Dallas quarterback Tony Romo feels pretty good about the Cowboys chances of repeating as NFC East champions and NFL playoff participants next season.
Romo feels so good, in fact, about the team's chances of navigating the NFL minefield that he thinks the Cowboys are set to vie for a Lombardi Trophy next season.
Romo, while accepting the Nancy Lieberman Lifetime Achievement Award at the Dream Ball Gala at the Omni Hotel on Thursday, closed his speech by guaranteeing a Super Bowl victory for the Cowboys.
"This award is very meaningful to me, mostly because I get to be associated with this and to be associated with Nancy," Romo said, via Jon Machota of The Dallas Morning News. "It's incredible and I really appreciate you, and we're going to win a Super Bowl next year. Thank you."
Not someday. Not eventually. Next year.
Good luck to you, Tony, because if you fall short of that goal you may never hear the end of it, even if it was said in semi-jest and the rest of the speech was an homage to all the hard-work put in and the burning desire to bring an NFL championship to the fans in Dallas.
"I want to win a championship so bad, but it's just not about me. I literally want to win it so bad for them. For the people around me who have helped me," said Romo.
"They've allowed me to achieve my dreams and my goals. Without them, I'm not there, I promise you. I'm not where I'm at right now and I'm not going where I'm going."
Of course, Romo has ample reason to be excited for Dallas' prospects next season.
His Cowboys emerged victorious from the NFC East and were a Dez Bryant catch/non-catch/no one in the NFL has any idea what a catch is, from finding their way past the formidable Green Bay Packers and onto the NFC Championship game against the Seattle Seahawks - a team they'd already beaten earlier in the regular season.
The Boys did lose last season's leading rusher in the NFL, DeMarco Murray, and his 2,200 all-purpose yards to the rival Philadelphia Eagles this offseason, but Romo and GM Jerry Jones have seemed entirely unperturbed by Murray's departure.
The team is reportedly eyeing the 2015 NFL Draft and one of either Todd Gurley or Melvin Gordon as the means with which they'll replace Murray's production and despite the fact that they don't select until No. 27 in the first-round, do seem well-positioned to walk away with a high-quality ballcarrier next week.
Still, there are considerable concerns - namely a defense that played much better than the sum of the parts through the early portion of last season only to fall back to earth during the stretch run to the postseason - and it's usually never wise to be too boastful during the offseason.
Bulletin board material or no, it's certainly better your quarterback be thinking Super Bowl victory rather than wondering aloud if the team can replicate the magic they found the season before.
