Cowboys Put Away Eagles on late rally | Eagles, Cowboys put seasons on line tonight

Cowboys Put Away

The Texas Longhorns lost the Bowl Championship Series title game on Thursday night, on Alabama, football fans in the Lone Star State were taken down a peg or two.
They may not have invented the sport around here, but they like to think they have mastered it on every level — from high school to the elite professional product, which is presented as a spectacle.
So they climbed back on their high horses Saturday after their Cowboys impressively defeated the Philadelphia Eagles, 34-14, in a National Football Conference wild-card game.
It was the first postseason victory for Dallas since 1996. The Cowboys, who will visit Minnesota next week, need three more victories to capture their first Super Bowl title since the 1995-96 season.
But if any of the 92,951 fans left Cowboys Stadium, their glittering new palace, dreaming about a championship, quarterback Tony Romo and Coach Wade Phillips were not about to discourage them.
“We definitely wouldn’t be in this position if we didn’t think we were capable of such things,” Romo said. “You’ve got to be thinking you have a chance. The tournament’s begun and we’re off to a good start.”

Phillips, who won a playoff game for the first time in his career, said: “We’re playing as good as anybody right now. I think we’re a very good football team and we’re on a roll.”
They think big here — big as the gigantic video screens looming over the field, big as the smiles and the hair on the dancing cheerleaders who decorate the video during almost every timeout.

There were big shots everywhere, too, including former President George W. Bush, who smiled to the fans from the private box of the Cowboys’ owner, Jerry Jones.

There was even big noise before the game, when the senior rocker Ted Nugent performed a long and screeching guitar rendition of the national anthem that could have come with its own two-minute warning.
After his echoes faded, the Cowboys took a 7-0 lead and followed it with a play that seemed to suggest, in microcosm, the tone of the night.

On the ensuing kickoff, returner Macho Harris was hit low and hard by the Cowboys’ Kevin Ogletree in a way that caused Harris to cartwheel and land upside down.
This drew loud cheers from the fans, and Harris left the game with an injury.
Although the Eagles scored a touchdown on the ensuing drive — a 76-yard pass-and-run play from Michael Vick to Jeremy Maclin — the kickoff hit left an impression that the Cowboys were about to whip their visitors in intimidating fashion.
And they did. The Cowboys jarred two fumbles out of the grasp of the Eagles, who looked like the best team in the N.F.L. until last week, when the Cowboys shut them out, 24-0, in their final game of the regular season.
The Dallas defense seemed to rattle Donovan McNabb, the veteran Philadelphia quarterback, who threw one interception and completed 19 of 37 passes for 230 yards while under constant pressure.
The early ouster of the Eagles is certain to raise questions in Philadelphia about the performance and future of both McNabb and Coach Andy Reid.
“Obviously, right now is not that time to talk about my future,” McNabb said. “There were a lot of things that we did wrong.”
Over the long term, both have helped elevate the Eagles to among the league’s elite teams. But the failure to win a Super Bowl will leave their demanding fans wondering whether McNabb and Reid can accomplish that objective.
Reid said his team was outplayed and outcoached.
“When you get your tail kicked, it’s not a great feeling,” Reid said. “I wasn’t expecting it. I saw us slip as a football team in the last two weeks.”
Other, younger Eagles spoke more bluntly. One was DeSean Jackson, the brilliant receiver who caught only three passes for 14 yards, one of them a 4-yard touchdown with 90 seconds left.
“It’s embarrassing,” Jackson said. “We never planned to lose like this. We kept shooting ourselves in the foot. It’s going to be a long off-season.”
This was Dallas’s third victory against Philadelphia in three games this season. The Cowboys led at halftime, 27-7, but another signature moment came late in the third quarter.
It was a 73-yard touchdown run by Felix Jones that gave the Cowboys a 34-7 lead. Because Marion Barber was hampered by a bruised leg, Jones got 16 carries and gained 148 yards.
Romo completed 23 of 35 passes for 244 yards and 2 touchdowns. If the Cowboys have a statistic to worry about, it could be the 14 penalties for 112 yards.
“We still have to clean up some stuff,” Romo said. “We still have a long way to go.”