The Dallas Cowboys equaled the franchise’s longest winning streak on Thursday as they held off a frantic Minnesota last-minute rally to beat the Vikings 17-15 at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
Dallas won their 11th consecutive game this season as they prevented Minnesota quarterback Sam Bradford from scoring the potential game-tying two-point conversion with 30 seconds left.
“We just stuck together. That was a good team we just played, but we always believe in ourselves,” said Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, who completed 12 of 18 passes for 139 yards and a touchdown.
Photo: AFP
Their offense was held to season lows in a number of areas, but they found a way to pull this one out ahead of a much-needed 10-day break in the schedule.
The Cowboys can become the first NFL team to clinch a post-season spot with a loss or a tie by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers or a loss by the Washington Redskins this weekend.
Bradford zipped a pass well over the head of his target in the back of the end zone on the two-point conversion. He had just led the Vikings on a thrilling eight-play, 65-yard drive that started with a little over two minutes left in regulation.
On the conversion attempt, he attracted lots of pressure from the Cowboys’ defense and his desperation toss to Adam Thielen was not even close.
“We have a great group of veterans who have been there and done this before, so it keeps us all under control,” Prescott said.
Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant finished with 84 receiving yards on four catches, including a fourth-quarter touchdown, while running back Ezekiel Elliott was bottled up for most of the night, but did manage a 30-yard run in the fourth that set up a 39-yard field goal by kicker Dan Bailey.
For Bryant it was his 65th career touchdown, tying him for second in franchise history with Michael Irvin.
“I knew coming into this game it was going to be a tough match and I had to be on my ‘A’ game, because if I wasn’t, he can get the best of you,” Bryant said. “We had a good battle. We shared our thoughts throughout the game. It was good thoughts. It’s nice playing games like that.”
Rookie phenom Elliott, who leads the league with 1,285 yards, finished with 86 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries.
Minnesota held the Cowboys to season lows in points, yards and first downs.
Bradford was 32 of 45 for 247 yards and a touchdown for Minnesota, who were playing without their head coach. Mike Zimmer underwent emergency eye surgery on Wednesday and was at home recovering.
Special teams coach Mike Priefer took over from Zimmer, who has now undergone three eye surgeries in 30 days.
The Vikings, who began the season 5-0 behind replacement quarterback Bradford, have lost six of their past seven games to fall out of realistic playoff contention.
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