It was announced on Tuesday morning that despite his pending release from the Cowboys, Tony Romo is retiring from the NFL and going into broadcasting. It obviously brought up the debate that’s been around for the last decade… Was Romo among the elites at his position and does he deserve to go into the Hall of Fame? I’ll go a step further and say that he was not only great among those he played with, but should be considered one of the greats of all-time.

When you love stats as much as I do, it really is simple to make a case for Romo as a top-10 quarterback all-time. Here are some numbers that may peak your interest: 63.8 percent completion ratio, 539 touchdowns with 251 interceptions (which amounts to 2.15 touchdowns per interception), 7.9 yards per attempted pass, a touchdown percentage of 5.3 percent, and lastly, a 96.7 quarterback rating.

After reading the title, I know that you have already started thinking about whether or not these are Romo’s statistics. Let me save you the time and research, they aren’t. What I did was capture your interest with giant numbers. So whose numbers are they? That is where our journey begins, because I am putting it on myself (self-inflicted, of course) to convince you that Tony Romo was better than you think.

Accuracy

Let’s start with the first number, a 63.8 percent completion rate. That number belongs to none other than the NFL’s poster child, Tom Brady. Many know him as a quarterback who has pinpoint accuracy and a guy who can shred an opposing defense. He may not have had the best wide receivers throughout his career, but he was still able to rack up a completion percentage that ranks 13th all-time. Although Romo didn’t play 17 seasons like Brady has, he managed to complete 65.3 percent of his passes over his 13 seasons (though he only played in basically 10 of them). Romo’s number ranks him fifth all-time among quarterbacks with at least 2000 pass attempts. While the pessimist will say that the NFL allows for a higher completion percentage nowadays, Romo has completed a massive 66.6 percent of passes since 2010, the second-highest rate among quarterbacks (behind Drew Brees) in that timespan.

Touchdown Ratio

Moving on to the 539 touchdowns and 251 interceptions. Those numbers belong to Peyton Manning, who is widely considered to be the greatest of all-time, if not among the top-three. Most haven’t forgotten that he broke the record for most touchdown passes in a single season with 55 of them in 2013. Needless to say, Manning could throw touchdowns as good as anyone. His 2.15 touchdowns for every one interception ranks him fifth all-time among those with at least 2000 pass attempts. Romo is right there behind him at 2.12 touchdowns per interception, which is good enough for sixth all-time. Going back to Romo’s completion percentage of 65.3, it was exactly the same as the all-time great Manning’s. Again, Romo was playing better and better as his career went on, totaling 161 touchdowns compared to just 64 interceptions (2.52 ratio) from 2009-2014 before injuries knocked him out in 2015-2016. *Fun Fact* Did you know that Aaron Rodgers’ mark of 4.12 is more than 1.10 higher than the next highest quarterback?

Yards Per Attempt

So now that we’ve compared him to two of the greatest of all time, we need to look at a quarterback with a big arm that doesn’t dink and dunk passes over the field. I thought that we would try and use someone different than Manning and Brady, so I went and looked at Ben Roethlisberger. He is another quarterback who is considered among the elites, and does sling the ball around the field. In his 13 NFL seasons, Roethlisberger has averaged a massive 7.9 yards per pass attempt, which is good enough to be second among active quarterbacks and sixth all-time in the statistic. He has actually averaged 8.1 or more yards per attempt in 6 of his 13 seasons, and has never been below 7.3 yards per attempt. Romo has never struck me as a guy that took very many shots downfield, so I didn’t know if he would be able to stack up in this category. But his efficiency came through, and I was surprised to find out that he is tied with Roethlisberger for sixth all-time with 7.9 yards per attempt. Before his injury in 2015, Romo actually had just one year in which he did not top 7.5 yards per attempt, and that was his 7.2 in 2013 where he still threw for 31 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

Touchdown Percentage

We are now to the point where he has a completion percentage that is better arguably the best quarterback of all time, a touchdown to interception ratio that ranks as fifth all-time, and he doesn’t do it by just dumping off passes, as evidenced by his 7.9 yards per attempt. How about his touchdown percentage? He may have a good completion percentage, but how are his touchdown totals in relation to the amount of passes that he throws? Let’s take a look at a guy that happens to be pretty good at throwing touchdowns, Drew Brees. He hasn’t thrown less than 32 touchdowns in the last nine years and is widely considered to be one of the elite quarterbacks of his time. His touchdown percentage sits at 5.3 for his career, and while that is pretty good, there are four quarterbacks who are still playing right now that carry a higher number than Brees. Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Philip Rivers and… Romo. Actually, Romo ranks second on that list, in between Rodgers and Brady. He never gets the glory on the stat pages because he never gets the opportunity that some of the other elite guys do. By comparison, Romo has attempted 523 passes just twice in his career, while Brees has hit a minimum of 627 attempts in 8 of the last 9 seasons. Again, only Aaron Rodgers throws more touchdowns on a per pass basis (among active quarterbacks) than Romo.

