Romo is capable of leading the team back to the Super Bowl

Deserved or not, Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo is a lightning rod for criticism. He's the face of a franchise that bills itself as "America's Team" but hasn't been to the playoffs since the 2009 season. In the three years since, Dallas hasn't finished above .500, although Romo was rewarded with a six-year, $108 million extension in March.

In Romo's defense, he's in a tough spot; owner Jerry Jones refuses to relinquish his GM duties, which has led to holes on the roster that have nothing to do with the quarterback. As we noted almost a year ago, Romo is one of the NFL's most efficient passers. In 2011, he ranked fourth in value-per-play behind Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady. In 2012, Romo was sixth. Clearly, he's not the Cowboys' biggest problem.

In fact, Hall of Famer and former Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach thinks Romo is capable of leading the team back to the Super Bowl.

“I think Tony Romo is a championship quarterback,” Staubach said. “He can take a team to a championship. He can't do it by himself, but I really believe he can do it. I just see what he does on the field, the plays he makes, the throws he makes, the sense that he has to move in the pocket, so I'm pulling really hard for Tony because I really believe he is one heck of a quarterback. And that's a feeling from somebody that I didn't say that about any other quarterbacks except for Troy Aikman. I think Tony is the right quarterback, and we're lucky to have Tony Romo.”

High praise … that's likely to be ridiculed by Romo's critics. But Staubach points out that the Cowboys could have been much better than their 8-8 record.

“Dallas will have a shot at it,” he continued. “When you're 8-8, you can be 10-6. The Giants a few years ago were 7-7 and ended up 9-7 and got to the Super Bowl. Last year, Baltimore was kind of hurting at the end of the year. If Dez Bryant doesn't have two fingers out of bounds, who knows. So at least I think Dallas has got the talent to be competitive with the league. We have to hope that we can get to the playoffs and once you're in the playoffs, anything can happen.”

Of course, the shoulda-coulda-woulda theory holds for every team. The difference is that the good ones find ways to win the games they shouldn't while the mediocre ones spend January and February on their couches with the rest of us.

So is Romo a championship quarterback? The better question might be: Can Jerry Jones get out of his own way long enough for the front office to surround Romo with players who give the Cowboys a legitimate shot at a title run?

For now, the answer to the latter remains a steadfast "no way."

If an NFL player decides to come out as gay, Cardinals coach Bruce Arians isn't worried about how the players would react, he's more concerned about the fans.

"I don't think the locker room would have any problem with it," Arians said on Wednesday. "The problem would be with the fans. I think especially opposing fans. Some of the things that are said are so over the top and out of control that I can imagine what some fans would say to an openly gay player."

Arians is probably somewhat right, and if you use your imagination, you can probably think of a few words an inebriated opposing fan might use.

That being said, Arians doesn't think an Arizona player coming out would affect the Cardinals locker room.

"As a coach I can probably speak for our players, too. I don't think anybody would have any problem with it," Arians said.

As for the fans having a problem with a gay athlete, Arians isn't alone in his thinking. Former NBA star and current TNT basketball analyst Charles Barkley feels the same way.

"Fans and the regular public are a lot more homophopic than players, so I 100 percent agree with Bruce Arians," Barkley said on 97.5 WPEN-FM in Philadelphia. I'm glad he had the courage to say that because a lot of coaches, you know, they kiss up to the people, but I respect that."

If there is a backlash against a gay player, the league will be prepared for it.

"Our league and team security people would be ready to monitor any kind of public reaction that might not be appropriate, including scrubbing social media," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said in April. "We would assist the player in dealing with any adverse public reaction of any type, if there is any. Hopefully there wouldn't be and it would be a non-issue, which it should be."

The problem for the league is that it's not a non-issue or else people would stop talking about it. And it will probably remain an issue that players and coaches are asked about until a player actually comes out.

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The game's best rivalries?

