When talking overrated Cowboys, the bar has to be set at the most obvious choice of Tony Romo.  Ten years, $127M in earnings, and a whopping two playoff wins.  One of those (against the Lions) was handed to us by the refs and Teryl Austin despite Romo’s best efforts to deliver the biggest choke job of his illustrious choking career.  Even after he left, it took two years to clear his salary off our cap and it prevented us from signing big free agents during Dak’s rookie deal.

Despite all of this and despite all of the win-or-go-home losses and humiliations at the hands of our division rivals, many Cowboys fans (and it’s only Cowboys fans) still stick up for this dude.  It is truly baffling.  Is he the most overrated Cowboys of our lifetimes?

 

There is only one player I can think of more overrated than Romo and that is Orlando Scandrick.  Keep in mind that I will never buy Goodrich tires because of Dwayne, yet it’s Scandrick who takes the prize for boiling my blood more than any Cowboy in history.

Outside of Terence Newman at #5 overall, the Cowboys went nearly two full decades without hitting on a decent DB in the draft.  In that same time, we also almost never hit on a late round pick as well.  Therefore, everyone lost their shit when Scandrick made a few plays his rookie season.  He ended up getting a lot of playing time because our corners always sucked, and he got torched consistently.  He jipped the Jones family out of $30M and failed a drug test for what we all pretend is Molly instead of the PEDs he needed to stay competent on the field.

Last season, he cost us $2.3M in dead cap money while he was with Kansas City ruining their season and all of their Super Bowl dreams.  In fact he still counts against our cap this year.  He also bullied sick children in Madden games because he could never make plays on the real field.  Fuck this dude forever.

 

Here is a list of honorable mentions:

Chad Hutchinson – the amount of Cowboys fans that thought this quarterback could be competent was embarrassing and probably had a lot to do with race unfortunately.

Roy Williams (S) – he was a massive liability by the end of his career to due religion and the horse collar rule, but he also made five straight pro bowls and was first team all-pro.  In that brief time as a star he made a lot of clutch interceptions and caused several iconic injuries such as Emmitt Smith and Terrell Owens.  A lot of Cowboys fans thought he was terrible, and there is a big overlap between those fans and the ones who still like Tony Romo.

The only happy time of 2004.

Roy Williams (WR) – just when I thought you couldn’t get any dumber (after the Galloway trade), you go and do something like this… and humiliate us even more Jerry!  His most memorable moment was fumbling away the game against the Saints and ruining Thanksgiving 2010.

Terrell Owens – after feeling under appreciated and underpaid following his rehab from the Roy Williams horse collar, TO defected to Dallas for a prolific chapter to one of the most enigmatic careers in sports history.  He had some incredible moments for us but also an incredible amount of drops and distractions.  It was an exhilarating ride while it lasted, but ultimately a failure.

Miles Austin – against the Titans in 2010, Troy Aikman proclaimed Austin the best wide receiver in the league. It took awhile for him to live that down, but at the time it seemed reasonable because the talent was there.  Hamstring injuries quickly made him useless, and then he lost the ball in the lights to cost us the division (and possibly the Super Bowl because it was the Giants) in 2011.

Dez Bryant – I feel bad including him because he has a great heart and football saved his life, but he fucked up way too many times fo his talent level.  The most notorious mistake came at Lambeau field when he decided to be a glory boy and dropped a key 4th down pass.

Byron Jones – great guy, great measurables, underwhelming career so far.  He was humiliated by his brother against GB this year and I’m not sure he’s ever fully recovered.