Every highlight-reel play the Giants made yesterday, every lowlight Dallas suffered, brought coach Dave Campo one step closer to being fired and the Cowboys one step closer to the end of an error.

The Giants handed America’s Team a 37-7 whipping and brought Campo within a single defeat of his third straight 10-loss season. Now the question is how much more impatient owner Jerry Jones can take.

Three months ago, Jones said he wasn’t making a coaching change. After last Sunday’s loss to San Francisco, the irate Jones said he wasn’t leaning toward making a change. Wonder how he’s leaning after yesterday’s humiliation.

Conventional wisdom was that Campo needed to win one of Dallas’ three season-ending division games; after yesterday, sweeping Philadelphia and Washington still might not be enough. Dallas was that bad.

“I’m playing one game at a time and trying to win as many games as we can this year. I’m looking forward to the future,” Campo said. “There’ll be a decision made at the end of the year and there is only one person who knows the answer to that, and that’s Jerry.”

The most persistent rumor has Miami offensive coordinator Norv Turner returning to Dallas. Mike Holmgren and Steve Mariucci are longshots as well. Jones says he wants to see whether the Cowboys play hard down the stretch, how they finish the season. That’s a bad sign for Campo.

Dallas looked dispirited. There was Troy Hambrick’s missed block on a Mike Barrow blitz that led to QB Chad Hutchinson being leveled and fumbling, a fumble that DE Kenny Homes returned 50 yards for a score.

And there was Tiki Barber breaking a tackle at the line and another shoddy arm-tackle by SS Tony Dixon on a 60-yard run. Ron Dayne capped that drive by walking in untouched for a 21-0 first-quarter lead with CB Mario Edwards standing like a statue. It was a rancid performance.

It won’t be cheap to fire Campo, who is one loss away from being the fourth man since ’70 to open a career with three straight 10-loss seasons. At least four of the six offensive assistants and defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer are under contract through 2004.

Jones excused a 5-11 record in 2000 because of Troy Aikman’s injuries, and last year’s 5-11 mark because the Cowboys used four QBs and spent a record $23 million of “dead money.” After a good draft and expensive free agent crop, Campo has no such alibis.

He’ll be judged on his players’ effort and improvement, and they showed neither. One can only hope he has a good agent and fast realtor.

“We see some signs of getting better,” Campo said. “I’d like to be in a position to finish the thing out.”

But will he? And what of Emmitt Smith? The NFL’s all-time leading rusher is slated to make $7 million next year and count $9.8 million against the cap. If he comes back, it’ll likely be at the veteran minimum of $755,000. If he’s cut after June 1, he’ll count just $2.8 million against next year’s cap and $2.1 million the year after.