NFL on CBS analyst Tony Romo recently added “criticizing the media ” into his set of duties.
Romo started his broadcasting career in 2017. Recently, he faced more blowback than he had previously for his work last year.
There was widespread criticism from social media of this site and other industry publications to comments from former NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol and current Fox Sports personality Colin Cowherd.
Romo has addressed that criticism to a large extent and has generally taken it with a reasonable “You can’t please anyone” response, amping that up this week with comments to Richard Deitsch of The Athletic that suggested the criticism is agenda-based:
Key quotes from there:
“People come to me now and say they love our crew, they love how we do it,” Romo said. “Like anything, we’ve (the CBS crew) been at such a high level doing this for so long that it doesn’t matter who you are, people are not going to continually write the same article about how great you are.”
“I mean, you wouldn’t do that. You’re not going to continually write, ‘They are the best,’ over and over again. They might still think it, but people have to find things to write. I think that’s just part of human nature.”
“And guess what? There are agendas. People like clicks. I mean, that’s a real thing. And I think they should. I think it’s all positive. Talking about it, it helps all of the NFL.”
“Our job is to go out there and perform like we’ve done and try to always do our best. I think we’ve done a great job with that. You’re looking at a very talented group here. Like all things, we’re going to go and try to put our best foot forward.”
It may not be wrong that “people like clicks” and that many decisions at many sports sites get made on that basis, but it is missing some of the point.
If criticism of Romo were only about pageviews rather than his performance, much more of it would have shown up earlier.
“People are not going to continually write the same article about how great you are” was just as true in 2020 and 2021 as was in 2022, as was any discussion of “people like clicks.”
Last year, CBS “tried an intervention” with Romo’s offseason. The network referred to that as a “mischaracterization,” they didn’t dispute their executives’ visits with Romo.
The commentary from Romo here has similarities to Stephen A. Smith’s recent ranting about comments from Dan Le Batard and others.
Yes, to some degree, both figures have a point; not all of their criticism of them is honest, unbiased, or fair compared to what gets lobbed (or not lobbed) at other commentators and programs.
Ascribing criticism totally to a media agenda is also not fair; in most cases, that criticism is not starting from thin air or a premise of “X should be attacked” but rather from the legitimate complaints out there about a person or network.
The “clicks” criticism misses that point; the reason any of that works (to whatever level it does) for “clicks” is that fans are interested in the premise.
If Romo had been indisputably and unilaterally good, there wouldn’t be rewards for criticizing him.
Romo is free to feel how he likes about the criticism he gets. And if it helps him sleep at night, he can chalk it up to “agendas” and “clicks.”
There’s significant evidence out there that a lot of the criticism he has received is not really about starting agendas and is not profitable or click-driving in its own right but comes around even some internal discussions on and with him, “mischaracterized” as they may be.
Previously, analysts have tried to blame the media for their shortcomings, including Jason Witten. It didn’t work out for Witten; let’s see if it does for Romo.
