Deion Sanders Claps Back at Tony Romo for Saying He Was a Lousy Tackler
Tony Romo joked that Deion Sanders couldn’t tackle. Deion wasn’t about to let it go. pic.twitter.com/fH0fxRw0CU
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) November 6, 2017
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You know what the best part of his feud is? I mean, aside from the obvious that it’s two former Cowboys now working for the same company tearing the flesh off each other’s bones for our entertainment. That speaks for itself.
To me the real rewarding part is that neither side is wrong. Deion Sanders didn’t tackle anybody. Tony Romo didn’t win in the postseason and threw a lot of picks. As the lawyers like to say, truth is a defense against libel.
I suppose this is a case of a great athlete who doesn’t appreciate getting ripped by someone who didn’t play on his level, just because that guy has a media job. I get that. It happens all the time. It’s what David Price thought he was doing when he came after Dennis Eckersley, only he picked the wrong target because Eck was a better pitcher – starter and reliever, regular and postseason – than he’ll ever be. By no objective standard was Romo anywhere in the same solar system as Sanders as a football player. So I can see him getting hacked off about taking his shit.
But that doesn’t make Romo wrong. Sanders didn’t buy that gold jacket. But he didn’t earn it by tackling anybody, either. That’s just a fact. We talk about this on Laces Out today, that a lot of the best cover corners aren’t asked to stick their nose in against blockers or stop the run. Darrelle Revis, for example. And Sanders is the patron saint of that. Charles Woodson, Champ Bailey, Lester Hayes, Mike Haynes, those guys did it all. Sanders shut down receivers, baiting quarterbacks into throwing lots of picks and then pretty much avoided contact as much as possible. There’s no shame it that. He still has rings Romo will never have and gets to write “HOF” under his name. But that doesn’t make Romo factually inaccurate.
That said, when two football media guys openly start chirping at each other, we all win. Let’s hope this war keeps escalating.
@jerrythornton1