He didn’t have a celebrity girlfriend. An undrafted player from a small school, he could walk around the Dallas Cowboys’ training camp complex and run onto the field wearing his No. 9 jersey without being noticed by the fans clamoring for autographs - or even team owner Jerry Jones.
That was only two years ago.
“Had we had a little better feel, or a little better read on that, at every step of the way . . . I would have said hello to him walking down the hall,” Jones said.
Romo has since been to two Pro Bowls, set team records for passing yards and touchdowns, and his No. 9 jersey - like the one often worn by Jessica Simpson - now is a top seller in the NFL.
“It’s a different world for him, and I think it should be,” Jones said. “And I think that we’re going to be a benefactor of that.”
Expectations certainly have changed with Romo, one of 13 Pro Bowl players back on a team that tied a franchise record by winning 13 games in his first full season as the starter. That was before the Cowboys’ playoff loss in January to the eventual Super Bowl champion New York Giants, after which Terrell Owens tearfully defended his quarterback.
Dallas now is a legitimate Super Bowl contender, going into this season as a favorite in the NFC - with the quarterback who was backing up Drew Bledsoe in 2006 when the Cowboys broke from their last California camp. Romo is the 10th starter in Dallas since Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman played his last game in 2000.
“I feel like I’m the same as I’ve always been,” Romo insists. “Try to throw the ball to the guy who’s open. That usually helps.”
Despite the constant attention that Romo gets with being the starting QB of “America’s Team” and Simpson’s boyfriend, the $67.5 million contract he got midway through last season and how different people perceive him, Romo hasn’t altered how he sees himself.
Not from when he was on the scout team during practice and would sit in the locker room and read without interruption while the media interviewed other players. Not when he was the undrafted player out of Eastern Illinois in 2003 who got a $10,000 signing bonus.
“Honestly, I don’t think I’m that important anyway,” Romo said while circled by reporters and cameras on the field after a camp workout.
“His personality is very much the same,” said tight end Jason Witten, one of Romo’s closest friends. “Obviously his life’s changed 100 percent, but he’s the same guy. A little bit more guarded maybe, but for the most part, he’s the same guy.”
Romo won five of his first six starts in 2006, including a victory over eventual Super Bowl champion Indianapolis, and got the Cowboys to the playoffs. Then came the playoff loss at Seattle in which Romo, still the holder, as he had been before becoming the QB, flubbed the hold of a short field goal.
In the locker room that night, Romo cried and apologized to his teammates.
Last season ended with more tears. Owens tearfully defended Romo after a 17-13 loss to the Giants. It came a week after Romo’s bye-weekend trip to Mexico with Simpson and a couple of teammates.
“At that point in time, it was a situation where I felt like I had to have his back,” Owens said.
The loss was a bitter ending to a season in which Romo set team records with 335 completions for 4,211 yards and 36 touchdowns, including Owens’ team-record 15 receiving.
“There is always a little nostalgia in some ways about the process and what it took to get where you are. It’s funny, you still have a long way to go,” Romo said. “I’m trying to get on the field and get better. The exciting thing really about the game is just improvement.”
