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PHILADELPHIA - Well, well, maybe just maybe this Dallas Cowboys football team does have some intestinal fortitude.
You know, a stomach for the fight.
For last time we were leaving Lincoln Financial Field, nearly 11 months ago, if I remember correctly "gutless" comes to mind, the only conceivable way to explain away 44-6, the numbers tattooed to the Cowboys' very souls in that winner-take-all finale to the 2008 regular season that earned the Philadelphia Eagles a playoff spot and the Cowboys a long off-season.
Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips kept insisting this is a new team and that this is a new year; that you need to learn from history but that dwelling on it would be suffocating. But there were many on the outside still haranguing 44-6, the culmination of last year's non-playoff season. And they continued giving this team the business after a mere 2-2 start to the season and then really began dog-piling after the Cowboys struggled to an overtime victory over the lowly Chiefs.
Few were willing to listen to Phillips' logic, and no matter the Cowboys came back to last year's scene of the crime on a three-game winning streak and tied for first place in the NFC East at 5-2 with the Eagles. So it seemed until the Cowboys exorcized the demon Eagles by spitting out the bad taste of 44-6, most would remain highly skeptical of these Cowboys, too.
Well, believe: Cowboys 20, Eagles 16.
That's right, the Cowboys beating those dastardly Birds at their own game, using one last big play on offense, a gritty defense and, well, some overall gutty play on a fine Philly Sunday evening at the Linc before 69,144 mostly silenced green-clad fans.
Now, these Cowboys know that at 6-2 and in sole possession of first place in the NFC East at the halfway point means the job is only half done, for as newcomer to all this Keith Brooking said, "You don't make it bigger than what it is."
So they smiled, smacked each other on the backs but didn't crack open any bottles of champagne afterward, and even owner Jerry Jones knew better than to crow after this game, looking more like the proud parent after his kid just had the game-winning single in the bottom of the ninth.
"This is a far, far cry in terms of the headlines and play from where we were standing here a few months ago," Jones said. "I think you can see we changed some things, and we bore that out there tonight."
Jones was talking about "heart," and would say Roy Williams is a good example "of what this team was today. He's been taking it in the stomach pretty good this week and he came back today and showed what he could do."
There was Tony Romo, constantly taking it on the chin it seems for an inability to "win the big one," and reminded all last week that this was a big one . . . a really big one.
And there was this Cowboys defense - Phillips' defense - having taken a couple of shots to the solar plexus for not closing out the Giants in that 33-31 loss, for failing to shut down Denver one last time in the 17-10 loss and for allowing the Chiefs to send the game into overtime on their last drive in regulation.
"So what you needed to have happen, happened tonight," Jones said. "The defense did what it was criticized for not doing, stopping âem when we had to stop âem. We needed to control the ball at the end, and we did that. And Romo avoided (mistakes)."
Or as Terence Newman calmly said, "We rose to the occasion (Sunday night)."
And then some.
Romo did so with his third 300-yard passing performance of this now four-game winning streak, piling up 307 through the air.
Williams rose higher than he ever had since hooking up with the Cowboys at midseason last year, catching a Cowboys' personal best five passes for 75 yards, and nearly had a sixth and a touchdown if not for the overlooked interference in the end zone.
Miles Austin rose once again in the nick of time, catching only one pass but one mighty big pass, a 49-yarder to vault the Cowboys into a 20-13 lead with 7:57 to play with his seventh touchdown reception of the season.
The defense most definitely ascended, showing the type of guts needed to win a big one if indeed this game Sunday night still is being classified as a big one. Why, those guys finally closed, holding the Eagles (5-3) to a 30-yard field-goal drive on David Akers' 52-yarder following Austin's fourth-quarter touchdown
"We definitely made the stop we had to make," Brooking said, as if overwhelmed with relief.
And once the defense stood tall, Brooking said Marion Barber "came walking by the bench and said to us, âDon't worry, I got this one for you.'"
Barber did, on three consecutive running plays gaining 23 yards, one first down and setting up Romo's five-yard completion to tight end Jason Witten on third-and-three for the game-sealing first down.
But of all the Show Me-ing the Cowboys did before a national television audience, and maybe even more importantly, their worst critics who reside here in this city that William Penn's statue presides over atop City Hall, that the Cowboys won this game with defense - four quarters of defense - outdueling those defensive-minded Eagles in their own backyard, proved most cleansing.
The Cowboys only gave up one touchdown to an Eagles team averaging 29 points a game, and held those Eagles three yards shy of 300 in total offense.
The Cowboys put a huge governor on the Eagles' big-play offense, giving up just one big play, and that on a 45-yard screen pass.
Those two outside receiving speedsters, DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin, did not big-play the Cowboys into submission like they had five other teams before them, and in fact, never ran into an end zone with the ball themselves.
Those seemingly pick-less Cowboys, owning just four of those precious gems after seven games, actually intercepted two Donovan McNabb passes, reducing his QB rating to a rather pedestrian 61.4 thanks to Gerald Sensabaugh's diving grab of a tipped ball and Mike Jenkins' team-leading third pick of a deep ball he undercut.
And if all that were not enough, how about stuffing the Eagles on three tries for one precious yard of real estate from the Cowboys' 45 in a 13-13 game and then rookie Victor Butler later running down McNabb from behind for the third-down sack that forced the 52-yard field goal?
"People were scratching and clawing out there," Cowboys inside backer Bradie James said in order to force but a field goal on what turned out to be the Eagles' final drive. "It was that time, we had been working so hard to get to that point and we wanted the team to believe in us.
"It was our time, and we did it."
Yes the defense did, allowing the Cowboys to win their first game of the year while scoring no more than 20 points and just their fourth over the past 56 games. Sometimes 20 has to be enough, even when playing on the road against one of the league's best advertised offenses, the Cowboys joining the Raiders as the only teams to hold the Eagles under 22 points so far this season.
"So proud of the defense, they've been working so hard," Romo said, "and they have been playing some great football."
So on this return to last year's crime scene, playing the so-called fearsome Eagles, the Cowboys matched them sack for sack (four), doubled their picks (2 to 1), gave up 61 fewer yards, doubled their touchdowns (2 to 1) and if it's down and dirty football they needed to play, then they proved they can get pretty low and pretty grubby even on the road where those rabid Philly fans greeted their arrival at The Linc once again by giving them passionate double-barrel "birds" and pelting one of the two early team busses with incoming eggs.
All those things required of the Cowboys if they were to restore a little piece of that pride and confidence the Eagles slaughtered right here on Dec. 28 of last year, culminating in this 6-2 start - only the third time since an 8-1 beginning in 1995 that the Cowboys have jumped off to at least a 6-2 start over the first half of a season.
"There are some people that need to respect us now," James said, neither begging nor bragging.
Just speaking from the heart . . . and a restored soul.
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Mickey Spagnola - 
