NEW YORK — Tony Romo knows a thing or two about what it’s like to deal with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
After all, Jones was the man who signed the undrafted free agent to a contract in 2003, and Romo would spend the next 13 seasons with the franchise in a stellar NFL career. Funny enough, Jones would later say the most difficult player he had to negotiate with was Romo.
So maybe that’s one reason why Romo doesn’t seem concerned about the questions swirling around the franchise: Will the Cowboys extend running back Ezekiel Elliott, who’s currently holding out from training camp? Will they give quarterback Dak Prescott a raise? And what about Amari Cooper, who exploded after he was traded to Dallas mid-season from the Raiders last year?
“They’ve been through this a million times,” the ex-Cowboy and current on-air analyst said on Tuesday at a CBS event in midtown Manhattan. “I feel like it’s just part of the National Football League, it’s part of the business side. It’ll play out like it does for a lot of different teams, just part of the business.”
Romo said something similar later in the day after speaking with print reporters, but he made more headlines for saying the Elliott is a “coin-flip” for Week 1.
Romo also wasn’t surprised to see his former longtime teammate Jason Witten — after a year in which he was heavily criticized for his on-air work with ESPN’s Monday Night Football — come out of retirement to re-join the Cowboys. But not for the reason fans might think.
“I’m never surprised when anyone goes back to play because I just know the game, you love it so much,” he said. “Just like a fan like anyone else, it’ll be great to see him out there playing.”
