Tony Romo predicting the Patriots’ plays is why we’re excited for him to call Super Bowl 53

Tony Romo’s still relatively new career as a color commentator for CBS has served him well. He was an instant star for the network in 2017 due to his enthusiasm and personality, but also his impressive knack for accurately predicting what a team would do before they’d do it.

His seamless transition from Dallas Cowboys quarterback to arguably the best color commentator in the game is probably the reason ESPN thrust former Cowboys tight end Jason Witten straight into the same role on their Monday Night Football crew. That hire wasn’t nearly as successful.

Witten isn’t Romo. And if you needed anymore proof that Romo is a step above the rest, he provided it during the back half of the Patriots’ 37-31 win over the Chiefs in the AFC Championship.

Romo’s ability to diagnose what was coming next transcended predictions. It was more like he was an oracle.

Maybe Romo should’ve been the Chiefs’ defensive coordinator

Kansas City looked pretty helpless when the Patriots drove the field at the end of the fourth quarter and the beginning of overtime.

A six-play, 65-yard touchdown drive before the end of regulation gave the Patriots a 31-28 lead. And when the Chiefs tied things up with a field goal, the Patriots ended the game with a 13-play, 75-yard touchdown drive in overtime.

The Chiefs couldn’t figure out a way to stop the Patriots, but maybe they could’ve if they had Romo helping out. Because the CBS color commentator knew exactly what the Patriots were going to do next every step of the way.

Here’s Romo telling the audience exactly what the Patriots were planning to do on five plays in the final moments of the game:

You’d think the Patriots would be hard to figure out. After all, this is the team that just went to an eighth consecutive AFC Championship and won it for the third straight time. If they’re so predictable, somebody would’ve figured out a way to stop them, right?

It seems Romo is the only one who has the Patriots offense pegged.

The sports world was impressed

It wasn’t just fans who appreciated the insight of the former quarterback on the call. There were even current and former NFL players who thought Romo’s prescient commentary was a master class in football knowledge.

Even players from other sports noticed, like MLB’s blockbuster free agent right fielder Bryce Harper:

Tom Brady added another chapter to his Hall of Fame and GOAT legacy Sunday, but the person people on social media seemed most impressed with was Romo.

Next up we get Tony Romo in the Super Bowl

It’s pretty hard — or impossible, really — to find a commentator who is popular with everyone. There are still some that find Romo’s enthusiasm to be too much. Those critics are few and far between, though. Romo is about as close to a universally liked color commentator as there is in the business.

And that’s good news, because it’ll be Romo and Jim Nantz on the call in Atlanta for the meeting of the Patriots and Rams.

It’s always easy to hear how much Romo enjoys football, and — when he’s predicting plays before they come to fruition — it’s easy to hear just how well he knows it too. You can probably expect more fortune telling in two weeks during Super Bowl 53.