Cowboys give Tony Romo permission to talk to other teams

The parting of Tony Romo and the Dallas Cowboys may finally be nearing, as the door is open for other teams to ramp up interest.

With no future as anything other than a backup with the Dallas Cowboys, Tony Romo surely wants to move on with his career sooner rather than later. But Jerry Jones’ desire to get something for Romo in a trade, or force him into retirement by delaying the inevitable, has been a fly in that particular ointment.

With OTAs starting this month, more specifically April 17 for the Cowboys, Romo could show up and thus risk injury. That isn’t a good scenario for either side, and Joel Corry of CBS Sports has speculated on that first day of OTAs as a “logical ending point” for the situation.

Last week, Jones set a training camp deadline for a decision on Romo. But on Monday, a big step toward an ending seems to have come.

Romo is not a free agent yet, but the Cowboys have now opened the door for him to be treated like one. NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo further reported other teams are to be limited to conversations concerning Romo’s “2017-19 player contract,” surely with the idea of still finding a way to facilitate a trade. But no team with interest is trading for what’s left of Romo’s contract, and a release still seems like the most likely scenario.

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The Cowboys gain very little financially by releasing Romo now, or at any previous point this offseason. But leave it to Jones to keep trying to add complicated layers to a situation that can be made simple. As the door is now cracked open for Romo’s departure, Jones has followed it with a trivial warning to other teams about discussing a new contract.