NewsBot
New Member
- Messages
- 111,281
- Reaction score
- 2,947
But they are showing they are no longer the dysfunctional 8-8 team of the past three seasons, during which they seemingly couldn’t get out of their own way.
That was evident again on Sunday night when the Cowboys twice rallied from deficits to secure a 31-28 comeback victory against the New York Giants.
The Cowboys trailed 21-10 at halftime; the Giants could seemingly do no wrong in the first two quarters. And Dallas fell behind 28-24 with 3 minutes left in the game.
But quarterback Tony Romo drove the Cowboys 80 yards in seven plays, capped by 13-yard touchdown pass to receiver Dez Bryant with 1:01 left.
Bryant commented:
It started at halftime. I knew nobody gave up or faded. I could tell by everybody’s attitude. We don’t believe in pressure. We didn’t feel like we were under pressure. We knew what we had to do coming out in the second half, and whenever we got the ball, we [needed] to make something happen and [needed] to make it count. I think that’s what we did.
Tight end Jason Witten said that this was a game the Cowboys might have lost in the past. They didn't play their best, but they never gave up and kept battling. Witten commented:
We talked about mental toughness and fight. We’ve been in a lot of these games over the years and somehow, some way we’ve been on the other side of them. We haven’t always played with poise. We’ve panicked. We weren’t consistent to start this game, but we knew what we had to do to win it, and we had the poise to go do it.
We’re a group that fights. We’ve done it before, but we’ve come up short. It feels good to come up on the other side. This win is big, even though we didn’t play great.
Romo was great when it mattered most. Heck, he was great all game.
Romo finished 18-of-26 for 275 yards with four touchdowns and a passer rating of 143.4. He was 6-for-6 for 69 yards on the final drive.
Bryant caught seven passes for 86 yards and two second-half touchdowns. And running back DeMarco Murray rushed for 121 yards on 24 carries. It was his 10th 100-yard rushing game of the season.
But the Cowboys are 8-3 and in a first-place tie with the Philadelphia Eagles atop the NFC East because of their attitude as much as their stars.
I love the fight that I'm seeing out of my .@dallascowboys
— Emmitt Smith (@EmmittSmith22) November 24, 2014
The Cowboys were resilient. They never blinked, and they never wavered when things weren't going well.
The Giants scored on their first three drives and converted the first seven third-down chances. And the Cowboys defense could do nothing with rookie receiver Odell Beckham Jr., who caught eight passes for 125 yards and two touchdowns in the first half.
Give Jason Garrett credit for their mental toughness and focus. Garrett preaches about the process of moving on from the next play and the next game whether it's good or bad. He has drilled into the Cowboys the importance of taking things one play at a time.
It was all on display against the Giants, who lost their sixth straight game to fall to 3-8. The defense allowed only one score on New York’s final seven drives, limiting Beckham to two receptions in the second half.
Garrett commented:
You just have to keep taking it play by play. That’s something we emphasize as a coaching staff maybe more than anything else. This game is about one play at a time. Focus, do your job, be physical and be relentless. Regardless of where you’re playing, when you’re playing or what the circumstances of the game are, there’s only one way to play. You’re always trying to get players to play that way and your team to play that way.
It’s a daily struggle. It’s our job as coaches to get our guys to play like that all the time. We try to emphasize it, but it’s always a work in progress.
It remains a work in progress because the Cowboys still have a long way to go.
The Cowboys are 8-3 for the first time since 2009, when they went on to win the NFC East with an 11-5 record and won their first playoff game since 1996.
They have five games left in the season and a quick turnaround before Thursday's Thanksgiving showdown against the Eagles for first place in the NFC East.
But the Cowboys are in this spot because of their mental toughness and their adherence to Garrett's core principle of what it takes to win: one play at a time, one game at a time.
It's the reason they have matched their win total of the past three years and are on the brink of something special—maybe even super.
Clarence Hill covers the Cowboys for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. All quotations obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
Read more Dallas Cowboys news on BleacherReport.com
Continue reading...