Tomy Romo shrugged off a broken rib to move Dallas into position for six field-goals by rookie kicker Dan Bailey as the Cowboys edged archrivals Washington 18-16 in an NFL thriller on Monday.
Romo completed 22 of 36 passes for 255 yards, while Bailey matched an NFL rookie mark with a six-for-six kicking performance, the last of his field-goals a 40-yarder with 1 minute, 47 seconds remaining to produce the final margin.
Washington quarterback Rex Grossman drove the Redskins upfield, but he was hit from behind by Anthony Spencer and fumbled the ball. Dallas linebacker Sean Lee recovered to end the final threat and delight 91,000 fans at Cowboys Stadium.
Photo: EPA
Dallas and Washington matched the New York Giants atop the NFC East Division at 2-1. The Cowboys ensured they will not match last year’s miserable 1-7 start and kept the Redskins from joining unbeaten teams Buffalo, Detroit and Green Bay at 3-0.
Romo started at quarterback for the Cowboys despite suffering a broken rib and punctured lung three plays into a victory at San Francisco in the previous round of matches. The small hole in his lung has healed, but pain from the rib fracture nagged Romo.
“It’s a little hard because I took some shots,” Romo said. “The guys battled hard. This is a great win for us. It was a hard game.”
Photo: AFP
Romo was hit from behind and lost the ball midway through the fourth quarter, but the play was wiped out by a holding penalty on Washington’s O.J. Atogwe, a free safety from Canada, that gave Dallas a first down at the Redskins five-yard line.
Washington’s defenders, aided by a misfiring Dallas attack, kept the Cowboys out of the end zone, but Bailey rescued the drive with a 23-yard field-goal to pull Dallas within 16-15 with 6 minutes, 58 seconds remaining.
Poor timing with receivers and blockers nagged Romo all night.
“We made a million mistakes,” Romo said. “We are lucky to come out of here with the win as many mistakes as we made, but we will get it right.”
A scrambling Romo connected with Dez Bryant on a 30-yard pass play on a third-down-and-21 situation in the game’s pivotal play. Together with a 15-yard Washington penalty on the play, it set up Bailey’s winning field-goal.
“He has a good demeanor for a kicker,” Dallas coach Jason Garrett said.
Redskins coach Mike Shanahan lamented being shut out in the fourth quarter.
“We had our opportunities to win and we didn’t take advantage of them,” Shanahan said. “The Cowboys found a way to get it done in the fourth quarter. You can go back and second-guess everything. They got the sack there. It happens.”
Bailey and Washington’s Graham Gano each kicked three field-goals in the first half for a 9-9 halftime deadlock. Gano connected from 27, 46 and 50 yards, while Bailey made kicks of 27, 32 and 41 yards.
The Redskins found the end zone four minutes into the second half on a one-yard pass from Grossman to Tim Hightower, although Bailey answered with another 41-yard field-goal to pull Dallas within 16-12 after three quarters.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS