Tony Romo spent most the season being gently massaged by a largely fawning media. It didn't matter that his team was more up and down than Facebook stock all year. It didn't matter that he never won more than three games in a row all season.

He'd "turned the corner." Everywhere you turned, someone with a microphone was telling the world that Tony Romo was carrying that flawed, underdog Cowboys team packed with all those first-round draft picks.

Then, he gets into a win-or-go home game, throws three interceptions . . . and everyone suddenly remembers he's Tony Romo.

Suddenly, the Rhodes Scholars burning his jersey for YouTube are having an epiphany. This is what Tony Romo does in big spots. It's what he's been doing since he couldn't hold an extra point in Seattle back in 2007. It's what he did against the Giants in the last game of the 2011 season.

When it's a win-or-go-home situation, Romo will find someway, somehow to doom his team. The evidence is beyond overwhelming. To even debate it anymore is pretty silly, akin to Michael Lohan arguing that he's a good dad.

With the Houston Texans struggling to the finish in the regular season, many are placing Matt Schaub in the Tony Romo category. Schaub melts under pressure, the argument goes. He cracks in the big game. He's as fragile as a Bobblehead.

Only . . . where's the evidence?

This Saturday will be the 31-year-old Schaub's first NFL playoff game. When he takes the field against the Cincinnati Bengals, Schaub will be playing in his first real legitimate win-or-go-home game. For the first time in his career, Schaub will be in control of a team talented enough to make a long run under pressure.

Could he fold? Absolutely. But shouldn't he get the chance to try before that final judgment's made?

"I think we do forget this is his first time to step on the field in the playoffs," Texans coach Gary Kubiak says, "And he’s, what, a nine-year player or something like that?"

Schaub's waited forever for a opportunity like this, watched what should have been his first one evaporate under an end zone pile in Tampa Bay last November.

Romo's had chance after chance after chance to fail. Shouldn't Schaub be given one?

Everything from Schaub's throwing motion to his nerves to his huddle demeanor is being dissected this week. His arm's not strong enough. He's got happy feet in the pocket. He's flinching under the rush. He's not inspiring enough as a leader. Why doesn't he run around screaming like a defensive player?

On and on, it goes.

While Schaub prepares and waits for his first real win-or-go-home chance.

He's come up big in some pressure moments this season. Going to Denver in the third game of the season, when everyone still wondered if the Texans could be a dominant team, playing against Peyton Manning, the quarterback specter who Kubiak teasingly texted Schaub to go pick up at the airport during the height of Manning's free agent tour . . .

. . . that only ended with Schaub dropping four touchdowns on the stunned citizens of Mile High even as he lost a piece of his ear — a lobe that earned a spot on Sports Illustrated's year-end list of Things We'll Miss from 2012.

How about the back-to-back comebacks against Jacksonville and Detroit? You know the games that had everyone praising Schaub's cool poise in the huddle, his calming effect in frantic moments?

You can't credit Schaub for being unflappable and then turn around and claim his lack of fiery emotion holds the Texans back.

"Matt approaches every game the same way," rookie right tackle Derek Newton says. "He's never different. He's always focused.

"I'm amazed he can do it sometimes with all the stuff going on around him. It's his way, though."

Maybe, it's not the way you win in the playoffs. But maybe, it is.

There is no evidence to emphatically declare it doesn't work.

No RG3 Condolences Necessary

The Texans coaches are clearly challenging Schaub a little this week, just like Kubiak challenged him a little with that text about Peyton Manning in the offseason. Kubiak and offensive coordinator Rick Dennison seem to almost be going out of their way to not baby Schaub, to be sure to not overly shield him.

"I think Matt knows exactly what he needs to do right, and we’ve told him that and I’ll just leave it at that," Dennison says. "He needs to sharpen his game — everybody needs to.”

Schaub's coaches may know him better than the media horde. They may know that turning up the pressure — a given in the playoffs — often brings out his best.

Or maybe, they are just grasping at straws. Everyone will find out on Saturday afternoon.

When Tony Romo faces a win-or-go-home game, his favorite golf pros — and it's hard to be a golf pro and not love Tony Romo — should just automatically start lining up tee times for him the following week.

With Matt Schaub . . . nobody can say for sure.

This is his win-or-go-home moment. And he'll have plenty of chances to swing a postseason game.

"In the last eight games when they've gone 7-1, they've been in a lot of close games," Dennison says of the Bengals. "And they win close games.

"We've been telling our players, it's going to be a close game."

If Schaub fails, Robert Griffin III will not be waiting there to feed him a line about this game not meaning anything. But what if he succeeds . . .

Are you so sure you absolutely know who Matt Schaub is?