Cowboys 31 – Chiefs 28
IRVING, Texas – The Cowboys are still in the playoff race by the skin of Jerry Jones’s very white teeth.
“I knew this game would be our season,” said Dallas’ grinning owner, who if any one of about five plays had gone the other way yesterday, would no longer have a season.
Jason Witten dropped the ball at the goal line on fourth down with 46 seconds left, sucking the air out of Texas Stadium until the sight of a flag on the ground pumped life back into a team that had appeared to have just fallen two games behind both the Giants and the wild card leaders with just three games to go.
It was over, but then it wasn’t because the Chiefs’ Greg Wesley had tried to put a horse-collar on the Cowboys tight end as he broke off the line of scrimmage, the six. Reprieved? Oh boy, when it came to ‘Boys yesterday, you still don’t know the half of it.
Cowboys tight end Dan Campbell, who in the second quarter had let a Drew Bledsoe pass in the flat go through his hands, sending Chiefs cornerback Patrick Surtain on his way to a touchdown, before he, too, dropped the ball, got himself wide open to take a touchdown pass near the back of the end zone with 26 seconds left that gave Dallas a 31-28 victory.
“I’m glad I had a chance to redeem myself,” said Campbell. “And I knew that play was going to work with the aggressive nature of their defense.
“I have to sell it, hit the [linebacker] over the head hard as I can. Then as soon as I felt everybody sucking up I get out and there was nobody back there.”
Sort of like Cowboys secondary members, when wide receiver Dante Hall went over the middle for 34 yards from Trent Green to give the Chiefs one last chance that kicker Lawrence Tynes blew wide right from 41 as the clock expired, the absolute last bullet for the Cowboys to dodge.
“We were fortunate to win that one,” said Dallas coach Bill Parcells, the understatement of the day, nevertheless proud as he deserved to be for the way the Cowboys, who had lost two straight and deserved to lose the one before that in Philadelphia, too, again found ways to hang and hang until the Chiefs hung themselves.
Down 14-3, unable to stop the Chiefs’ Larry Johnson (143 yards on 26 carries) and Tony Gonzalez (five catches for 94 yards), the Cowboys used a Bledsoe-to-Terry Glenn 71-yard fleaflicker to get back in the game. Then a 59-yard fumble recovery by Marcus Spears off a forced Green fumble by Scott Fujita, enabled Bledsoe to drill a 26-yard touchdown pass to Witten to put Dallas up, 17-14, at the half.
Unfazed, the Chiefs drove 88 yards in the third quarter to go back ahead. And even after the Cowboys, pulling out all stops, regained the lead on a 6-yard end-around by Glenn, Green spotted a totally blown coverage to hit Eddie Kennison for a 47-yard touchdown and the last Chiefs lead.
Seeming a rightful lead, too, the way the game had gone, until a Dallas offense that hadn’t been able to run the ball used six rushes by Marion Barber and Julius Jones on a death-defying drive that sent the Cowboys to Washington next week still only one game behind the Giants and the wild-card leaders.
“We’re counting on the Giants winning out, so we’re fighting for a wild card and anything else is a bonus,” said Campbell, redeemed tight end, after a cashing a bonus chance into a necessity.
