Cowboys defeat defending champs in opener

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — Jason Wit­ten was sup­posed to stay home. Kevin Ogle­tree was sup­posed to be a bit player.

And the replace­ment offi­cials were sup­posed to be a fiasco.

Instead, Wit­ten pro­vided the inspi­ra­tion by play­ing weeks after lac­er­at­ing his spleen, third wide­out Ogle­tree made the big plays, and the offi­cials had a mostly quiet night in the NFL’s sea­son opener.

The Cow­boys waited all year for another shot at the New York Giants, and when they got it Wednes­day night, they were relent­less in a 24–17 vic­tory that really wasn’t that close.

“We exe­cuted on offense and defense when we needed to,” Tony Romo said after throw­ing for three touch­downs and 307 yards. “We put them in a hole. Our job was to keep the pedal down, to not let up because you know what kind of team they have over there.”

Not a good enough team this night as the Giants lost for the first time since Game 15 of last sea­son. Part of their six-game win­ning streak that earned them a fourth Super Bowl title last win­ter was a win over Dal­las on New Year’s Day to take the NFC East.

New York did every­thing right back then, and very lit­tle right in becom­ing the first NFL cham­pion to lose the now-traditional mid­week kick­off game in its nine-year existence.

“I don’t think we played up to our poten­tial at all,” defen­sive end Osi Umenyiora said. “Obvi­ously they were pre­pared and they fought, and all the credit in the world goes to that team. They played a very good game today.”

And the field offi­cials did their part. It was feared they would be a big fac­tor with the league’s lock­out of the reg­u­lars. But there were no con­tro­ver­sies, no bla­tant mis­takes or ram­pant confusion.

“No prob­lems, just as we said there wouldn’t be,” league exec­u­tive Ray Ander­son said at half­time. Noth­ing changed in the sec­ond half.

Many Cow­boys cred­ited Witten’s pres­ence with lift­ing their spir­its and their performance.

“Some­times you don’t care about your­self, you go out and play for the guys,” DeMar­cus Ware said. “It was emo­tional. We were all behind him when he said he would play.”

Wit­ten, who had two catches for 10 yards, didn’t think it was such a big deal.

“I think and hope every other player on our team would do the same thing,” he said. “At this point in your career, you want that men­tal­ity to leave it all out there.”

DeMarco Mur­ray rushed for 129 yards and the defense sacked Eli Man­ning three times.

For Ogle­tree, the night was a spe­cial homecoming.

“I felt really good when I woke up this morn­ing, I had great meet­ings, got to go see my brother,” said Ogle­tree, who grew up in the New York bor­ough of Queens. “Really good vibes today.”

When the Cow­boys were threat­ened late — a spot in which they often have folded against the Giants — Romo hit Ogle­tree for 15 yards on third down to clinch it. That gave Ogle­tree 114 yards on eight catches; he had 25 recep­tions for 294 yards and no scores enter­ing the game.

“I’m close to home, so it’s a good feel­ing,” Ogle­tree said. “But Dal­las is my home now.”

On his 40-yard TD, Ogle­tree broke free by thor­oughly fool­ing New York’s top cor­ner­back, Corey Web­ster to start the sec­ond half — the kind of big play the Cow­boys couldn’t make enough of in that Jan. 1 show­down that ended their season.

And they got another huge play from Mur­ray, who broke two tack­les in the back­field, scooted down the right side­line for 48 yards, and set up Dan Bailey’s 33-yard field goal for a 17–10 lead through three quarters.

After Man­ning con­nected with for­mer Cow­boys tight end Martel­lus Ben­nett for a 9-yard touch­down with 2:36 remain­ing, Dal­las never gave the ball back.

“Take a bite out of hum­ble pie, that’s basi­cally what it is,” Giants coach Tom Cough­lin said. “It brings you right back down to earth.”

Ahmad Brad­shaw, scored on a 10-yard run for New York after receiver Domenik Hixon made a spec­tac­u­lar leap­ing grab for 39 yards over two defenders.

Romo hit Bryant in stride over Web­ster down the right side­line for a 38-yard gain on third down in the sec­ond quar­ter. Two plays later, he side­stepped the pass rush and lobbed to a wide-open Ogle­tree for a 10-yard score that made it 7–3 at halftime.

“We’re judged by win­ning and los­ing,” Romo said, “so the best thing was going on the road and get­ting a win. Not only a win, but it was against a divi­sion rival and obvi­ously against the world champs. I don’t know how many times teams go in and beat them in that first game of the year. It’s a tough atmos­phere, a tough game. Our team grinded it out and did good.”

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Sep 6 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.