Tony Romo didn’t throw an interception in the fourth quarter this time.
Romo was 6-for-9 on the Cowboys’ final offensive possession, including third down completions to Dez Bryant and Cole Beasley to set up Dan Bailey for a 34-yard field goal try with two seconds to play. Bailey knocked it through and the Cowboys beat the Giants 24-21 to move to 6-5 on the season. That’s enough for a share of first place in the NFC East and Romo should get full credit for steering the team to the win.
After a Giants touchdown and two-point conversion completed a comeback from 15 points down, Romo calmly moved the Cowboys down the field despite a false start on third down and an apparent completion to Bryant getting called incomplete without any booth review to make sure the call was correct. Romo finished the day 23-of-38 for 250 yards and two touchdowns, hitting Jason Witten for both scores and eight receivers overall in a mostly mistake-free performance.
Eli Manning didn’t make any big mistakes on Sunday, but the offense’s failure to score a touchdown in the first half came back to haunt them. Andre Brown and Brandon Jacobs combined to run for 202 yards and they had great success on the ground all day, but Manning completed just 16-of-30 passes in another frustrating outing for the team’s passing game. The Giants’ four-game winning streak masked the continued ineffectiveness of the offense, but there’s no way to do that now that the Giants have returned to the loss column.
At 4-7 with three divisional losses, the Giants are realistically going to have to run the table and get help to make it to the playoffs. There was nothing about today’s performance that makes their half of the equation seem likely.
There is still plenty to dislike about the Cowboys, starting with that horrendous run defense, but there was also a lot to like about the way they played on the road in a game that got tight in the fourth quarter. That’s not always something we find ourselves saying about the Cowboys, which could make this a significant win for them when all is said and done this season.