Everybody loves Tony Romo … well, everybody except Deion Sanders.

Romo, calling Sunday’s Cowboys-Chiefs game, took a little shot at Sanders during the broadcast, noting that Kansas City cornerback Marcus Peters was so bad on run coverage he “makes Deion Sanders look good at tackling sometimes.”

Easy joke, right? Sanders, as anyone who watched the NFL during his Hall of Fame career, didn’t exactly go out of his way looking to make hits. (He averaged about 2.6 per game, for the record.) Surely someone of Deion’s stature could laugh that off, right? Friend, you clearly don’t know Deion:

“Tony, I tried my best to take the high road but I don’t know the address to the high road,” Sanders shot back later in the evening, on NFL Network’s “GameDay Prime.” “So I got to come at you, man. Ten years as a starter, you’re 2-4 in the playoffs. You ain’t won nothing. I tried to bury the hatchet. Both of us work for CBS, I went and shook your hand, said, ‘Tony, you’re doing a great job this year.’ I thought that would be it. But nevertheless you keep on showing at me.

“Tony, what’s going on, man. I got a gold jacket that I didn’t buy. Dak [Prescott] says hi. And bye. Tony, leave me alone, man. I got a lot of ammunition, man. How many interceptions? Nineteen in 2012? Come on, man. You threw to everybody but me! You know you never won the big one, so stop. Leave me alone.”

Man! Good thing Deion’s got that gold jacket. It’ll help protect his thin skin.

Why in the world is Deion Freaking Sanders, one of the ten greatest NFL players of all time and one of the few non-QBs who could literally change an entire game with his mere presence, worried about a little light jab from a fellow retiree? Yes, yes, the competitiveness never ends, blah blah. Still, Sanders ought to be able to handle that a lot better. But hey, if he can’t … we’ve got ourselves a fine new media rivalry! (Yes, Deion, you’re the media now.)

This ought to be fun no matter how it plays out.

NFL Media’s Deion Sanders reacts to Tony Romo claiming he can’t tackle. (NFL Network screen shot) More

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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.

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