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John Elway was 37. Danny White is long out of football. So is Steve DeBerg. But there is a common thread that brings all these names together. And the name of that common thread is Tony Romo.

John Elway is easily remembered for all the different things he did on the football field. He is mostly going to be remembered for winning two consecutive Super Bowls. But what goes more often unremembered is how long it took Elway to get those wins and how old he was when it happened. Elway played 16 seasons in the NFL. He did not win his first Super Bowl until his 15th season. And he was 37 years old.

Danny White played 13 seasons in the NFL, mostly before Elway’s time. He is not as well remembered as Elway but he is well remembered by Cowboys fans. Unfortunately, White is most remembered for the things he was not able to accomplish. Unlike Elway, White never won a Super Bowl. In fact, very much unlike Elway, White never lost a Super Bowl, either, because he never got there.

Steve DeBerg played 21 seasons in the NFL. His careered overlaps almost the entire careers of both Elway and White. Of the three, DeBerg played the longest and enjoyed the least success. In one of the most truly chilling, yet equally truly defining remarks ever made in football of a football player, Bill Walsh once said of Steve DeBerg: “He’ll take you just far enough to get you beat.” It is DeBerg who was unseated as quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers in favor of one Joe Montana.

It is Tony Romo who brings all three of these names together.

Tony Romo is still playing football, and probably will be for several more years. At 31, Romo is still very much in and at the peak of his physical skills. And at 31, Tony Romo is still building his career legacy, with a long way yet to go before he is finished. The question being asked of Tony Romo today is what is this legacy going to look like when it is done.

Sunday night, Cowboys fans watched in varying degrees of shock, anger and horror as Tony Romo cost the Cowboys another football game with critical turnovers in a game the Cowboys had control over. After 3 ½ quarters of great football, Romo unraveled everything the Cowboys had accomplished with a fumble on the three yard line and an interception thrown more to Darrell Revis than to any Cowboy player in the area.

Romo did a fine job of owning the mistakes. Of course, it would have been very difficult for Romo NOT to own them. It’s not just that everyone in America saw the two turnovers, saw how they happened, saw how they should not have happened – it’s that what everyone saw was more of the same pattern Romo has been showing for almost exactly four seasons of work. It’s a pattern that has shown itself in the regular season and in the playoff losses – a very clearly definable pattern. It’s 3, 3 ½ quarters of great play, and huge, critical game-changing errors at the end.

As a sports personality, almost everyone likes Tony Romo. By every appearance, he’s a good, quality person, open and friendly, easygoing and unassuming, not overly proud, the guy who stops on the freeway to help a stranger change a tire, the kind of guy any parent would love their kid to grow up to be. Fantasy football players love him too. For fantasy fans, he is a number-generating machine, he is loads of points on the fantasy board waiting to happen every time he takes the filed. Even in losses, he delivers huge statistics. On the field of play, though, things just go wrong, and four years & 2000+ pass attempts later, they still go wrong.

And now, at 31, with four seasons as a starter and 2000 pass attempts behind him, Tony Romo is entering a crucial turning point in his career, a major fork in the road. Romo is entering that point in his career that is truly going to define his work as an NFL quarterback, and the fork in the road leads down three avenues – Steve DeBerg Street, Danny White Lane and John Elway Court. OK, lame, but you get it – there are clearly three tiers of careers here, and roads with the word “Court” at the end are usually higher rent.

Clearly, Romo as a quarterback is a notch above DeBerg. Romo has a far better and more complete skill set than DeBerg ever did. Tony Romo will spend more time playing for less different teams than DeBerg did, and he will be much harder to unseat Tony Romo than it was to unseat DeBerg. Steve DeBerg is most memorable for being a caretaker for someone else’s future job.

Danny White and Tony Romo were much closer to true peers as quarterbacks. Romo may move better and does not appear to have relied on pocket protection as much as White did. In his entire career, White rushed for 482 yards. Romo already has 422. They may be much more equal as passers. Over the course of his career, White enjoyed far more post season success than Romo has to date, leading the Cowboys to three consecutive NFC Championship games. However, White is remembered for having contributed to losses in at least one of those games. Too many Cowboys fans have clear memories of “No, Danny, no, no!” still screaming in their collective psyche. Unfortunately, White was only good enough to take the Cowboys far enough to get beaten when it mattered most. And clearly, losing three straight NFC championship games is what White is most remembered for.

When it comes to passing skills or mobility, John Elway was superior to Tony Romo. However, Elway struggled mightily in his early years and drove Denver fans to all kinds of frustration while they spent season after season wondering about and arguing over John Elway’s chances of ever winning the big game. After a long wait and a lot of miserable losses that led to so many questions about him, John Elway did finally manage to bring all those skills together for two great games and crowned his career with two Super Bowl wins. And that is largely what John Elway is most remembered for.

I’m not here to say that Romo is going to be any one or the other of these three quarterbacks. But in the end, his career is going to mirror that of two of them, either Elway’s or White’s. Thankfully for Cowboys fans, Romo is still 31 … a long way to 37. Bronco fans had to wait 14 years for Elway to deliver. Sometimes, it feels like Cowboys fans have been pondering whither Romo for nearly that long. It gets hard to realize that Romo has been quarterbacking the Cowboys for only 4 years – it feels like he has been living under the expectations of Cowboys fans for much longer than that. But fans are impatient – fans want to win now and when a fan base sees a talent like that of Romo’s playing itself out on the field, expectations take flight.

Some of that is justified – some of the weight of expectation that Romo lives with comes from the obvious fact the Tony Romo is more than good enough to win a Super Bowl. Quarterbacks have won many championship games with far less skill as a quarterback that Romo possesses. If he never does win a Super Bowl, no one can say it was because he lacked the tools to accomplish the task.

However, Cowboys fans, patience has to be the operative virtue here. Last night is just one game in a 16 game season that is only one season. At 31, Tony Romo clearly has several more under his belt. Quarterbacking skills like Romo’s are not easy to come by in the NFL, and in Romo, the Cowboys have more to lose trying to do without him than they do by continuing to be patient with him. Put down the ropes and torches, people – as long as he continues to bring the same set of skills to the field he brought to the Jets game last night, Cowboys fans should remain willing to wait for Tony Romo to show them over the next several seasons exactly which road his career legacy will take.

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By Hays – Jabberhead, Renegade Poster At Large