IRVING, Texas -- As Tony Romo walked out of FedEx Field last December, his legs were in pain because of a herniated disk, but was happier with directing the Dallas Cowboys to a 24-23 win against the Washington Redskins to keep the season alive.

“I didn’t quite know my season was going to be over after I walked off the field,” Romo said Thursday.

By the time the Cowboys returned home, Romo needed help off the plane and five days later he had surgery on his back. The Cowboys lost their season finale to the Philadelphia Eagles to finish 8-8 for the third straight year.

Romo will see Washington for the first time on Monday at AT&T Stadium since undergoing back surgery. Thinking back to the Redskins game Thursday, Romo said, “sometimes I cringe thinking about it.”

“Just part of playing professional sports, you’re playing in a game and you’re hurt or banged up or whatever and you just kind of play through it,” Romo said. “As a competitor you kind of feel like, ‘I’ll worry about it after the game,’ and you do everything you can. It felt like the season was on the line at the time so you kind of lay it on the line and you let the chips fall after the game. But definitely wants to feel playing like that every week. That would be a little more difficult.”

Romo said he felt in more pain during and after that game than any other he has played, but he never considered not playing.

Romo completed 17 of 27 passes for 226 yards and threw a game-winning touchdown pass to DeMarco Murray on fourth-and-goal from the Washington 10.

Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones said Romo’s performance last week against the New York Giants -- 17-of-23, 279 yards, three touchdowns, one interception -- may have been the best of Romo’s career. The performance last December against the Redskins might have been better simply because of the significance of the game.

“I’m not into ranking my games,” Romo said. “I mean we’ll do that when we’re done. I think what you find is you want to continually play some of your best games. In different avenues each of the games has different parts of them that were real good: had to overcome some injury aspects during that game, which made it, when you look back in some ways those are the games you’re fond of. Last week just the efficiency and accuracy and putting the ball and the timing of some of the throws were obviously positive. I think you want to continue to build off those things and continue to get better.”