Cowboys’ performance isn’t compelling, but that’s OK for now
Win keeps slim playoff hopes alive
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The Dallas Cowboys are at the survive-and-advance mode of their season.
They don’t have to win pretty. They just have to win. Period. Aesthetics be damned. And with that intro, consider Sunday’s 30-10 victory against the New York Giants before a largely uninterested crowd of 78,125 at MetLife Stadium.
“To me, the biggest part of this game was the finish,” Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said. “That’s always a huge emphasis for us. Finishing plays, finishing drives and ultimately finishing the game. We knew it was going to be a 60-minute game.
“It seemed like it was 10-10 for a long time, but you just keep banging away.”
It was a borefest for the better of three quarters, featuring penalties, execution breakdowns and dropped passes galore.
But for the Cowboys, it goes down as another notch on their belt in their quest to win out and keep their playoff hopes alive.
The Cowboys (7-6) have won two consecutive games after ending a three-game losing streak with a 38-14 victory against the Washington Redskins.
They still need lots of help to overcome the Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers, Seattle Seahawks, Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions in the wildcard playoff chase.
But the Cowboys have hope. They get a reeling Oakland Raiders team next Sunday before suspended star running back Ezekiel Elliott returns for the final two games, starting with a Dec. 24 match-up against the Seahawks.
But there is also much promise in the undeterred and unfazed play and presence of quarterback Dak Prescott, who passed for a career-high 332 yards and three touchdowns against the 2-11 Giants.
“We were doing some good things in the running game. We just needed to break loose a couple of times in the passing game,” Garrett said. “As the game went on, we were able to do that.”
The performance came after the worst month of the season for the second-year quarterback, who went from having the best rookie season of any quarterback in NFL history to a monumental November funk.
Prescott had four consecutive games for less than 200 yards and had five interceptions. He showed signs of life with two touchdowns in the victory against the Redskins, but still passed for a career-low 102 yards.
Sunday it was a matter of Prescott finally getting a little help from his receivers. He had completions of 50 yards to Dez Bryant, 54 yards to Cole Beasley, 20 yards to Jason Witten and 81 yards to running back Rod Smith.
“I thought Dak did a really good job of recognizing it (the pressure), giving Dez a really good ball, giving Beasley a really good ball and at the end of it, Rod Smith a good ball where he could catch it in stride and go make a play,” Garrett said. “In each of those guys, the run after catch was huge. They made a guys and then got going.”