NFC East Roundup: Romo’s Uncertain Status

Connor Barwin and Tony Romo. (Jeff Fusco)

INDIANAPOLIS — With the NFL Combine in full gear, there’s plenty going on around the NFC East. Here’s the latest.

Tony Romo’s future as the Cowboys’ starting quarterback is week to week, not year to year, says Bob Sturm of the Dallas Morning News.

Here it is: I don’t think Romo’s situation can be classified as a QB with “injury issues” anymore. Rather, I would suggest that Romo’s collarbone situation would have to be called a “ticking time bomb.” I think his future is week to week, not year to year. No longer a question of “if”, but rather a matter of “when”.

I think that his collarbone has obviously not mended like they had first hoped and so here we sit – 159 days since Jordan Hicks broke it in September and 92 days since Thomas Davis got him again on Thanksgiving Day – without any further resolution that he is as good as new and ready to play. I might remind you that the Cowboys resisted the obvious plans of putting him on injured reserve because they originally assumed he would be available for the NFC Championship Game which was played on January 24th. 33 days ago.

So, I don’t believe his collarbone has mended properly since Thanksgiving. And I sure don’t believe it healed like they thought it would from September – as evidenced best that he broke it again on a rather normal-looking hit on Thanksgiving Day. I am far from a medical expert, but I can read a calendar. When they talk about this 8-10 weeks business and we sit here at the end of February and discuss further procedures, but still under the banner of “everything is fine and there is no reason for alarm”, I am tempted to sound the sirens. I am not buying it anymore.

Dallas met with Dak Prescott and told him they may draft a quarterback, according to Clarence Hill of the Forth Worth Star-Telegram.

Quarterbacks coach Wade Wilson and offensive coordinator Scott Linehan met with Prescott at the Senior Bowl and Wilson met with him again at the NFL Scouting Combine, leaving him no doubt they will be taking a quarterback in the draft.

“Coach Wilson told me their picks,” Prescott said. “He told me they were thinking about getting a quarterback with one of those picks. He said if I work hard, things could work out.”

Prescott said he grew up a Cowboys fan and would love to be selected by them in the draft. But his main focus in playing somewhere in the NFL.

Prescott is rising up the draft boards. It was initially thought he would go in the third or fourth round. But now he is considered a second-round option.

Despite the tension, Victor Cruz and the Giants need each other, writes Ebenezer Samuel of the New York Daily News.

Victor Cruz desperately needs the Giants, and the Giants could certainly use his calming, veteran influence at receiver. And that’s why, despite a strange week that seemed to open the possibility for Cruz’s exit from East Rutherford, both the salsa-ing receiver who powered the Giants to a Super Bowl and the team that made him a star need to make things work this offseason.

There’s tension between both sides, since Cruz has three years left on his deal but hasn’t played a down – let alone survived a full practice – since his knee injury in October of 2014. He’s set to make $7.9 million next season, far too much to pay for a receiver who turns 30 in November but may or may not still be an explosive force.

A spring contract reworking that slashes Cruz’s bloated salary is a near certainty, and if the receiver refuses to work with the ball club, he could find himself being released.

Jason Pierre-Paul is suing ESPN and Adam Schefter for posting his medical records online, reports Julia Marsh of the New York Post.

The NFL player blew off a finger in a July 4 fireworks mishap and was treated at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, according to his lawyers Mitchell Schuster and Kevin Fritz.

Schefter “improperly obtained” Pierre-Paul’s medical chart showing the defensive end had his right index finger amputated and posting the record on Twitter to nearly 4 million followers, the suit says.

“This action arises out of ESPN reporter Schefter’s blatant disregard for the private and confidential nature of plaintiff’s medical records, all so Schefter could show the world that he had ‘supporting proof’ of a surgical procedure,” the suit says.

The Washington Post’s Mike Jones says it’s not whether Washington keeps Kirk Cousins, but how that matters.

From now until Tuesday, McCloughan and chief contract negotiator Eric Schaffer will work feverishly to sign Cousins to a long-term deal so they can avoid using the franchise tag to retain the quarterback.

If unsuccessful, does McCloughan let the March 1 deadline for franchise-player designation pass without using it on Cousins and subject the Redskins to losing their quarterback through unrestricted free agency? Or does he cover his bases by using the tag on Cousins and keep negotiating toward a deal in hopes of reaching an agreement before the start of free agency March 9? That would allow the team to limit Cousins’s 2016 salary and spend money to upgrade the roster elsewhere.

Coach Jay Gruden said earlier he felt confident that whether by franchise tag or long-term deal, Cousins would remain a Redskin. But McCloughan was less certain.

British Parliament members are objecting to Washington playing Cincinnati in London in October, Des Bieler of the Washington Post reports.

It appears the controversy over the Redskins’ name will follow it to London — assuming the team makes its scheduled trip there to play the Bengals in October. Two members of the British Parliament recently sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell objecting to “the exportation of this racial slur to the UK.”

In the Feb. 2 letter, obtained by ESPN, Labour Party members Ruth Smeeth and Ian Austin wrote, “We were shocked to learn the derivation of the term ‘R*dskin,’ pertaining as it does to the historic abuse of Native Americans. The exportation of this racial slur to the UK this autumn, when the Washington team is due to play, directly contravenes the values that many in Britain have worked so hard to instill.”

According to ESPN’s Mike Wise, Smeeth and Austin also asked the NFL to change the team’s name or, “at the minimum, send a different team to our country to represent the sport, one that does not promote a racial slur.”