Cowboys defense dominant in win over Giants

With most of the news surrounding the Dallas Cowboys over the past week being of the “soap opera” variety, the team did the best thing they could to restore locker room harmony:  they won a big game over the defending Superbowl champion New York Giants.  Tony Romo outplayed Eli Manning to pace a balanced offensive attack, and the Cowboy defense came up big as Dallas earned a 20-8 home victory over the Giants on Sunday night.

After a scoreless first quarter, the Cowboys took the lead early in the second on a 34 yard TD pass from Tony Romo to Patrick Crayton.  John Carney kicked a 34 yard FG for the Giants right before halftime to cut the score to 7-3 at the break.  Dallas’ pass rush gave Eli Manning and the Giants offense fits—DeMarcus Ware recorded a sack on the first play from scrimmage and the pressure never let up.  Ware would finish with three sacks on the day to boost his league leading total to 19 for the season, while the Cowboys would ring up eight sacks overall.  In two games against Dallas this season, Manning has been sacked 12 games—one more that he’s suffered in the other 12 games this year combined.

A scoreless third quarter gave way to a wild final period, which began with Dallas going up 14-3 on another TD pass from Romo to Dion Anderson from 1 yard out.  Defense and special teams kept the Giants in the game, as Mathias Kiwanuka tackled Romo in the end zone for a safety a few minutes later.  John Carney added another 3 points from 47 yards out later in the quarter before Dallas iced the game with just over two minutes to play on a 38 yard TD run by Tashard Choice.

Eli Manning finished 18 of 35 for 191 yards with no TD passes and two interceptions and spent the day running for his life from the relentless Cowboy pass rush.  In his postgame comments he tried to minimize any concern that the team was buckling at the wrong time, having lost two straight games in the wake of the Plaxico Burriss shooting incident:

"I'm disappointed, a little frustrated, but not concerned. We have to get back to playing good football. We'll have our hands full. The defense is playing well, but offensively we're not doing our part."

The Giants’ schedule won’t be easy during the final two weeks of the regular season, as they host Carolina on Sunday before traveling to Minnesota for a game against the Vikings the following week.  Dallas, meanwhile, controls its own postseason fate and can lock up a playoff berth by winning their final two games.  They won’t have an easy stretch run either, however, as they’ll host Baltimore on Saturday before heading to Philadelphia for a game against the Eagles who are also trying to fight their way into the postseason.