SAN ANTONIO — The love affair is over.

While most of the 21,254 fans at the Cowboys Kickoff Spectacular greeted Tony Romo with cheers, the Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback also received a smattering of boos Tuesday.
Romo said he didn’t hear the boo-birds, much like he has tuned out media criticism.
Love him. Love him not.
“When I was younger, you are always like: Why is that person mean? Or why is that person doing that? You ask yourself: Why would they say something like that? They don’t know me,” Romo said Thursday in his first media session of training camp. “Eventually as you get older, you start to realize that not everybody is going to like you. Not everybody is going to want to root for you. We are lucky enough to have a lot of fans and a lot of people that support me individually and who support this team, and I’m very fortunate for that. But I also understand that not everybody is going to.”
Romo will try to influence teammates and win over fans this season as the leader of a team that owner Jerry Jones has called “Romo-friendly.” The Cowboys, for the first in Romo’s three seasons as a starter, enter a season as underdogs.
That’s exactly the way Romo entered the league.
Now seven years later, as the starting quarterback of America’s Team, he arguably is the most scrutinized, criticized, talked-about player in the NFL. What he says, who he’s dating — or not dating — how much golf he plays, his work ethic and his leadership skills have been hot topics this off-season.
While Jones and coach Wade Phillips went out of their way to defend Romo in their training camp opening news conference Tuesday, Romo said it comes with the job.
“You either can handle all the stuff that goes along (with it or you can’t),” Romo said. “You’re not going to last very long (if you can’t).”
Although he holds several team records — including single-season marks for touchdowns (36) and yardage (4,211) — and has a 27-12 regular-season record, Romo has yet to win a playoff game. The Cowboys didn’t even make the postseason in 2008.
But Romo doesn’t buy into the perception that he — or the team — is under more pressure this season.
“Yeah, there’s never been pressure any other year. It’s always just a cakewalk normally,” Romo said sarcastically. “It’s just another season. It’s another season, another start. Optimism is very high around here.”
Romo, 29, threw a lot of passes this off-season. He couldn’t even venture a guess on how many. After the June mini-camp, Romo kept a bag of footballs with him, and he had one of his favorite receivers — father, Ramiro — to throw to during his trip home.
“You go through a lot of scuff-marked footballs and a lot of stuff like that, and that’s part of the fun sometimes,” Romo said. “I’m always yelling at someone if they get too close to water, ’I’ve only got that one for four more days.’ “
There is no doubt where the Cowboys stand with Romo: They love him. And they trust that Cowboys fans are going to love what they see from Romo this season, too.
“You’re seeing a more seasoned individual than you were talking with three years ago, and it comes across,” Jones said. “I know he’s had a lot of criticism, and I know he knows it. When you’ve been in those fox holes, and you’ve dealt with some of that, it has a way of creating respect that can be called leadership, and I have sensed that. I sense a different Tony than I was talking to three years ago.”