QB Rating

And for this last comparison, we are going to use a combination of both Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, the two juggernauts of our era. The combined quarterback rating of these two throughout their long careers sits at 96.9, which is a number that some quarterbacks don’t even hit in one single year of their career. And before I give you Romo’s number, I want you to understand that I do know QB rating can be a little bit flawed on a per game basis. But when we are talking about almost a decade of data that we are going off, it speaks volumes. And if you want to argue with me that quarterback rating doesn’t tell you the best of the best, I will point to the all-time leaders which includes Rodgers, Manning, Steve Young, Brady, Rivers, Brees, Roethlisberger, Kurt Warner and Joe Montana. Tony Romo’s 97.1 QB Rating sits at No. 3 all-time on this list, behind only Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson. He was consistent too, as he reached the 100.0 mark just twice in his career, and went below 94.9 just three times. By comparison, Tom Brady has been below that number in 8 of his 15 seasons.

So we built a quarterback where we took the best attributes from each of the best quarterbacks from the last 15 years, and Romo hung with them every step of the way. Now here comes the part you Romo haters have been waiting for. He doesn’t win in the playoffs, right? I am not going to sit here and tell you that he is the most clutch quarterback, but the fact that he chokes just isn’t true. He has played in just six playoff games since taking over as the starter for the Cowboys and his record in those games is 2-4. To look at that number and call him a choker isn’t the brightest idea to come through your head. That is just six games. I want you to look at some of the quarterbacks that we consider great and look at their playoff wins and losses. Let’s start with Peyton Manning who won 14 playoff games, but lost 13 of them. Is he a failure or not considered great? No, because he is one of the best quarterbacks that we have ever seen play the game. Drew Brees has gone 6-5 in the playoffs throughout his career, but it doesn’t matter to most because he has won a Super Bowl. Since he won that Super Bowl, his record is 2-3 in the playoffs. For some reason, a lot of people believe that a quarterback needs to win a championship to be considered one of the greats of all-time.

Now let’s take a look at the other side of the spectrum. Eli Manning has won two Super Bowls and has a record of 8-4 in the playoffs. Say what you want about that, but I will tell you that Eli Manning happens to be a very average NFL quarterback. Next we will look at another recent Super Bowl winner, Joe Flacco. In his short career (nine seasons), Flacco has already played in 15 playoff games and has won 10 of them. I remember the conversation that people were having after that Super Bowl he won, talking about whether or not he was elite. I was not one of them, because he is not an elite quarterback. He came out the next year and threw 19 touchdowns and 22 interceptions. He is a tad better than Eli, but that is a story for a different day. I could go on about this topic all day and tell you that Trent Dilfer has won a Super Bowl and Jake Delhomme went 5-3 in playoff games, but that doesn’t tell you that they were good quarterbacks.

Rather than just using other quarterback’s numbers in the playoffs, let’s dissect Romo’s right now. In his first two playoff games, it would only be natural to be nervous, right? Not that he was awful, but in those two games he completed just 35 of 65 passes (53.8 percent) for 390 yards to go along with two touchdowns and one interception. Did he lose those games? Yes, but did he give those games away? No. Fast-forwarding to the next four games where the Cowboys won two and lost two. In those four games he completed 79 of 120 passes (65.8 percent) for 926 yards, six touchdowns and one interception. So he has thrown two interceptions in six total playoff games, yet he is the one that chokes?

If we’re being honest, I was rooting for Romo to go to the Broncos or the Texans because he deserved to have a realistic shot at a Super Bowl. If he would’ve signed with them and won three games en route to a Super Bowl, he would have finished 6-5 in the playoffs, and all would be forgotten. But that’ll never happen and all we’ll have left is this argument. Does Tony Romo belong in the Hall of Fame?

You can say all you want about Romo, but unless you show actual proof that he wasn’t one of the all-time greats, you have no argument. You can say that he was fragile, but don’t be the person who says “Romo sucks” just to fit in, because you’re wrong. Whether or not he gets into the Hall of Fame isn’t up to me, and although he may not get in due to injuries cutting his career short, he really does belong among the greats.

Ep. 72: Dynasty Rookie Draft

Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher | SoundCloud | Google Play | TuneIn | RSS

Mike Tagliere is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeTagliereNFL.