboys a 27-24 victory. pic.twitter.com/GBIXEezYe8
— This Day In Sports Clips (@TDISportsClips) September 18, 2023
Accompanied by a bad offensive line and bottom-ten defense, the Cowboys struggled to stay afloat in the win-loss column, finishing the 2011 season at 8-8. Romo’s performance, however, was far from the problem.
Only Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees finished with higher completion percentages. In QBR, those same two, plus Tom Brady, were the only men ahead of Romo.
This is all to say that while Romo’s year ten, age-30 season was a disaster, his 2011 bounce-back campaign answered a lot of questions and reestablished who the franchise quarterback was in Dallas. Do you see where I’m going with this?
Dak Prescott’s 2024-2025 Opportunity: Clear Parallel To The Past
In eight games over the 2024 season, two more than Romo had in his 2010 campaign, Dak Prescott threw for 11 touchdowns and eight interceptions, leading Dallas to a shoddy 3-5 record, before suffering a season-ending hamstring tear.
At age 31, it came in as one of Prescott’s worst seasons yet, and it reintroduced concerns about his standing as the Cowboys’ leader.
History sure does love repeating itself, doesn’t it?
As we head into the 2025 season, the importance of Prescott making a Romo-style comeback is paramount. He is under a newly signed, massive contract, the team is in win-now mode, and there is no backup plan should he suffer another bad year.
Dak Prescott, George Pickens, CeeDee Lamb pic.twitter.com/ZHOnwmUkqI
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) May 20, 2025
Dallas has retooled offensively, shedding the offensive line era of the 2010s for a young, high-potential unit, while adding Pro Bowl weapon George Pickens to the mix.
Brian Schottenheimer has taken the reins from Mike McCarthy as well, which should be a shot to the core of this roster. They loved and respected the former head coach, but the lack of playoff success meant cutting ties regardless.
Could Dak Prescott see a similar fate after this season, if things go amiss? It’s certainly not impossible, and you can bet he doesn’t want to take that chance.
IMO Prescott’s contract drawn up by Jones was the worst I have ever seen for such a very mediocre QB. I had rather want for Prescott to go for free agency instead. There are many competent backup QB’s in the NFL that were capable of running that Cowboy offense or in the draft. Milton will probably take Prescott’s job after going down with another injury.
If Dak hit free agency, he probably would’ve gotten paid even more than what he got from us and then we would’ve been stuck with a bunch of Branden Weedens and Kyle Ortons until we finally found a new QB!! There’s no way you’ve been a Cowboys fan for long, or you would be happy with Dak!! Cause for us long time fans, we remember what it was like for years after Troy Aikman retired!! Nothing but losing until we finally found Romo!! At least with Dak, we have a winning season pretty much every year that he’s healthy!! And for a lot of us fans, we would rather win enough games to go to the playoffs, than to have a losing record every season!! And if we don’t have Dak, that’s exactly what will happen!! And Joe Milton only played one game in the NFL, so there’s nothing about him that says he will be good enough to take Daks job!! It’s weird, I remember when Dak started his first game, and when he took us to a franchise best 13-3 record in his rookie year, every Cowboys fan was wanting him to stay in as the franchise QB, and didn’t want Romo to go back in…. But now all of a sudden, these same fans are saying Dak is mediocre and he’s not good enough and all this other garbage!! But the facts are that Dak is a top tier QB!! He is a franchise QB, and I guarantee that if we tried to trade him, any team in need of a QB, or even some teams that have QBs would be in line ready to trade for him!! And we could get some really good draft capital in exchange for him too!! But it would be stupid to trade away a proven franchise QB!! The only way it would be worth trading him is if we knew he was about to retire, or if we don’t wanna sign him to a longer, more expensive contract, and we were able to get at least 2 1st round picks and a couple day 2 picks and maybe a couple early day 3 picks too!! And at least one of them 1st round picks would have to be at least a top 2 or 3 pick so we could get another QB in that draft!! But if we couldn’t get that much for him then I would rather keep him, cause I know that as long as he’s healthy, our team will win a good amount of games and chances are that we’ll be in the playoffs too!! And I’m happy with that!! Cause it’s better than having seasons like last year, or like in 2020 when Dak broke his ankle, and we ended up with a losing record!! I don’t like when we end the season with a losing record, and as long as we have Dak and he’s healthy, we don’t have to worry about having a losing record by the end of the season!!