Here’s a sentence that should strike more fear in the hearts of Cowboys fans than a carload of teenagers bearing eggs tonight.
Brandon Weeden is preparing to start for the Cowboys Sunday against the Cardinals.
Sure, they hope Tony Romo’s “pain tolerance” allows him to play, and he thinks it will, but the Cowboys still have to get ready as if their quarterback with a back injury might not.
Weeden compared the not knowing whether he’d be needed to his last year playing baseball, and his uneasiness with being in the bullpen.
“My last year playing baseball I was dealing with some shoulder issues, so I was a reliever and in the bullpen, and I used to get so ticked off because my manager never told me if I was hot that night or not,” Weeden said, via Charean Williams of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “It’s really hard. It’s just a different mindset. It’s the uncertainty of you may play or you may not play for six, seven, eight weeks, whatever. You just don’t know.
“So you’ve just got to approach it like you’re going to play at some point. That way, if your number is called, you’re not caught off guard.”
The 31-year-old Weeden played well in relief Sunday night, throwing a touchdown and completing 4-of-6 passes before Romo returned to the game. He led them on two scoring drives, and the game was tied when he left.
“He performed well,” offensive coordinator Scott Linehan said. “He took us down on a couple of scoring drives. I think the thing that was most important was his demeanor. He looked very veteranlike. You could tell he’d played. He’s an older player. Young in the league, but the guy’s got a lot of maturity to him. It’s not too big for him to go out there and step in in a relief mode and play. Nor is it too big for him to be prepared as a starter, because he’s done it in this league. We’re very confident in him.”
The fact he’s gotten all the work in the preseason and on Wednesdays all season helps him familiarize, and he’ll need to be ready for long relief work, in case Romo can’t tolerate the pain which obviously has coaches worried.
