Tony Romo is headed from the football field to the relative safety of the broadcast booth, and the Detroit Lions shouldn’t necessarily be glad to see Romo go.
Detroit had relative success against the retiring Dallas Cowboys quarterback, going 3-2 against Romo as a starter, including beating Romo two of the last three times he faced the Lions.
The most memorable meeting for Romo against Dallas came in the playoffs though, and caused the Lions much heartache.
In a wild-card round game Jan. 4, 2015, Detroit led 20-17 in the fourth quarter when the Lions gave Romo and the Cowboys the ball following a picked-up flag on a potential pass interference call on Dallas linebacker Anthony Hitchens. Instead of getting a first down, the Lions were forced to punt. Sam Martin shanked a punt 10 yards and gave Romo and the Cowboys a chance.
Dallas drove 59 yards in 11 plays, capped by a Romo 8-yard touchdown pass to Terrance Williams that gave the Cowboys a 24-20 win after the Lions failed to convert on their final drive. The loss marked the end of a defensive era in Detroit as Ndamukong Suh left via free agency that offseason and continued Detroit’s futility in the playoffs.
Romo went 19-of-31 in that game for 293 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.
In the regular season, however, the Lions had success against the Cowboys with Romo at the helm. Detroit was 3-1 against Romo in the regular season, allowing him to complete 106 of 153 passes for 1,160 yards, 10 touchdowns and four interceptions. So Romo’s statistics were good, but his record was not.
In three of his four regular-season games against Detroit, Romo completed 70 percent of his passes and in all of those games, he threw for more than 300 yards. The only regular-season game he was under 300 yards passing and under 50 percent passing against Detroit was in 2013, when the Lions came from behind to beat the Cowboys 31-30 on Matthew Stafford’s winning drive capped off with his fake-spike rush for a touchdown.
It was a game that saw Calvin Johnson catch 14 passes for 329 yards and a touchdown -- with Detroit needing every yard from Johnson. Now, less than a half-decade after that game, both Romo and Johnson are retired and Stafford is emerging as one of the better quarterbacks in the NFL.