It's not just a good game; it's good theater, with drama, passion, angst and hyperbole injected into a series that suddenly threatens to become the West Coast version of Baltimore-Pittsburgh. I know, it's not there. Not yet. But it gets closer with every Harbaugh spitball. In the meantime, let's just say it's a rivalry that has everyone's attention, which means it just entered rarified air -- along with these guys:

Pittsburgh-Baltimore

These two not only regularly compete for the AFC North championship; they regularly compete with New England for ownership of the AFC, period. One or the other has appeared in four of the past five conference championship games (with both in the 2008 game), and they've been to three of the past five Super Bowls. But there's more than that. Look at the series history: Seven of the past nine games between these two were decided by three points. Three frickin' points. Moreover, look at what their players say about each other. It's not pretty, with Terrell Suggs once suggesting the Ravens had a "bounty" out on Pittsburgh star receiver Hines Ward -- a comment he later said was made in jest. Ravens' coach John Harbaugh calls the series "a defining type of rivalry," which makes sense if the definition is the best of the best of the best. This is Boston vs. the Yankees in baseball, UNC vs. Duke in basketball and Tiger vs. Phil on the back nine. The two teams are built around suffocating defenses, winning quarterbacks and organizational stability, and they bring an intensity and respect for each other rarely seen elsewhere. "If there is one place you want to play as a football player," Suggs once said, "it's definitely being the bad guy in Heinz Field." Now that's how you light a fuse.

Peyton Manning-Tom Brady

They're two of the best quarterbacks in pro football, and the only thing safer than their enshrinements at the Pro Football Hall of Fame is that they meet each other next year. You can look it up: Manning-Brady is on target for national TV Nov. 24 at Foxboro, the 11th time since 2001 they've met -- with 2008 and 2011 the only leap years. But there's a catch: Their teams did, in fact, meet in each of those seasons. It's just that their quarterbacks couldn't make it. Brady was hurt in 2008, and Manning was out in 2011. So they've been scheduled to play in each of the past 11 years, meaning they're one of the few stories with more sequels than Rocky. So Brady is 9-4 head-to-head vs. Eli's older brother. Only once in the last five times they met has the gap between the two been more than four points. Plus, now Manning has Brady's favorite receiver. Brady's been to five Super Bowls; Manning to two. Manning has four MVP awards; Brady has two. I think you get the idea. These are two of the most decorated quarterbacks in history, and enjoy them while you can. They won't last forever.

Chicago-Green Bay

Of the rivalries mentioned here, none goes back further than this one. It's not the meanest. Baltimore-Pittsburgh qualifies there. Nor is it the most competitive. While the series is close (92-88-6 in favor of the Bears), it hasn't been close lately. Green Bay won eight of the last nine. It's just that there's something about Green Bay-Chicago, and it's more than memories of Halas and Lombardi, Butkus and Nitschke, Sayers and Starr. It's 22 NFL championships (including five Super Bowls) and 48 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It's 186 games and fierce hitting and bitter cold and Super Bowl Shuffles. Granted, there haven't been a lot of championships lately. But look at the NFC North: Nine of the last 11 titles have been won by one of these teams, with the Packers -- which didn't win the 2010 title -- running the table that year in the playoffs before winning Super Bowl XLV. When you think of the division this season, you automatically think Green Bay. But then whom? Minnesota? Not unless you believe Adrian Peterson runs for another 2,000 yards. Nope, it's Chicago, and, yeah, OK, so the Bears lost Brian Urlacher. They're still the team Packers' fans love to hate.

Atlanta-New Orleans

The last four years these two took turns at the top of the NFC South, with Atlanta winning it last season while the Saints' Sean Payton was on sabbatical. So there's balance. But that's not what I like about this series. This is: It's charged with as much emotion as it is superb play. Remember when Drew Brees broke Dan Marino's single-season passing record? It was against Atlanta, and the Falcons didn't like how it went down. Up 38-16 with under five minutes to play, New Orleans passed on the chance to kill the clock with running plays and, instead, had Brees pass to gain the 30 yards he needed to set the record. Afterward, Payton explained the situation, saying he thought it was "appropriate," but the Falcons weren't buying it. "That's just who they are," one of their players told our Pete Prisco. "We'll see them down the road. We won't forget any of it." Turns out, he was right. It was the Falcons who ended Brees' record of consecutive games with a touchdown pass at 54. That was a 23-13 Falcons' victory last season where Atlanta intercepted Brees five times, a first in his career. It was also after New Orleans had broken the Falcons' unbeaten record and airport workers in Atlanta egged the Saints' team bus when their charter arrived. Hey, if you can't beat 'em, egg 'em.

