Dallas builds momentum down stretch
After three wins in 12 days, Cowboys can’t rest on laurels of their 11-1 mark.
The Dallas Cowboys played three games in 12 days and won them all. None was easy or copied and pasted from the one before. But Dallas improved to 11-1 after sweeping Baltimore, Washington and Minnesota from Nov. 20 to Dec. 1.
And on the 13th day, the Cowboys got a brief recess: three days off before time to start preparing for the New York Giants, the only team to have defeated them this season and winners of six straight ahead of Sunday’s trip to Pittsburgh. Dallas’ loss came in the season opener Sept. 11 — quarterback Dak Prescott’s and running back Ezekiel Elliott’s
first NFL game. It was 93 days before the Dec. 11 show- down in New Jersey with the Giants, when the Cowboys owning the league’s best record with four games to go, and without Tony Romo, seemed far-fetched.
“I’m going home, turn- ing my phone off,” defen- sive tackle Terrell McClain said late Thursday after Dal- las’ 17-15 win at Minnesota. “No interruptions. Do not disturb.”
He might want to reopen some stream of communication Sunday, when the Cowboys will find out if they are the first team in the NFL to clinch a playoff berth. They need Tampa Bay to lose to or tie San Diego or Washing- ton to fall to Arizona.
Dallas is coming off the most taxing game of its recent trio, which is saying something. The Vikings’ U.S. Bank Stadium rattled. The offense didn’t perform up to what had become its stan- dard against Minnesota’s unforgiving defense, includ- ing twice uncharacteristically giving the ball away. Prescott had just 12 com- pletions.
Dallas’ defense just hung on, thwarting another 2-point conversion, its specialty helped by no yellow flags flying on the final pressure of quarterback Sam Brad- ford. Kyle Wilber made one of the biggest plays of the game with a forced fumble and recovery on a Vikings punt return.
“It was a helluva battle,” Elliott said. “I was talking to (former NFL great) Marshall (Faulk) out there, and he said this is what playoff games are like.”
The win came on top of an almost automatic offen- sive but questionable defensive performance against the Redskins on Thanksgiving.
That one came four days after a particularly physical clash with the Baltimore Ravens, in which the Cowboys started slowly against another stingy defense but wore it down over the course of four quarters.
Yet despite the struggle Thursday, the winning streak lives at 11.
“I don’t know that we learned anything that we didn’t already know,” Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said after the game. “I know it was a hard-fought battle, and I know our team fought hard in all three phases. ... And certainly it wasn’t our prettiest performance on offense.
“I like to use the word ‘fight’ as much as resilience. We just kept battling . ... Ulti- mately, as a team, we kept picking each other up and scratch, claw, fight.”
Garrett admitted playing three games in 12 days was a challenge.
“I think everyone under- stood the importance of preparing each day to get ready for one game at a time,” Gar- rett said. “I think our guys were locked in . ... Fortunately, we were able to win all three of them.”