FRISCO, Texas _ Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett finally acknowledges that quarterback Tony Romo will miss the season opener and several more games with a fractured bone in his back.
But Garrett continues to maintain that Romo's timetable remains unclear, thus justifying the team's decision to keep him on the 53-man roster rather than place in on injured reserve designated for return and sidelining him for the first eight weeks of the season.
"Again, right from the start with his injury and really with everybody's injury you try to get all of the information you can from doctors and from the players," Garrett said. "You try to come up with some kind of a timeline for when the player is going to be available. In Tony's case, the IR term is for eight weeks and we feel like, given what the injury is and the progress he's made, we feel at this point we want to do that. We don't want to eliminate him from eight weeks of our schedule. He's making progress. We take his situation day by day and week by week and we're optimistic he can return."
Every game is important to the Cowboys and if they can get him back one game sooner, it justifies not putting Romo on injured reserve.
It also helps that Romo's back has steadily improved and has already started to do some light rehab, per Garrett.
The Cowboys have always targeted the Oct. 30 game against the Philadelphia Eagles after the bye for Romo's return, sidelining him for six games.
The Cowboys are not ruling out a return a couple of weeks earlier for the Oct. 16 game at the Green Bay Packers.
"We just think he's getting healthier," Garrett said. "Initially, when he had the injury he was pretty immobilized. Over the course of the last week or so he's gotten better and better and better. He's healing up. Again, we'll take his situation day by day and we're optimistic he'll have a full recovery. I know he's doing his rehab and he's making progress."
