Jerry Jones told Jason Garrett on sideline that Tony Romo would return

Much speculation surrounded the Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback situation late in their game against the Washington Redskins on “Monday Night Football” this week.

Too bad Cowboys owner Jerry Jones didn’t have time to stop by the “MNF” booth. He could have cleared up the situation.

But apparently he was too busy doing just that on the Dallas sideline.

Jones told the Fort-Worth Star Telegram that he personally delivered the news to Coach Jason Garrett that injured starting quarterback Tony Romo would be returning for the end of the game.

“I was [in the locker room] during the tail end of the examination and knew he planned to come back out and play if he were needed,” Jones said after his team’s 20-17 overtime loss to the Redskins. “Of course he was needed. I felt good that he could come back out. When he saw the opportunity he did. I told Jason that he would be back in.”

Whether Romo was actually needed or not has been debated on social media ever since. Backup Brandon Weeden had been in for two drives and led the Cowboys to game-tying scores — a field goal and touchdown — each time.

Plus, there was the nature of the injury to Romo, who had led Dallas to a 6-1 start this season on a surgically repaired back. Romo immediately reached for his back after being sacked by Washington’s Keenan Robinson during the third quarter and lay motionless for several minutes before walking to the locker room mostly under his own power.

But he was deemed ready to reenter the game at a crucial time, as Jones felt the need to personally inform his coach.

“We knew there were no structural issues when they gave him the X-rays,” Jones said. “I very concerned the fact that he laid there as long as he laid there. After we looked at the play and saw that was a knee kind of to the side of the back, then we felt better about it.

“We got him in here and looked at it real carefully; everybody felt better about it. But he was certainly limited when he first got in here, but he loosened it up real good and went back out.”

Romo completed a pair of passes for 23 yards but also was sacked and penalized for intentional grounding as the Cowboys had to punt to end their final drive of regulation.

Then, following a Redskins field goal to start overtime, Romo completed a pass for negative yardage and threw two incomplete passes as Dallas gave up the ball on downs to end the game.

All of which leads us back to all the second-guessing and questioning of Garrett’s actual role on the team that we’ve grown to enjoy in recent seasons but missed out on during the first half of this year. Have fun, everyone!

Twitter: @chewkiii