Overblown Non-Story of the Week (Week of January 12th)

It's that time again folks. Time for the crowning of another ONSOTW. This week's story has actually been around longer than a week, but I've let it go up until now for a variety of reasons. This week, however, my frustration with it has finally reached a level worthy of mention.

If you follow football, you probably know that Dallas Cowboy quarterback Tony Romo is, at present, romantically linked to starlet Jessica Simpson. You likely are also aware that Ms. Simpson attended a game a few weeks back against Philadelphia,, and that Romo played particularly poorly as the Cowboys lost said game. It's also possible that you would be clued in to the fact that last season, Romo was similarly linked to country star Carrie Underwood, and that he also played very poorly in a Cowboy loss to Philadelphia that Underwood attended. As rabid fans often do, Cowboy fans seized on this connection, and the theory that Romo couldn't handle having his famous girlfriends around began to circle. The theory was perpetuated with comments by Cowboys wideout Terrell Owens, which he later said he was not serious about. Playing along, you began to see people wearing Jessica Simpson masks at Cowboy road games, and the media obviously picked up on the idea and speculation began. Simpson has been called Jessica Ono, Yoko Simpson, and, most cleverly, in my opinion, Yoko Romo. (Credit to Dan Patrick for that one.) And then, this week, the story broke that, during the Cowboys' bye week in the first round of the playoffs, Romo went on a vacation to Mexico with Simpson, along with teammate Jason Witten and his wife, and, oddly enough, Simpson's father.

Before I go much further, I have to make it clear that I'm not a Romo fan. First of all, I'm an Eagles fan, so no one that plays for the Cowboys is going to be someone I jump to defend as an instinct. I respect his abilities and what he's done on the field. I'd also respect him as a man for his ability to pull the likes of Simpson and Carrie Underwood, except that in the case of Underwood, he was scamming on my girl. That's right, I just called Carrie Underwood my girl. I do so even though she isn't technically my girl at the moment, since the only reason that's true is because she has no idea I exist. (Unless of course, she's one of the people who read this blog anonymously and never chime in. Carrie, if you're reading this, drop me line!) Once we clear that one minor obstacle, I'm golden. But I digress. Anyhow, I would have been willing to overlook Romo's betrayal once he dumped Carrie, had he not wound up with Simpson. You might think I have some claim on her as well, but this is not the case. Making the move from Carrie to Jessica lowered my opinion of him, because it convinced me that he's an idiot. I mean, perhaps Carrie was too beautiful, intelligent, and talented for him and he felt intimidated and needed to find someone who was a downgrade in all three areas, but come on man! Show some better judgment. I digress again. The point is, I don't like Romo.

Anyhow, ever since word broke of the Romo/Simpson excursion to Mexico earlier this week, I've been bombarded with endless discussion about whether his relationship with Simpson is distracting Romo, whether this trip was really the best idea, etc. I understand that this is a famous couple, and thus I'm not surprised or at all offended that I know when and where they vacationed. But come on, seriously? The guy had a week off and he went to a tropical location with his girlfriend. I can't believe he was the only Cowboy (or Patriot, or Packer, or Colt) to do something similar. In fact, I know he wasn't, since his teammate Witten was along on the same trip. And yet somehow, this particular trip merits daily mention and discussion with every football related guest that visits every sports talk radio show I listen to, in addition to similar treatment on ESPN and the like. I know we as fans sometimes like to think that our favorite players should spend every spare moment preparing for and thinking about the next game, but that's just not reality, and really, it shouldn't be.

The great irony of the whole story (I'm such a sucker for irony) is that the endless discussion about whether this relationship is a distraction for Romo only serves to create another potential distraction. Rather than answer questions about the upcoming game with the Giants, Romo (as well as his Cowboy teammates) have faced an endless barrage of questions regarding Simpson. It's crazy, and in a way, it almost because a self-fulfilling prophecy. If there is a distracting nature to this relationship for Romo, it almost has to be all the scrutiny and questions around it, rather than the actual relationship itself. Call me nuts, but I doubt you become the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys without having to deal with a few women throughout your football life. Simpson definitely is not the first girl he's had watching him the stands, and I'd be rather surprised if she turns out to be the last. I'm fairly comfortable that the guy could get the job done with Simpson around if he was just left alone, and I'm guessing he can probably do it anyhow.

Now, don't read me wrong here, I don't have a ton of sympathy for Romo on this one. He'd dated a star once before, and so he knew what he was getting into here, and could have chosen to go in a different direction. But seriously sports media, we're in the midst of the NFL playoffs. Is there really a need to create stories like this, rather than just reporting what's out there? I guess the upside for Dallas fans is that they have a scapegoat all ready if things don't go well for them this weekend.