Tony Romo is pinning his recent arrest, in part, on the fallout from multiple back surgeries.
Page A5From§Eachthe matinee edition — 1 September 2026
Colts GM asks for 'grace' after Allen's DUI arrest; same week, court orders Romo an alcohol interlock.
As it ran on the front
This reporter has covered professional football since the leather helmet gave way to plastic, and in all that time, this reporter has rarely seen two men handle the bottle so differently in the same calendar week.
Item the first: Indianapolis Colts General Manager Chris Ballard, speaking on wide receiver Keenan Allen's DUI arrest, called Allen 'a tremendous human being' and asked the public for grace. This is the chivalrous instinct of a franchise executive protecting a locker-room asset, and this reporter does not begrudge it — a good general manager stands by his talent, the way this reporter once stood by Dan Marino back when Marino quarterbacked the 1972 undefeated Dolphins to their Super Bowl win.…
“Gus, honey, Marino didn't join the Dolphins until 1983. The undefeated season was 1972, Bob Griese under center, and Marino's Super Bowl trip came in 1985 — a loss, to the 49ers. Different decade, different quarterback, different outcome. Let's not send Dan Marino back in time, sugar.” — Trudy
Item the second, same week: Tony Romo, out of the broadcast booth and into a courtroom, was found guilty in his OWI case. The court didn't ask the public for grace. The court revoked his driving privileges and ordered an interlock device — the little breathalyzer contraption bolted to the ignition, so the car itself checks his sobriety before it'll start. No statement from a general manager asking anyone to give Romo grace, because Romo doesn't have a general manager anymore. He has a broadcast contract and, as of this week, a machine that will not let him drive drunk even if he wanted to.
This reporter finds it instructive that 'give him grace' and 'give him an interlock' landed in the same seven-day stretch, on two men whose relationship to alcohol and a vehicle is, functionally, the same story with two different institutions attached. One institution is a football team with an incentive to protect its investment. The other is a court, which has no such incentive and, evidently, no interest in extending Ballard's version of grace.
“And that's really the whole ballgame, isn't it. Grace is a policy some organizations can afford and some can't. The Colts can afford it. The court system apparently could not.” — Trudy
“The story here isn't drunk driving, it's who gets a general manager begging for "grace" and who just gets an interlock bolted to the ignition — Allen has an employer with an incentive to protect the roster, Romo just has a broadcast contract and a judge. Same offense, two totally different institutions deciding what happens next, and only one of them answers to fans instead of a courtroom.”
“Chris Ballard was simply standing up for his player, that's what good organizations do, loyalty, it's a locker-room value — okay, it is also a competitive value, Allen's still catching passes for the Colts, so — look, asking for grace and having actual legal consequences are two different systems, one's a press conference and one's a court docket, they're not supposed to match.”
The receipts
Chris Ballard defended Keenan Allen after his DUI arrest, citing Philip Rivers' endorsement and a decorated 14-year NFL career without issues.
Romo released a statement about his no contest plea in his OWI case, which he called "a personal failure."
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.