Tony Romo is on the precipice of calling the first Super Bowl of his broadcasting career. If you expected this to get him to refocus his efforts and return to the roots that made him one of the NFL’s more enlightening color commentators, you were incorrect.
Romo continued to lean into his worst instincts in the both during Sunday’s showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and Baltimore Ravens. His inarticulate “oh my god” reactions to great plays continued, giving folks at home watching with vaguely stoned friends the chance to hear it in stereo. His on-field experience occasionally pointed out audibles and coverage schemes and occasionally made no damn sense whatsoever.
"In games like this, the ball matters more than any game."
– Tony Romo. https://t.co/mfzwC4ceJZ pic.twitter.com/wyfxiTUwiA
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 28, 2024
Minutes later, he’d tell a Chiefs team with three timeouts and Patrick Mahomes behind center with fewer than two minutes left in the first half “I would tell you to be safe here, as a quarterback.” That drive resulted in in a called-back touchdown before a field goal gave Kansas City a 17-7 halftime lead.
Romo was more composed in the latter two quarters of a more subdued game. Still, it was not the kind of performance you’d expect from someone getting paid nearly $1 million per game to sit atop CBS’s announce teams.
CBS is paying Tony Romo $180 million over 10 years for this.
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) January 28, 2024
As usual, fans, analysts and NFL veterans alike noticed. And they took to Twitter to work through their frustrations.