Friday, February 8, 2013
Tony Romo's next contract
By Tim Kavanagh
It's a risk when an NFL team lets its franchise QB enter the final season of his contract: as we saw with Joe Flacco in 2012, the leverage can sway considerably based upon the on-field production. While having your impending free agent QB play well enough to guide the club to a Super Bowl championship would qualify as a "good problem to have," it's one that the Dallas Cowboys could be facing after 2013 with Tony Romo.
Romo is entering the final year on his current contract this fall, and so the discussion has already begun as to what he's worth in comparison to the league's other top passers. Some expect that Flacco will earn a deal on par with the highest paid QBs -- such as Drew Brees ($20 million per season) and Peyton Manning ($19.2 million) -- but the Cowboys may not have to go that high with Romo, in the opinion of Calvin Watkins of ESPNDallas.com:
"Does Romo's agent look at what Flacco is about to get and say his client is better? Or does Romo, whose average salary is $12.7 million, get more of an average salary in the range of say Matt Schaub, whose average is $13.2 million? What about Philip Rivers, who gets an average salary of $14.03 million? Romo's salary could be in line with that of Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, who also becomes a free agent after the 2013 season. Cutler might command an average salary of $15-18 million. Do the Cowboys push Romo to that number?"
ESPN NFC East blogger Dan Graziano thinks Romo will get slightly less than that per season, in exchange for more years:
Dan Graziano
Predicting Romo's next contract"My guess is he gets four more years added on after this one -- a deal that runs through 2017 -- at a little more than $14 million per year. Seems fair all the way around. Had he not thrown three interceptions in the season finale in Washington, and had he capped his very good 2012 season with a division title, maybe he could have made the case for more. But he did throw those interceptions, and he lost that game, feeding into the negatives about himself, which the Cowboys are sure to mention when it comes time to talk money."
