How do you feel about the Cowboys winning on Thursday night?
The Dallas Cowboys may have gotten back in the win column, but they did nothing to ease anyone’s concerns over this team. After losing two straight games, both of them at home, the Cowboys were in desperate need of a win. Traveling to the New York Giants on a short week seemed to be a recipe for success, given their domination over this franchise in the Dak Prescott era. As it turned out, this game was anything but easy.
Dallas received the ball to start things off, and they promptly went three-and-out. Then the Giants drove down the field and kicked a field goal to take an early lead. The Cowboys responded with a touchdown, and the two teams repeated that routine once more. Before long, the Cowboys took a 14-9 lead into halftime.
The narrow lead was enough to make fans uneasy, but the nature in which it unfolded was even worse. Despite coming into this game ranked 13th in penalties and 16th in penalty yardage, the Cowboys returned to their wildly sloppy and undisciplined ways. They had 10 penalties called against them in the first half for a total of 55 yards; for context, the Cowboys were called for 10 penalties total in their last two games.
The Giants weren’t much better, with five penalties totaling 25 yards in the first half. The flag was flying so often that Al Michaels began to voice his palpable disgust with the frequency of the penalties. At times, the first half felt like a flag show where a football game suddenly broke out. That, along with a one-score lead at halftime, was anything but comforting for Cowboys fans.
The Giants got the ball to start the second half and very nearly began it with a disaster. On the kick return, Juanyeh Thomas jarred the ball loose on contact with the return man. The ball popped up in the air and, through sheer luck, right into the hands of a Giants player who had whiffed in his block on Thomas. The Giants didn’t take that gift for granted, marching down the field and ultimately kicking a field goal.
That would be the story of the second half: field goals. Neither team reached the endzone in the entire second half, with both teams making a field goal each quarter. Giants head coach Brian Daboll drew some strong criticism over one such decision to kick: on fourth and goal from the Dallas three-yard line, down five, Daboll elected to kick a field goal. Later in the game, he’d go for it on fourth down three different times, all of them right around midfield, adding further confusion to his decision-making process.
Of course, Daboll would not be outdone in head-scratching game management decisions. After one of those failed fourth-down attempts, the Cowboys took over with the ball at the New York 45-yard line. With 3:21 left in the game and two remaining timeouts for the Giants, Dallas had the chance to grind the clock out.
They moved the chains once, but then Ezekiel Elliott was stuffed for a three-yard loss. Rico Dowdle ran for a total of four yards on the next two plays, and Mike McCarthy sent out Brandon Aubrey to attempt a field goal with the clock ticking down below 40 seconds. Aubrey missed the field goal, setting the Giants up with a short field and needing just 61 yards in 28 seconds to win in dramatic fashion.
After two incompletions, Daniel Jones was intercepted by Amani Oruwariye, who had been elevated from the practice squad for this game in place of the injured rookie Caelen Carson. That play sealed the win for Dallas, and encapsulated this game for the Cowboys.
After two straight weeks of this defense getting bullied and abused, Mike Zimmer’s unit stepped up in a big way. Rookie sensation Malik Nabers was mostly held in check; outside of a big catch when he broke Andrew Booth Jr.’s ankles, Nabers caught 11 balls for just 76 yards, a quiet night for him. Dallas was also stout against the run, limiting Devin Singletary to just 24 yards on 14 carries. The Giants on the whole averaged a paltry 1.1 yards per carry, and Mazi Smith easily had the best game of his career.
The defense also kept the Giants out of the endzone all night, though they were responsible for five of the team’s 11 penalties throughout the game. All in all, this was a very ugly game of football, made all the worse by a litany of injuries. At one point, it seemed as if a player was getting hurt every single play. By the end of the game, the defense was playing without both DeMarcus Lawrence and Micah Parsons, the latter of whom was carted to the locker room after suffering some sort of lower leg injury.
The most important thing is the Cowboys got the win and kept the wolves at bay… for now. They’ll get a mini bye now, coming at a crucial time with so many injuries popping up, but their next test – a road game against the Steelers – will be much tougher than the Giants. And after four games in the books, the Cowboys have shown little to indicate they should be favorites against a currently undefeated Steelers, let alone be counted on to make a run in the postseason when (if?) the time comes.
