Cowboys Rally To Beat Giants
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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Dallas Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant scored two touchdowns in the second half to give his team a 31-28 comeback win over the New York Giants Sunday night at MetLife Stadium.
The Giants, who had jumped out to a 21-10 halftime lead, quickly reverted to their disturbing brand of sloppy football in the second half, particularly on defense, where they gave up huge chunks of yardage due to blown assignments and missed tackles.
The Cowboys, meanwhile, overcame their biggest halftime deficit on the road this season to bounce back by simply staying the course and not getting down on themselves.
“I think it says a lot about the character of our guys and their ability to focus, their mental toughness,” Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett said. “We have this expression, ‘Do your best regardless of the circumstances,’ and we just had to regroup at halftime and make a commitment to each other to play one play at a time, and to fight.”
Fight they did, as the Cowboys took the lead on 14 unanswered points against a Giants team that suddenly couldn’t do much of anything right.
The first Cowboys score in the comeback came on a 45-yard touchdown catch by receiver Cole Beasley, his first score of the season.
The second score, Bryant’s first touchdown of the game, was set up
thanks to an Eli Manning interception by Cowboys safety Barry Church on his 3-yard line, a play that snuffed out a Giants scoring drive.
“I just threw it high,” Manning said of the ill-fated pass that was intended for receiver Preston Parker over the middle. “(There is) no excuse; the guy was running open and I gotta hit him.”
The Giants did regain the lead briefly, when Manning found tight end Adrien Robinson in the end zone on a 1-yard touchdown play with three minutes left.
However, Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, who finished 18 of 26 for 275 yards and four touchdowns, had practically all day to stand back in the pocket on a 2nd-and-2 from the Giants’ 13-yard line to find an open receiver for the game-winning score. That receiver was Bryant, who finished with seven receptions for 86 yards.
“We were trying to press with four and obviously that didn’t work very well,” head coach Tom Coughlin said when asked about the amount of time Romo had in the pocket to connect with Bryant on the game-winning touchdown.
With the win, Dallas improved to 18-8 in games played following their bye week. They also have won a league-best 25 games played on Sunday night.
The Giants (3-8) are mathematically eliminated from having a chance to run the table and win the NFC East division title. They will visit Jacksonville next week.
Dallas (8-3) will have a short week to get ready for a Thanksgiving game at home against the Eagles.
Giants receiver Odell Beckham Jr. accounted for two of the Giants’ three first-half touchdowns, giving the Giants a 21-10 halftime lead.
New York converted seven of their eight third-down attempts on the first half, including four on their opening drive that ended with Beckham’s first touchdown of the night.
A bigger Beckham score came on the first play of the second quarter, when Manning heaved a 43-yard pass to the rookie receiver.
Despite having Cowboys cornerback Brandon Carr interfere with him, Beckham not only managed to stay in bounds along the Giants sideline, he also broke free from Carr’s grasp to get into the end zone in what was one of the most acrobatic catches made by a Giants receiver since David Tyree’s famous helmet catch in Super Bowl XLII.
Garrett praised the Giants’ rookie receiver and said Beckham is the type of player who poses a challenge to defend.
“I thought he played a really good game and (the 43-yard touchdown reception) was a huge play,” Garrett said. “He’s a dynamic player. That was one of the challenges as the game wore on — to make sure we found ways to stop him.”
Despite his historic catch, the rookie, who has shown himself to be a fiery competitor, kept things in perspective after the game.
“It really means nothing without a win,” he said. “You still go home at the end of the day with a loss, and it’s not a good feeling.”
Beckham finished with eight receptions for 125 yards in the first half, and had his third 100-yard receiving game in the last four weeks. In the second half, he was limited to just two receptions for 21 yards.
The Cowboys’ points included a 38-yard field goal by kicker Dan Bailey on their second drive of the game, and a 4-yard touchdown catch by tight end Jason Witten in the second quarter.
The Giants, who racked up 237 yards of offense in the first half, capped their scoring for the half when rookie running back Andre Williams scored on a 3-yard run to make it 21-10.
