Tony Romo watched Derek Carr suffer the same back injury he had in 2014

The former Cowboys quarterback was on the call for CBS when Derek Carr went down with a back injury.

If anyone can be sympathetic toward Derek Carr after the Oakland Raiders quarterback suffered a spinal fracture Sunday, it’s Tony Romo. The former Dallas Cowboys quarterback missed time in 2014 with the same injury and was the color commentator for CBS when Carr suffered the injury.

“Oh boy, Jim. Oh no,” was Romo’s immediate reaction.

For both quarterbacks, the injuries happened when the knee of a defensive lineman hit them in the back on a sack.

The Raiders would be lucky if Carr recovers from his transverse process fracture anywhere near as well as Romo did three years ago.

Romo missed just one game in 2014 when he suffered a pair of the same kind of fractures. After sitting out a Week 9 game, Romo returned to play the remainder of the year and finished with the best statistics of his career and a 113.2 passer rating.

But he also suffered a back injury in 2013 and another in 2016 that ultimately cost him his job when Dak Prescott took his place. So Romo knew all the signs to look for in a back injury when Carr was walking off the field to the locker room.

“See how he’s kind of walking with that back a little back like his shoulders are back?” Romo said on the CBS broadcast. “He’s trying to protect it from gravity. He’s uncomfortable, you can see it.”

Romo has developed a knack for calling plays in the booth before they happen on the field, but it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he knew to be concerned when Carr took a knee to the back Sunday.