Just when you thought the Tony Romo drama was finished, an anonymous NFL personnel person spoke to Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report and dropped this bombshell:
25. Texans: They need a quarterback. Watch for Tony Romo here, too. There's better than a 60 or 70 percent chance Romo ends up playing for them at some point this coming season. That story is far from dead.
For background here, the personnel person, who Freeman calls "reliable" and "highly accurate," was going through the first round talking about each team. In some cases he predicted specific players or moves, such as this Romo instance.
With the emergence of Prescott, Romo was the odd-man out in Dallas. He was scheduled to pull down $14 million in base pay this season, a sum that's far too expensive for a backup quarterback. So the retirement helps the Cowboys because, instead of a nearly $25 million cap hit this year (base plus bonus and salary restructure money), the dead cap hit will be spread out to about $11 million this year and $9 next.
Romo had been linked, all off season, to the Denver Broncos and Houston Texans. Neither team was interested in trading for him, though. Denver seemed to grow tired of waiting for Dallas to decide whether they would release Romo, and announced they're comfortable with what they have in Trevor Siemian and Paxton Lynch.
Romo retired from the NFL and opted to head straight to the broadcast booth for CBS. The Cowboys released him so he could keep his signing bonus money, but there was never a retirement ceremony or even press conference. The move comes as an odd one for a player that meant so much to the Cowboys organization.
Romo was an undrafted free agent out of Eastern Illinois in 2004, and has his breakout season in 2006, when he started 10 games and was named to the Pro Bowl.
He's suffered two serious back injuries, including fractures in 2014, He's also broken his collarbone twice, and suffered complications from those injuries.