Roethlisberger Re-Upped, Other Signing News & Notes

Big Ben is now making big bucks, per the Rocky Mountain News. The Steelers QB and motorcycle enthusiast signed an eight-year, $102 million extension that will keep him in Pittsburgh black and gold through 2015, and includes over $36 million guaranteed money. Just think of how many motorbikes that'll buy! Hopefully, now that he doesn't have to, hem, pinch pennies, he can buy a few helmets to go with it. But this is a show of commitment by the Steelers to their playmaker, seeing how much space he'll now be taking up on the Pittsburgh payroll, and exceeds even the $98 million deal Manning signed with the Colts in '04. Steelers fans probably think it's worth it. Roethlisberger has proven what he can do for them, and this will move him further toward his stated wish of wanting to be like "the Dan Marinos, like the John Elways, guys who played with one team their whole career." (Props on citing Elway, Ben, always a good idea). Still, you'd think they'd spend a little of this money on guys who can actually protect Roethlisberger, who was sacked a whopping 47 times last season.

As for other market rumblings, Asante Samuel was snapped up by the Eagles almost as soon as free-agency period opened, despite some talk about the Saints being the front-runner. Randy Moss has said he is frustrated with the Patriots' lack of motion on getting a new contract hammered out after they declined to franchise-tag him, and that's led to some horrifying (if you're a Patriots fan or a fan of a team in the NFC East not Dallas) rumors of him landing with the Cowboys. Moss and Terrell Owens on the same team? Can the world take the united forces of douchebaggery (more than usual, that is) emanating from Texas? Will Moss yank out a machete if Romo throws to T.O. more often? Oy vey. I wouldn't envy anybody in that clubhouse if this should somehow take place.

Broncos DT Marcus Thomas has fallen back into iniquity with his (non) rocket-scientist friends, and was arrested after he was in the car with a friend who was busted for coke. Thomas's problems go back to his playing days at UF, where Urban Meyer was so convinced that he was hanging out with the wrong sort that he tried to stop him from going home. Yet again, it's the same old song, that Thomas is hanging out with all the wrong kinds of people, and he needs to wake up and realize that he's an NFL athlete and fulfilling the dream of playing pro sports isn't going to last forever. Dump those losers and put in some actual effort to change, Marcus... Unfortunately, being an NFL athlete these days entails being busted for just about every offense under the sun, so maybe he's taking notes. Thomas is also lucky he plays at DT, and behind him is The Ghost of Matt Lepsis (switched to the D-line instead of the O-line since there's practically no one else) and if we cut him, we'd be in even more dire straits than we are now. Denver is not going to have any leeway to point and snicker at the Falcons and Bengals if their offseason of arrests keeps up. Oy.

The Broncos also signed WR Keary Colbert, formerly of the Panthers, to a three-year contract. Colbert is only 25 and was a second-round pick out of USC, and had 47 catches in 2004, which he hopes to replicate in competing for the #2 WR job. This isn't exactly a stellar pickup, but the team is being quiet in free agency and hoping to get enough selections to address all their needs in the draft. (They did, however, sign Seattle linebacker Niko Koutouvides, Pro Bowler Lofa Tatupu's backup and special-teams ace, since they need somebody, anybody, to plug in the D-line). Brandon Stokley is not an every-down receiver and therefore will be in the #3 spot, no matter what that article says. Also, Denver has a surfeit of DEs with Jarvis Moss's return and Elvis Dumervil entrenched, plus re-signing Engelberger and Ebenezer Ekuban (who didn't play last year due to injury). Dumervil and Moss, if he's healthy, figure to be the starters on the frontline corners.

What A Sad, Sad Day

Moment of silence, everyone.

Please, pipe down, this needs to be properly observed. It is a catastrophe of epic proportions and the world may never see something like it again. I am shocked and heartbroken.

Tony Romo has given the boot to Jessica Simpson.

NOOOOO! WHATEVER SHALL WE DO?!

Next Quarterback Quiz: sometime this afternoon. Quarterback of team? New York Football Giants. Tony wishing how much he'd done this before that game? A lot.

In other news, the Giants are going to almost beat the Patriots.

The Quarterback Quiz: Dallas Cowboys

(Random note of no significance: I really should have gotten my glasses adjusted when I was home for the winter break. My prescription dates from the Mesolithic and now I can barely read Starbucks menu boards. Yes, well, moving on -- if I abruptly stop blogging, it won't be due to a sudden slovenly nature but rather an inability to see).

