VSR: Romo, Ray-Ray, and Roasting Trojans on an Open Fiiiiiiyah!

I've tried to keep defending Tony Romo. His first year at QB when he fumbled the FG snap, I blamed it on youth. After going 13-3 and getting a bye only to lose to the Giants in 07 on an endzone pick, I blamed it on never being there. Last year, I just stopped trying to say it after the Boys just quit and lost 44-6 to the Eagles.

Now after this loss to the Giants where he threw 3 INT's at home, I can't defend my quarterback (sniff sniff, that's my QB (c) T.O.). I'm afraid Romo can't win the big games.

Instant gratification has made football fans (and sports fans) forget that teams and players have to learn to win and they have to lose big in the process to learn. You have to mature as a player through hard knocks but Romo is starting to be awfully consistent.

You see how Eli Manning and Philip Rivers have grown over the last two years? They play smarter and for their faults, they win games more than do stuff to lose them. Romo hasn't done that and in this year where he has to be a better leader, he's sadly showing that not only can't he win big games, he plays bad in them.

Meanwhile, in San Diego, the Chargers were a 4th down play from having a chance at victory and them BOOOOM! No. 52 Ray-Ray Lewis shuts down Darren Sproles like a Mack Truck (not on that play, however). Game Over. No place like home, yeeeeeah right.

But my beef with this L.T.-less bunch is right at Norv Turner. End of the 1st half, 1st and G from the 1-inch line and here's what happens. False start, INC, INC, INC, FG to end it. I think I speak for all when I say WHAT THEE DEUCE!!

No run plays, confusion at the line, and we have to settle for a FG???? AT home!!! To me, that lost the game right there. Rivers had 250 passing yards in the 1st half and we can't get 5??? Big time fail and while I felt their run D was subpar, playcalling was a big problem.

Good ole Norv Turner. Always count on for one dumb call every so often. By the way, give props to Ray Lewis for showing why he's a HOF player. That was a big time play hate it or not.

I roasted USC in my article this week for the paper. Pretty much said they aren't a Rose Bowl caliber team, not when Cal is playing extremely well and Oregon/Oregon State will be tough. Heck, I think the Irish are gonna pick em apart with Cali boy Jimmy Clausen.

My co-worker made a great observation. UCLA and USC are essentially the same team. Young QB play, great running game, great defense up front. I give UCLA the edge on secondary and on total defense though (more pros on their roster at this point).

And how ironic that both feature tailbacks from Dorsey HS playing well. USC has scoring machine Stafon Johnson and UCLA has Johnathan "Jet Ski" Franklin, who I did a story on back in 07. It's great for a program that has been one of the best in So. Cal.

But right now UCLA is looking like a better team even with a cameo (I hope) from Kevin Craft last week. In two weeks, both teams will be tested in the Bay Area (yeeeeeee!) and we'll see what happens.

Since you wanna know. I'm 2-0 in the ESPN League with my Twitter fam, U Mad League - thanks to the boy Marques Colston, Phil Rivers, and DeAngelo Williams. I'm 1-1 in Yahoo with Drew Brees, Tony Gonzalez leading the charge. So far so good, but need we'll take shots.

(Oh yeah, Jahvid Best for Heisman ceremony. He good! But no Heisman/BCS predictions on E-TV...we don't believe in ranking teams and players 2-3 weeks in. You Good? You Good! But let's wait til mid October for a Heisman race ok?)