Tanney is way more famous as the guy who can hurl a football from a living room window to a guy in the back of a speeding pickup, or into a distant basketball hoop, or off a springy net and into a the basketball net behind him on the ricochet, all of which he does in "Alex Tanney Trick Shot Quarterback," his viral 2011 YouTube video.
As insanely impressive as Tanney's performance is, it hasn't been enough to get him a reliable slot on a NFL roster. He played in a single preseason game for the Kansas City Chiefs in 2012 before being unceremoniously released this past offseason. And now, he's fighting for a spot with the Cowboys backup QB Kyle Orton, who will be backing up Tony Romo.
"He's got a little moxie to him," head coach Jason Garrett told the Los Angeles Times, which profiled Tanney and his Internet fame. "He's got some instincts. He can move, he can throw."
Garrett claims never to have seen Tanney's trick-shot video and that, even if he had, it wouldn't have any bearing on his roster decisions, which seems a bit shortsighted. One never knows when the Cowboys will need some late-game heroics involving throwing the ball to Dez Bryant as he whizzes past in the bed of a pickup.
