Tony Romo guided the Dallas Cowboys to touchdowns on its first three drives and points on the first four, then turned the early surge into a 34-9 victory over the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday.
The Cowboys won their third straight, matching their best roll of the season, all coming since Romo returned from a broken right pinkie finger.
Dallas is 8-4 and back near the top of the NFC playoff race. Now comes the hard part — staying there.
The Cowboys’ next three games are against Pittsburgh, the New York Giants and Baltimore.
That stretch will be even tougher if they’re without linebacker DeMarcus Ware and running back Marion Barber.
Both left with injuries during the third quarter, Ware because of a sprained left knee and Barber because of a bruised right pinkie toe.
The Seahawks lost their fifth straight game and fell to 2-10.
It matches the most losses in a season outgoing coach Mike Holmgren has had in his 17 years in the NFL, and there are still four games left.
EAGLES 48, CARDINALS 20
At Philadelphia, Donovan McNabb threw four touchdown passes and Brian Westbrook tied a team-record with four scores as Philadelphia beat Arizona.
Just four days ago, McNabb was benched for the first time in his career at halftime of a 36-7 loss at Baltimore.
But coach Andy Reid gave McNabb another chance and the five-time Pro Bowl quarterback responded with his best game since Week 1.
McNabb completed 27 of 39 passes for 260 yards and a passer rating of 121.7.
Westbrook had 110 yards rushing and 20 more receiving. He had two TDs on the ground and two receiving.
The Eagles (6-5-1) desperately needed to win to maintain their slim playoff hopes.
They’ll have a few extra days to prepare for the New York Giants (10-1) on Dec. 7.
The Cardinals (7-5) will clinch their first division title in 33 years if San Francisco loses at Buffalo tomorrow.
Kurt Warner had 235 yards passing, three TDs and three interceptions.
TITANS 47, LIONS 10
At Detroit, Chris Johnson was untouched on a short run to the outside and a long gain up the middle.
The two plays were symbolic of the canyon-like gap between the once-beaten Tennessee Titans and the winless Detroit Lions.
Johnson ran for two touchdowns in the first quarter, LenDale White scored twice in the second and Tennessee coasted.
Johnson finished with 125 yards rushing and White added 106 on the ground as Tennessee met its goal of re-establishing the running game.
The Titans (11-1) bounced back from their first defeat of the season, surging to a 28-3 lead in the opening minute of the second.
Tennessee now has their best 12-game record in the club’s history.
The Lions (0-12) moved a step closer to becoming the NFL’s first 0-16 team, losing by a franchise-worst 37 points and giving up a franchise-record 47 points in their 69th game on Thanksgiving.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier