Romo not in Brady-Manning class, but he's doing fine

Tony Romo has thrown 15 touchdowns and nine interceptions so far this season. AP

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Tom Brady is easy on the eyes. And not just in the way you're thinking, ladies. He's easy on football eyes, too. The poise. The vision. The textbook, 12-to-six delivery with the tight spiral. And in other ways you seldom hear about. Toughness? The Cowboys brought the heat on Brady last Sunday and put him on his back. And Brady kept getting up. Arm strength? Brady threw one ball 72 yards flatfooted.

Did I mention the three Super Bowl trophies that make Brady one of the all-time winners in football history?

Imagine being the other quarterback on the field with Brady. Unless you are Peyton Manning, who will live alongside Brady in Canton forever, you are going to be overlooked or worse, humbled. Entering last Sunday's too-hyped early season battle of unbeatens in Dallas, the performance of Cowboys' quarterback Tony Romo was no insignificant subplot.

Just six days earlier, Romo had survived a Monday night adventure like few in NFL history. Five picks. One lost fumble. And then two scores in the final minute of the game for a remarkable victory. From there he faces Brady, a matchup that is highly unlikely to flatter Romo, yet Romo's performance would say much about his development and his cojones. There is no small lobby in the noisy world of NFL analysis that thinks Romo has been given too much praise for too small a body of work.

Big picture: The Patriots are better than the Cowboys, by every bit as much as the final score of 48-27. The Cowboys are still the best of the NFC, but the NFC is mediocre on a good day, with little chance of winning the Super Bowl. Brady is great.

Smaller picture: Romo wasn't bad at all on the big stage. He was tentative early, but completed 17 of his last 24 passes for almost 200 yards and a couple of touchdowns. He threw only one pick, very late. In all, it was a solid performance on a big stage against a daunting opponent. All good, except for the final score.

You should have come to expect this from Romo. Go back a year, to when Cowboy Country was clamoring for Bill Parcells to bench Drew Bledsoe. Back then Romo was a fourth-year quarterback who had never thrown a pass in a regular-season game. He got his chance, of course, one year ago this weekend against the Giants on a Sunday night, and the 12 months since have been every bit as chaotic as the Monday night in Buffalo.

He was up and down a year ago -- six pretty good games followed by five pretty poor ones. But the turning point came on Jan. 6 in Seattle when Romo famously bobbled a field goal snap that cost the Cowboys a playoff victory in Parcells's last game.

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