LANDOVER, Md - His still-fractured finger wrapped in a smaller, more efficient protective splint, Tony Romo returned just in time for the wild-card round Sunday at a blustery FedEx Field.
In his mind, anyway. Because for 35 days, the Cowboys' Pro Bowl quarterback had waited to help his team sidestep the "eight ball" in the NFC playoff race.
"I said it to (Jason) Witten before the game -- you just miss playing ball," Romo said after the Cowboys (6-4) had resuscitated their season with a brutish 14-10 victory over the Washington Redskins (6-4).
"We treated this as a playoff game in a lot of ways."
A logical approach, even if Thanksgiving still sits two weeks away.
At 5-4, the Cowboys awoke Sunday at a postseason crossroads. Third place in their own division. Stuck in a conference logjam that featured nine teams with as-good-or-better records. A loss to Washington might have required a clean sweep of their final six games to play into January.
Romo had a large hand in avoiding that nightmare. He shook off two first-half interceptions and some early rust to complete 19 of 27 passes for 198 yards and a touchdown. More importantly, he helped the offense reestablish the downfield threat that mostly disappeared with backups Brad Johnson and Brooks Bollinger filling in the previous three games. Hard-charging running back Marion Barber balanced the attack with 24 carries for 114 yards, including the game-clinching first down on fourth-and-1 with 1:08 remaining.
But the Cowboys needed a complete performance to avenge their Week 4 loss to the Redskins and even the head-to-head series. The defense, aided greatly by the return of starting cornerback Terence Newman (sports hernia), held Washington to 228 total yards and essentially shut down its offense after a game-opening touchdown drive.
"It was actually gratifying for our defense to get a little credit," said Newman, who not only played for the first time since the first Washington game, but also registered his first pick of the season. "We played hard tonight. We played hard a lot of games, and it seemed like there was always something to pick with our defense. It felt good to come out here and put together what I would call a complete game together."
Redskins quarterback Jason Campbell (22-of-34, 162 yards, one touchdown) was sacked three times, including two by nose tackle Jay Ratliff. Running back Clinton Portis, questionable all week with a sprained knee, finished with 68 yards but only 39 after that successful first series.
And Newman, who clearly wasn't healthy or fully confident in the teams' first meeting, shadowed Santana Moss this time and held the dangerous wideout to five catches for 29 yards and swiped that pass diving in front of Moss.
"He just played his tail off," linebacker Bradie James said. "And that's what you need, what you miss. When we had some injuries, they poured on us. We couldn't complain about it. We had to play."
The team's other Pro Bowl injury belonged to Romo, who fractured his right pinkie finger in an Oct. 12 loss to Arizona. Despite throwing with sufficient velocity and accuracy Sunday, Romo said the protective splint occasionally affected his grip on the ball. Late in the first quarter, he threw behind Terrell Owens across the middle of the field for his first interception that stalled a potential scoring drive at the Washington 27-yard line.
"You try and adjust with your shoulders and stuff, but I didn't adjust enough, obviously," Romo said. "It's going to happen. It's disappointing but at the same point I did some things I was pretty happy with tonight and came back after that one."
Like on the offense's first touchdown drive, when he was a perfect 5-of-5 for 74 yards to his big guns -- Owens, Witten and newly-acquired receiver Roy Williams -- before Barber scored on a 2-yard run.
"Every guy on the field touched the ball," Williams said, calling it a "pick your poison" drive.
Or on the offense's opening drive of the fourth quarter, when Romo hit rookie tight end Martellus Bennett for a 25-yard touchdown to take a 14-10 lead.
Barber did the rest after Newman forced a Redskins turnover on downs by breaking up a fourth-down pass intended for Moss. The Pro Bowl back had 10 carries on the final drive - two more than his entire total in the Week 4 meeting - including the late fourth-and-one conversion at the 17-yard line with Washington out of timeouts.
"Certainly there were a lot of decisions there on whether to go for the field goal or to go for it," head coach Wade Phillips said. "But once we got close enough we thought we had a play. And it turned out they had real tight, goal-line defense and we had a chance to get outside."
With Sunday's gritty win and a little help from around the league, the Cowboys are now tied with the Redskins and Falcons for the conference's fifth-best record behind four other teams. Three of them - the NFC-East leading Giants (9-1), Panthers (8-2) and Cardinals (7-3) - are division teams while Tampa Bay has the other 7-3 record.
A second straight division title might be unlikely with the Giants marching on, but postseason possibilities are very much alive.
"That's what we want to believe and that's what I want my players to believe - that this is a start for us," Phillips said. "We said the second half of the season for us, after the bye week, was starting right now and we go from there."
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