Tony Romo signs 6-year $108 million deal with Cowboys

The Cowboys have locked up Tony Romo for the foreseeable future with a massive 6-year $108 million deal that includes a whopping $55 million in guaranteed money. Romo, who will turn 33 next month, will get $25 million up front in a signing bonus.

The move actually frees up nearly $7 million in cap space for this season, something Dallas desperately needed with the team being literally less than $200k under the cap. Of course, the flip side of that is that massive guarantees are pushed into the future, which when combined with the ton of guarantees they've already pushed forward will undoubtedly come back to bite Dallas in a big way.

And then of course, there's the fact that it was Tony Romo who was given this deal. He got more guaranteed money than Joe Flacco got, despite the fact that Flacco is 5 years younger and has not only won more than one playoff game (Romo's record) but actually a Super Bowl.

What really inflates Romo's contract is that he had the Cowboys over a barrel. He was entering the last year of his deal and had a clause in his contract that prevented Dallas from putting the franchise tag on him. So he would have been an unrestricted free agent after this season. Plus, there's the cap. Romo was set to count over $16 million this season and the team had virtually no room to sign not only free agents but even rookies. They had exhausted almost all of their other options in terms of restructures, so they simply had to get a deal with Romo done and his agents knew it... and they clearly held Jerry Jones feet to the fire.

It's obviously a tough situation because given all the resources the team has already spent trying to build a winner, they really couldn't just dump Romo or let him walk. It's laughable that he's making the same money now that Peyton Manning & Drew Brees, but he is still a good QB. The Cowboys aren't really in a position to start over.

I'm not sure how Dallas fans will feel about it, but I'm assuming this news doesn't make any fans of their NFC East rivals particularly unhappy.