It wasn't pretty, but that was a HUGE win for the Dallas Cowboys. Using a tenacious defense that held the Tampa Bay Bucs out of the endzone, Dallas squeaked by with a 13-9 victory. At this point, I'm just elated that we actually won the game, forget about the sorry offensive play by QB Brad Johnson (but at least he didn't turn the ball over). I'll rip that in another post. The important thing is that the Cowboys stopped the bleeding over the past month and beat a good Bucs football team.
Wade Phillips decision to take over the play-calling, at least partially, paid dividends as the Cowboys defense played better than it has in over a month. They still gave up a lot of cushion to the receivers but they managed to hold the damage to a minimum. And when the game was on the line in the fourth quarter, the defense gave up yards and allowed two fourth-down conversions, but made the ultimate goal a reality - keep the Bucs offense out of the endzone.
You won't want to use the film of this game as a blueprint for the offense, but a victory in our dire circumstances is all I could hope for. At worst we go into the bye week with a 5-4 record and if we can pull off a miracle in New York we could actually be 6-3. After that point, we should get Tony Romo back, Terence Newman could also return and we could get pretty close to healthy at most positions. The return of Felix Jones would also be a big boost to the offense.
Celebrate the win below.