Tony Romo and Bad Mojo

I went to the Cowboys vs. Eagles excuse for a football game Sunday afternoon. Cowboys lost 10-6.

For football fans who live under rocks, Tony Romo had Jessica Simpson in the stands. She was in a pink Romo jersey. She got as much face time on TV as Wade Phillips. (If you were running a camera, who would you film?)

After the loss, Cowboy fans were screaming at the sports talk radio hosts that the loss was Jessica's fault. Romo obviously didn't have his head in the game. He had the same problem - a loss - last year when Carrie Underwood was in the stands. All the way home, I listened to talk show hosts and callers dissected the obvious correlation between Hot Women In The Skybox and Tony Overthrowing T.O.

The next morning, the Romo/Simpson jinx was in the paper. Here's a sample of the comments from the online version. Fascinating stuff. It's already made it to Romo's Wikipedia entry.

Ok, let's look at this thing: Tony Romo has been quarterbacking since high school. Maybe earlier. I bet he had some girlfriends in the stands all through high school. Same thing for college.

The NFL gives players a certain number of tickets to every game. A lot of those go to wives and girlfriends. These women, along with their Mama, are also occasionally shown on TV - usually when the husband/boyfriend gets hurt. I'm guessing 50% of the Cowboy players, minimum, had some form of woman in the stands.

Has anyone taken their negative Mojo into consideration for this loss?

Tony Romo didn't think twice about who was in the stands after the first kickoff. He's a professional, fer heaven's sake. Andre Gurode and Chris Canty busting up their knees was a bigger factor than Jessica Simpson. Tony Romo's strained thumb was a bigger factor than Jessica Simpson. And there was another professional team on the field, a team with God's Gift to Philadelphia's running game.

But the camera shows Jessica in the skybox, we look at Jessica in the skybox, and we think about Jessica in the skybox. We're momentarily distracted from 3rd down and long yardage.

That's the difference between Tony Romo and the rest of us. We know how WE would play with Jessica Simpson watching.

A little bit distracted.