Jim Harbaugh-John Harbaugh

Following Super Bowl XLVII, Baltimore's John Harbaugh said, "There's no greater coach in the National Football league -- or in the world, as far as I'm concerned" -- than his brother, Jim, which is a nice thing for Big Brother to acknowledge. Only it begs this question: What does that make John? He played his brother twice and beat him both times -- including that 34-31 defeat in Super Bowl XLVII when the 49ers couldn't go five yards in three plays. These two have a total of seven years coaching in the NFL, with seven playoff appearances, four division titles, a combined record of 90-39-1 and five conference championship-game appearances. Nope, they don't hate each other, but neither is OK with losing -- which is good because, as the numbers tell us, neither one of them does much losing. I understand this is a stretch because the rivalry doesn't exist in head-to-head play. They've only met twice, for crying out loud. But don't tell me it doesn't exist in their bodies of work, because it does -- with one brother trying to outdo the other. Advantage, John.

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Graham had hoped he would only get better in Year 3

 
Jimmy Graham talks about his performance last season as if it were an enormous disappointment.
Forget that many tight ends would have been pleased to make 85 catches - which led the Saints in that category - for 982 yards and nine touchdowns.
Those totals still represented a drop-off for the 6-foot-7 Graham, who had one the best seasons ever for someone at his position in 2011.
``This is probably the hungriest I've ever been to kind of right the wrongs of last year and to prove what this team can do and maybe hush up some of the naysayers,'' Graham said. ``So for me it's all work and doing as much as I can to be the best player I can.''
Graham, a converted college basketball player drafted out of Miami in 2010, became a Pro Bowl tight end in only his season NFL season, when his 99 catches for 1,310 yards 11 TDs helped New Orleans' record-setting offense rack up the most yards ever in a season with 7,474.
The only tight end ever to have more yards receiving in a season than Graham is New England's Rob Gronkowski, who had 1,327, also in 2011.
Graham had hoped he would only get better in Year 3, but was hampered for much of the season by a left wrist injury and also missed one game with an ankle sprain.
Graham was plagued by dropped passes. And while he won't blame it on the wrist injury, for which he wore a brace, quarterback Drew Brees was certain it didn't help.
``He was banged up quite a bit last year in his defense,'' Brees said. ``He's had an offseason now to recover and be on the mend. He feels a lot better.''
Graham had wrist surgery after last season. Although he said he is not fully recovered yet, Graham has made several acrobatic catches in non-contact, offseason practices, including a leaping, one-handed grab on a throw to the end zone that delighted fans who flocked to open minicamp practices this week.
``I've been in rehab and I've been getting stronger,'' Graham said. ``Right now I'm almost 100 percent, so going into camp I'll be 100 percent. And it just feels good. It feels good to be healthy finally and to be back playing like me.''
In addition to feeling better physically, Graham said he's drawn confidence from a couple other developments. One is that Brees has been working with him throughout the offseason, which did not happen a year ago while the star quarterback was holding out for a new contract.
The other is having coach Sean Payton, who designed the offense, back from his season-long suspension in connection with the NFL's bounty investigation of the club.
``It feels like it did two years ago. We are right on pace and guys are learning,'' Graham said. ``I'm definitely excited for what is going to happen this year and for everything to start to count.''
Maturity is another factor. For the first time, Graham enters a season as the Saints tight end who has been on the roster the longest. Gone are previous mentors Jeremy Shockey and David Thomas.
``That's definitely different,'' Graham said. ``I've always had somebody there to kind of teach me and to kind of follow them. Now it's a little bit more on my shoulders. ... I'm definitely getting a little older, I'm learning a lot more about defenses this year, and I think that's what is going to help.''
Notes: Payton said he has not decided who will call the offensive plays this season. In 2011, he stopped doing it after he was injured in a sideline collision in the sixth game of the season, taking more of an oversight role while the offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael called plays. Last season Carmichael again called all the plays while Payton was suspended, and the Saints' offense ranked second in total yards. ``Pete has been invaluable. He has been tremendous,'' Payton said. ``His role will be significant.''