Two guys on defense who made a couple of standout plays against the Redskins were DeMarcus Ware and Terence Newman.
Newman got the key INT late in the game when the Redskins were driving with the score 28-23. We’ve always known how good of a cover-corner T-New is but he’s never come up with the big interceptions. He got one on Sunday and he knew it was big because he celebrated after.
As a salute to the Cowboys wide receiver, Newman ran to the star at the 50-yard line following his interception and stretched out his arms while looking up through the Texas Stadium's famed hole in the roof, a la Owens in 2000 while he was with San Francisco rubbing in a touchdown reception here against the Cowboys.
"I did it for him because he had four touchdowns," Newman said.
Even Newman is in awe of the Owens! Newman offers a different explanation here.
"I was just feeling the moment," Newman said of the celebration. "I made a play to hopefully to seal the game and I just felt it. I wanted to do something for Texas Stadium for all the people that were there on the edge of their seats and give them a little show.
"I did my mini-T.O. impression and tried to give the crowd a little something."
DeMarcus Ware had a key sack and forced fumble and also forced Campbell into an intentional grounding call. Ware’s already got nine sacks for the season and has numerous hurries and hits on QB’s. But he got a little worn out on the evening.
The sack was Ware's ninth of the year, tying him for first in the NFC, just 2½ short of last year's career high. But Ware said that sack didn't come easy. All game he was battling Samuels, a task that wore Ware out.
Ware received two IV's from the training staff following the game after cramping badly in the fourth quarter.
"That guy's a beast," Ware said. "I'm not even going to lie; he's one of the best tackles I've ever faced."
No DeMarcus, you’re a beast and one of the main reasons we won the game. Paul Pasqualoni says Greg Ellis is partly responsible for Ware’s development.
"This is his third year now, and he's really starting to learn to pass rush," linebackers coach Paul Pasqualoni said. "I think he's benefiting from being with [Greg] Ellis. Greg's been through it, and he's not only helping him on the field, but in practice and in meetings."
Good thing Greg helps him in practice and meetings, because he sure didn’t help him on the field on Sunday. I kid Greg – sort of. I’ll give him a pass for one week because of his good play over the last few weeks. But, Ware could use a little help in the next game and that goes to all of the front seven, starters or substitutes.
And yes, Ware was getting a good jump on the snap because he saw something that he keyed on - but he won't tell us.
"I timed it a little bit," Ware said. "But I'm not going to tell you what I was keying on. It helped out, and I got a little edge, and that's what you need."
Poor Andre Gurode, there’s no place to hide when you mess-up like he did on Sunday.
"I know the coaches have faith in me and I have faith in them," Gurode said. "If you make a mistake, that's a common thing in football. You just have to be a man about it, realize what you did, get up, admit that you were wrong and try to get ready for the next play."
How about we work on technique or something? I saw at the DMN blog he blamed it on a slippery ball because he was sweating too much. That excuse doesn’t fly, I’m sure Gurode sweats copious amounts all the time.
Roy Williams accepts the blame for his mistake in pass coverage.
"I’ll take it," Williams said. "I was covering him. They didn’t even really sneak in behind me. I just opened up too fast and they scored and that was pretty much it."
"When you have a guy like T.O., you call a few plays and we didn't even get the look (we wanted)," Romo said. "Then we finally got the look. They were dropping everybody in coverage and it was nice to see that we can still attack the field when teams are going to put a lot of people back there."
"They tried to put a lot of safeties over the top and shade the linebackers out there," Owens said. "We did a great job of adjusting during the second half. There were some things we missed in the first half that we saw we could get those in the second half."
"He's just a great player," said Romo, who wasn't too bad himself, finishing the day completing 22 of 32 passes for 293 yards and four scores for a 124.1 quarterback rating. "He allows us to do a lot of things. But we had a lot of guys make some big plays. Sam Hurd made some big plays. I'm just excited that everyone played well. But obviously Owens stands out because of the four touchdowns and some big plays."