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Athletes who deserve a mulligan for a bad 2016
It's been a disappointing year for Tony Romo as Dak Prescott has taken over as quarterback for the Cowboys. Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Getty Images

Athletes who deserve a mulligan for a bad 2016

At the end of each year we take stock of what went right and what went wrong as we make our New Year resolutions so we can have a better year than the previous. Doesn't matter if we had good years or bad years, to live in the modern world is to strive for continual improvement. Sometimes, though, we have to just accept that life occasionally hands us a bad beat and there is nothing we can do about the situation. Time to move on and make the best of things (or design a time machine so we can reset the clock to January 1, 2016).

Hello and welcome back to the Yardbarker roundtable, where we ask our contributors to discuss the serious (and not so serious) sides of sports.

As we wrap up the year in sports, not only do we need to celebrate who and what we loved in 2016, but we need to cut some slack to athletes who are going to end up on someone's "down year" summation list. It's sports. Behind so many "down" numbers there are unreported injuries (looking at you, Andrew McCutchen), personal struggles and flat-out bad luck. So we asked some of our writers:

Which athlete deserves a mulligan for a bad 2016 and why?

Daniel Tran: Tony Romo is probably feeling a lot like Dr. Dre in 2000 — people just forgot about him. Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott caught fire behind the best offensive line in football, and all of a sudden it's like Romo never became the Cowboys' all-time passing leader. It's not like he lost the job because he was underperforming either. He broke his back in a meaningless preseason game and had to sit out so he could, you know, walk in the future.

Romo gets a lot of flack for his performance when the game is on the line, but no one wants to look at the five game-winning drives he led in 2014 (his last full season) and 30 total during his career. If anyone deserves a second chance to prove his stardom, it's Romo. Whether it's with the Cowboys or not is a different story.

Chelena Goldman: Is it possible to give French gymnast Samir Ait Said a do-over at the Olympics so his leg doesn't snap in half? Are the sports gods cool with that?

Alex Wong: Tony Romo. Because it's the Cowboys, there is already plenty of chatter swirling that Romo could take Dak Prescott's starting quarterback job before the season is over. I'm personally not rooting for that but hopeful that wherever Romo lands in 2017, he can have one more career resurgence at the age of 36.

Too often, we see elite athletes not able to close out their careers with any memorable moments, but instead they collect a series of unforgettable trips and embarrassing throwback jerseys (Patrick Ewing on the Sonics, anyone?) before time washes away these terrible memories. It would be nice to see Romo go somewhere else and rescue another franchise (seriously, can we figure out how to get him on the Cleveland Browns?) and have the moment of glory that's eluded him throughout his career in Dallas. Or maybe he'll just get that moment in January with Prescott sitting on the bench.

Demetrius Bell: The past two NFL seasons saw one major trend seemingly come to an end: the Madden Curse. Richard Sherman and Odell Beckham Jr. both had solid seasons, and Calvin Johnson had a good season as the video game's cover boy as well. So surely this meant that maybe Rob Gronkowski would be safe, right? Well, he lasted until Week 7 before his season ended due to injury. The Curse just might be back, and it was a bummer that it struck one of the NFL's most entertaining personalities.

Jamie Neal: Josh Gordon. I love watching him play football, and I wish he was able to get his life straight so he could share that talent on the field every Sunday. He's insanely talented, and it's sad to think that the issues he has away from the field are impacting his life on such a drastic level.

For more Yardbarker end of the year roundtables from our contributors:
The bandwagons we jumped on in 2016
Our favorite sports docs and movies of 2016

Can you figure out the riddle that rhymes with the NFL quarterback name?

The answers to the riddles below contain two rhyming words, one being the first or last name of a well-known pro quarterback. Example: A turkey cut by Brett = Favre carve.

SCORE:
0/15
TIME:
4:00
A first appearance by Bledsoe
Drew debut
A train stopper for Troy
Aikman brakeman
A complaint from All-Pro Brown Brian
Sipe gripe
A stretcher on wheels for Kosar
Bernie gurney
A Jewish spinning toy for an AFL Charger star
Hadl dreidel
A patterned neckerchief for Joe
Montana bandana
A Japanese military leader for longtime Patriot Steve
Grogan shogun
A turkey cut by Brett
Favre carve
A bamboo bear for Ageless George
Blanda panda
A funnel-cloud for Bubby
Brister twister
A ladder step for MVP Steve
Young rung
A joint disease named after a Hall of Fame Colt
Unitas arthritis
Chin-saliva from Y.A.
Tittle spittle
Campus housing for Van Brocklin
Norm dorm
The follicle boundary for a Pro-Bowl Panther
Beuerlein hairline

More must-reads:

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