Three days ago, the main question concerning Tony Romo was just how many games the Cowboys could survive without his services.

From the looks of things, they might not have to find out at all.

Romo has showed steady progress in the last two days. After throwing passes around after practice on Wednesday, including a few to none other than owner Jerry Jones, Romo was limited in Thursday’s practice, wearing a makeshift cast on his last two fingers of his right hand.

Head coach Wade Phillips said while backup Brad Johnson took the majority of the first-team snaps on Thursday, Romo did get a few reps with the first-team offense.

“I am not going to count him out as far as the game is concerned,” Phillips said. “Again, Brad did take most of the snaps and there are some other factors that we’ll see as we go along here. We still have a couple of more days.”

So while it seemed like Romo could be out for maybe a month after suffering a broken pinkie on his right throwing hand, now it appears as if it will come down to a game-time decision Sunday in St. Louis.

And whose decision would that be? Even Jones himself said that Phillips would make that call. The question now is when.

Phillips said he might not have a decision made before the team departs for St. Louis on Saturday afternoon, but does expect to decide on a starter before Sunday morning.

“Yeah, but I’m not going to tell anyone,” Phillips told reporters as he walked off from his press conference Thursday.

Phillips said Romo threw the ball “pretty well” in Thursday’s practice. However, it sounds as if the Cowboys are more concerned about the contact he might receive on his finger while taking the snap from center, making a handoff to the running backs or just getting hit by a defender.

Romo has not talked to the media all week about his injury. He reportedly received a phone call from Jets quarterback Brett Favre, who has started an NFL-record 258 consecutive regular season games, that offered words of encouragement to try and play this week.

Whether or not Favre has changed Romo’s mind or it was his intention to play all along, it definitely sounds like the chances of seeing No. 9 in uniform Sunday at the Edward Jones Dome will happen. Now, the question will be if he’s the starter or not.

“Well, it looks promising,” said Jerry Jones, who was encouraged fielding a few crisp passes from Romo.

“He got out and we were talking about how painful it was to him,” Jones said Thursday. “He did not practice yesterday but threw the ball. He said, ‘Well stop down there and let me throw you the ball and you can see if I’ve got velocity on the ball.’ He threw me several balls . . . and there was velocity on the ball. Plenty there to get it done.

Yeah, he threw me several balls. He was popping it in there pretty good.”

The Cowboys’ training staff has been feverishly working on protecting Romo’s hand without sacrificing his comfort.

“He has a split that they’ve made for him that he felt comfortable with (on Wednesday),” Phillips said. “Then they added some things to it, it’s almost like a cast in some places certainly, protective wise. He said he cut his finger in college before and had games where his finger was wrapped up and he didn’t use that finger. It’s not involved as much as long as you can hold the football. It is a concern because it is a fracture.”

Last year, Romo suffered a bruised right thumb that certainly jeopardized his chances of playing in the 15th game of the season at Carolina.

Despite limited practice time and swelling on the thumb, Romo threw the ball 42 times, completing 28 for 257 yards with a touchdown and an interception. After that game, Romo admitted the Cowboys used a little more shotgun in the game to prevent the amount of snaps that jammed into his thumb.

As for his teammates, tight end Jason Witten, one of Romo’s best friends on the team, said he wasn’t sure what direction the Cowboys would go this week, but figured that all sides would make the best decision.

“He hasn’t really said a whole lot about it to us,” Witten said. “I know he’s been throwing some and trying to be ready to go. But we have to be ready to go with Brad, get our timing down. If Tony can go, that’s a plus.

“Obviously, he is a professional and he knows his body. He’s a competitor. He wants to play. I don’t know if he will be back this week or not. But it’s encouraging to all of us that he will be back sooner (rather) than later. Tony is smart. He is going to make the right decision. He is going to do what is best for him.”

As it stands, the Cowboys are still preparing Johnson to play and even getting Brooks Bollinger ready as well.

However, Phillips did not specify if Romo would be the No. Two or No. Three quarterback if he doesn’t start. If the Cowboys designate a third quarterback as the inactive third quarterback, and he plays in the game, neither of the first two quarterbacks are allowed back in the game.

So if Romo doesn’t start, but there is a chance he could play, it would likely make more sense to put him as the backup to Johnson.

“We’re trying to sort out a lot of things right now,” Phillips said. “We haven’t decided anything. Right now, we’re still figuring out if he could play.”

But that’s quite a change from a few days ago when Phillips wasn’t sure Romo would play in the next month, much less the next game.