Anyway, onto the NFC East. This was the strongest division in football this year, supplying three of the NFC's six playoff participants -- the Cowboys, the Redskins, and the Giants, one of whom will be playing for the Super Bowl title in Glendale a few weeks from now. (Three guesses as to which this one is). Still, the Beast of the East was the Cowboys, who went 13-3 behind coach Wade Phillips, QB and Simpson-shagger Tony Romo, and freak of nature Terrell Owens. It's the middle entrant that we'll be examining today, and since he got a six-year, $67.5 million contract to call the signals for Dallas (especially if they've all had their Diet Pepsi Max lately and don't go for 60 Stretch Far -- aaaaaah) it's likely that he'll be there for quite a bit longer. Still, with an 0-2 record and two flops in the playoffs, what might Dallas fans have to fear from their 27-year-old Texas star? Let's examine.

Dallas Cowboys (13-3): Tony Romo

Unfortunately, Mr. Romo is getting himself a reputation more for what he does off the field than what he does on it, which is somewhat unfair. True, if you date Jessica Simpson (and her attention-whoring father) you ask for it, but Romo is a very good quarterback, if not yet a great one. The playoff bugaboos are a problem, of course, but look how long it took Peyton Manning to win his first Super Bowl and he's probably a first-ballot Hall of Famer. The problem with Romo, of course, is that he hasn't won any playoff games yet, but that's due just as much to the vagaries of chance and the rest of the team as it is to him. If a wide-open Patrick Crayton had caught that pass instead of dropping it and given the Cowboys a first down inside the 20, the Cowboys might have been the one facing the Packers, but Romo was also the one who threw the last Hail Mary that ended up in the hands of New York's R.W. McQuarters to end the game. He'll have time to refine it over the offseason and see if he can get off the playoff-game-winning schneid. Then again, ever since the departure of Aikman, the Cowboys have tried such illustrious NFL stars as Quincy Carter, Vinny Testaverde, Drew Henson, and Drew Bledsoe; needless to say, Romo is a significant step up from any of these options. He went undrafted out of Eastern Illinois University and was signed by the club in 2003 as a rookie free agent to serve as the third-stringer behind Carter and Chad Hutchinson. Romo was almost cut from the roster due to a surfeit of quarterbacks until Carter was popped for substance abuse -- it's a decision that Cowboys fans are now relieved didn't go the other way.

Romo spent a few years in obscurity behind the Cowboys' musical chairs of starting QBs (eight in all since 2000, Aikman's last year) and finally got his break in 2006 when Bledsoe went down with an injury. Romo's first pass was a 33-yard completion against the Texans, and it went generally well from there. On November 19, 2006, the new starter helped the Cowboys beat the Colts, 21-14, and then against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, recorded a 38-10 victory while throwing five touchdown passes with no picks. In his first real season, he garnered a 95.1 QB rating in 10 starts, and improved this year -- 36 TD passes against 19 picks, 4,211 yards, and a 97.4 rating while leading the Cowboys to the NFC East division title. He completed 335 of 520 passes for a 64.4 percentage, averaging 8.1 yards an attempt and 263 passing yards a game, and holds an impressive slew of franchise records: a Pro Bowler in 2006 and again in 2007, he is the owner of the most 300-yard games (and only three short of Aikman's career-total 13) and most TD passes, most passing yards, most completions, and most TDs thrown in a game by a Dallas QB. All of this was done while the high-octane Dallas offense averaged 28.4 points a game (second behind you-know-who), 365.7 total yards a game (third) 256.6 pass yards a game (fourth) and 109.1 rush yards a game (17th).

So why isn't Romo a great quarterback yet? (And no, it isn't because of Simpsongate). And you can debate until you're Dallas-deep-blue in the face about the meaning of "grittiness" and "clutchness" come playoff time; it's hard to quantify intangibles because they're, well, intangible. Still, fairly or unfairly, Romo will still be only very good until he wins in the playoffs and breaks Dallas's 11-years-and-counting streak while not doing something boneheaded, be it fumbling the snap or yelling at his All-Pro offensive line (Jason Witten, Flozell Adams, Leonard Davis, and Andre Gurode -- aka most of his protection -- are going to Hawaii along with Romo himself and T.O.) Also, he still has an unfortunate propensity to have really terrible games, especially when his newest blonde love-interest is in the crowd. (Aside from the much ballyhooed 10-6 loss to the Eagles that started the Anti-Simpson hysteria in Dallas, he had four games in 2006 with a lower-than-60 QB rating, and three in 2007). The talent surrounding him can also occasionally save his skin -- he threw five interceptions against Buffalo and the Cowboys still pulled it out, 25-24, on a last-second Nick Folk field goal -- and he has a tendency to fade down the stretch in December after starting the season with ratings regularly well over 100. Once he learns to pace himself and perform as well at the end of the season as he does at the beginning, not to mention learn when not to set himself up for ridicule (Jessica Simpson bouncing her boobs and cavorting in that pink jersey made me ill) and win some playoff games, Romo will finally enter the great echelon instead of just very good.