Tony Romo was the butt of the joke among NFL fans and sports media aficionados all fall and into the winter. But for Dom aka Püzz, the Romo experience was an opportunity.
Püzz, a college student and admittedly an “NFL casual,” saw the uproar about Romo screwing up details, going overboard on the Travis Kelce-Taylor Swift romance, and getting coached up by CBS execs and went where any funny, creative college kid would: TikTok.
While playing Madden with his college buddies to pass the time, Dom was encouraged by one pal to try his hand at a Romo impression. Soon, the group began downloading funny or impressive plays from the video game. Dom would then dub the clips with faux Romo commentary and publish them to TikTok.
He quickly piled up hundreds of thousands of views on several of the videos and watched as Bleacher Report and other major sports social accounts shared his videos to the masses.
@puzz.wav OuuuUuuuUu jimmMMmmMm #nfl #madden #tonyromo #clip ♬ original sound – PÜZZ
Now, Püzz’s audience sends him their own clips and recommendations, thousands of Romo disciples feasting at the trough of content that is the weekly CBS broadcast.
Püzz spoke with Awful Announcing about Romo, Madden, and his viral TikTok account.
Before we even get to the videos, are you a big NFL fan? Are you just somebody who watches the game and notices the Tony Romo insanity as a casual viewer? Give me some insight into your awareness of Romo before you dove into this little project.
I am an NFL casual, and I’ll be completely honest with that. I’m an Eagles fan at heart and honestly, with the whole Romo thing, I wasn’t trying to make fun or do anything like that.
But the majority of NFL games that I’ve watched, he’s been on and some of the things he says either catch me off guard or really, it’s just his voice for me. It’s just different. I don’t know why.
I used to like him a few years ago as an announcer. Then it kind of became a Cris Collinsworth thing where it was like ‘Dude, your voice irritates me.’ So that’s where the impressions came from because I wanted to go down the line of annoying but comedy at the same time.
What are you keying in on about Romo’s delivery that you’re trying to expose or poke fun at?
I love how he interacts with Jim Nantz. I think they do really well together in the booth. They’re two best friends announcing NFL games, and for (Romo), I think that’s a great experience.
But I think as an audience and as viewers, we can see it as something else. That’s where the annoying and irritated aspect comes in too, because we know he loves to talk about Mahomes or Josh Allen or X, Y, and Z player, and it just gets irritating a little bit. Especially when you’re just trying to watch a game and you don’t always want to hear that comparison.
It’s nothing too negative about him. It’s all jokes with me. And like I said, I’m a casual.
@puzz.wav big tony #madden #tonyromo #nfl #clip #football @JJP_33 ♬ original sound – PÜZZ
Was TikTok something that you were putting a lot of actual production value into, or was it just a fun thing to do before you made the first one of these videos?
I had one or two videos that were reposts of things or just saying, “Hey let’s do one of these trends with some friends.” No traction or anything like that.
But I wasn’t really looking for it. Never was and still never have.
But leading up to that first video, we were just playing a lot of Madden together, me and my friends. And one of my friends said, “You know, you could probably do a really good Tony Romo impression.”
So I did it and was like, might as well post it on TikTok and see if anybody finds this comical or if they feel the same way about the interactions they have with Romo. I didn’t expect it to go this well.
How do you put the videos together? How much time does it take? What’s your whole process with them?
Sometimes it was just playing Madden on PlayStation, and if I found a clip that was funny or where I was like, ‘I could do a voiceover with this,’ I would just clip it through the PlayStation, send it to myself, and download it. Then put it into TikTok just use the voiceover feature and do intervalled voiceover segments just to find things to say.
It honestly probably took five to 10 minutes for each one, just because the clips were so short.
Now I’ve been getting into other users sending me their clips, either over PlayStation or Instagram. Just trying to interact with the audience a little bit, which has been super fun. Now I’m doing viewer compilations every week with a minute or two of commentary over viewers’ clips … it’s been super fun, to say the least.
What distinguishes a clip that feels right to dub with Tony Romo commentary? Is it just crazy plays, a Madden glitch, where’s that sweet spot?
I really don’t think there’s a limit, for me at least. I’ve had the crazy plays, I’ve had the Mahomes-esque plays that go really well, because that gives me something to say about it if it’s a crazy throw or a scramble and then a throw.
If it’s an interception that’s really helpful to me because then I also know I’m not the only one who struggles on Madden. It’s funny to see glitches as well.
Has Tony Romo reached out?
He has not reached out to me, no.
Have you seen anyone famous in the industry who has enjoyed it or commented on it?
Bleacher Report reposted me, Bench Mob on Instagram reposted me. Usually just sports accounts, no individuals specifically.
@puzz.wav i dont know jim #tonyromo #madden #clip #nfl ♬ original sound – PÜZZ
Does your success make you want to do more? Does it make you want to try different things or make money off it, or is it just for fun?
It’s always a fun thing to think about, just as something on the side. But I’m a full-time student, I have bigger fish to fry right now as a student.
But on the side, I definitely enjoy doing a lot of activities. I’ve never thought of myself as being TikTok famous, and even if that did happen I would not like to go by that title.
It’s still allowing me to be myself a little bit. I’ve always wanted to be an announcer for basketball or football, so that’s definitely tied into it a little bit.
Am I a content creator? Not so much. But it definitely is fun to see the interactions with everyone online and all the support that I’ve gotten because it’s relatable.
I’m not sure if there is anyone else meme-able enough in the NFL world to be worthy, but maybe we get an EA FC 24 with Romo for another sport. That would be my vote for the continuation of the series.
I’m definitely thinking about diving into other sports games as well. I think it would be interesting if he actually did call those games as well in real life.
I don’t know how that would go with the general public, but for me it’s funny. It’s content.
The Masters, with Tony Romo.
I’ve had a few impressionists on Instagram reach out to me about recording a back-and-forth with Collinsworth and Romo or Nantz and Romo. So it’s pretty cool, it’s been interactive.
That’s the joy that I get out of it.
