When Roger Staubach officially beat out Craig Morton to become the Cowboys' full-time starting quarterback in 1971, the team was floundering at 4-3. From that point on, they won 10 straight games to claim their first Super Bowl title.
It's fair to say, Staubach pushed his teammates to new heights. Flash forward four decades, and the Cowboys' current quarterback is trying to do the same thing.
The team came out of the dark ages when Tony Romo took over as its starting QB in 2006, but despite Romo's routine excellence - he has the second-highest passer rating of all time - it hasn't been enough. The 2011 season was a classic example, as Romo put up career numbers, but the Cowboys still finished just 8-8.
Staubach believes Romo hasn't done all he can, though. Speaking to KTCK (1310-AM) in Dallas on Monday, he said that falling short and often taking the greatest share of the blame for team failures is tough on Romo, but he must find a way to help his teammates help him.
"It wears on him because he's such a competitor," Staubach said. "He works really hard. His teammates love him. He's got to continue to get more out of his teammates, and that's his job, too, and he knows that. I think it wears on me that we lost a couple of Super Bowls, we lost some games. That's just part of being a competitive athlete. So it has to wear on him. And not getting a championship - which is really the grade that people look at today - the (Dan) Marinos and the Dan Foutses and some really great NFL quarterbacks never won championships.
"I want to see Tony win a championship because I'm a Cowboys fan."
After Staubach took over the reigns in '71, it seemed all the Cowboys did was win, appearing in four Super Bowls during his career, with two titles.
This is the standard Romo is judged against, one that was only raised when the club won three Super Bowls in four years under Troy Aikman.
"It's harder, though," Staubach said. "There's 32 teams, there's free agency. There's a lot of differences today in putting a team together and (it's) getting a little harder, I think, to get to a Super Bowl and win it than the old days. But it still was tough then, and it's tough today, and if you don't get there, you should be disappointed. But that doesn't mean you're not going to try again."
