Listen closely: Roy Williams does not have to fill Terrell Owens’ shoes for the trade to be deemed a success. Jerry Jones didn’t release Owens because he felt Roy Williams could put up the same numbers in place of Owens. If that were the case, why release Owens in the first place when you have him putting up those touchdowns year after year? As quoted from Jerry Jones himself, the release of Terrell Owens was fueled by an attempt to make the offense “Romo friendly.”

What exactly does “Romo friendly” mean? Let’s start at the root of the issue that made the Cowboys “Romo unfriendly.” There is a strong correlation between the amount of balls thrown in the direction of Terrell Owens and the amount of touchdowns and interceptions. Sure, Owens caught many touchdowns during his stay with the Cowboys, but they came at the expense of forced interceptions. Romo threw way too many balls to one “go-to guy,” many of which were intercepted. Everyone knows Owens is a great receiver, but a lot of his catches came from the excessive amount of balls thrown his way. Quite frankly, with the amount of passes thrown his way, his statistics should have been through the roof. So how do you fix this “Romo unfriendliness?” Jerry Jones decided it was time to part ways with Owens and spread the love.

In this offseason transition, Jerry wants Romo to spread the ball around to the open receiver without feeling the need to feed 15 passes per game to one triple covered receiver. So why is everyone dwelling on the fact that newly acquired Roy Williams has to match the production of Terrell Owens? If he does end up catching 70 balls for 1300 yards and 10 touchdowns, that is great. But that isn’t the only indicator of success. The Cowboys didn’t draft Martellus Bennett and Felix Jones to sit the sidelines while Jason Witten and Roy Williams have balls forced to them through double coverage. If Roy Williams finishes the year with 800 yards and 6 touchdowns, but Romo still throws 30 touchdowns with only 10 interceptions, Roy has done his job. Jerry doesn’t want one player to dictate the success of the offense, and when 15 balls were thrown to Terrell Owens every game, the success of the Cowboy resided on the success of Owens.

So what does Roy Williams have to do? He needs to be a constant contributor by either taking advantage of single coverage or drawing double coverage to open up plays for other passing and running threats. The Cowboys have so many players that they want to get the ball to that you cannot expect a single receiver (Roy Williams) to produce #1 receiver type numbers. You will be able to tell if Roy did his job by looking at Romo’s statistics and how the offense put up points. I’m not saying Roy is merely a decoy to open up the offense, but a “Romo friendly” offense does not include feeding footballs to Roy Williams like the amount fed to Terrell Owens.

Gabe Pinchev