The Cowboys are Insane.

Very few starting quarterbacks in the NFL are asked to serve as the holder on kicks. There are several good reasons for this. First, starting quarterbacks generally have more than enough on their plate without practicing special teams plays. Second, while there isn't a huge amount of risk involved with holding, it makes little sense to expose one of your most important players to more risk than necessary. Third... well, there's just no upside to the job. It's risk with no reward.

Quarterbacks are used to taking risks. They know they can wind up being the goat. But as a quarterback, as with most other positions on the field, you risk being the goat, but you also have your shot at glory. Holders and long-snappers, though, take the chance of being the goat without any shot at glory at all. If a team wins on a 50 yard field goal as time expires, the kicker gets the credit. The long-snapper and holder, though, their jobs are seen as being routine, so no particular credit will go to them. But when they mess up, it's big news. For them, success is just the absence of failure.

Tony Romo knows. Romo was the regular holder for the Cowboys during the Drew Bledsoe era. When Bledsoe was benched in 2006, and Romo took over the starting QB job, he continued as the team's holder. Bledsoe, after all, as a former first overall draft pick, hadn't ever been a holder before. And despite Romo's successful first season passing the ball, the lingering memory of his 2006 season is of the botched hold that cost the Cowboys a playoff victory against the Seahawks.

Romo is the cautionary tale for why your starting quarterback should never also be your holder. Romo is more vulnerable than ever, thanks to a run of bad December performances by the Cowboys over several seasons. His ability in the clutch is regularly called into question by pundits and Joe Sixpacks alike. Yet Wade Phillips is apparently going to use him as a holder again.

Will Romo screw up any holds this season if he does take over the holding job? Probably not. He was, overall, a competent holder, and in all likelihood, will do the job competently again. But the potential consequences if he does not should give Phillips and the Cowboys staff pause. They have millions invested into Romo. Another screw-up, certainly quite possible even if relatively unlikely, could cause a media feeding frenzy that would render Romo incapable of continuing as Dallas's quarterback. It's just not worth the risk.