IRVING, Texas (KRT) — In a “Monday Night Football” game that followed suit for the NFL this weekend, the Dallas Cowboys won on the final play of the game against the Washington Redskins, 9-7, at Texas Stadium.
Emmitt Smith ran four out of five consecutive running plays for 3, 5, 3 and 13 yards to make it easy for Cowboys kicker Tim Seder — who had missed twice earlier — to drill a 26-yard field goal with time expired and a six-game losing streak snapped.
Don’t look now, but the Cowboys are not the dregs of the NFL … or even the NFC East. They’re 1-4 after their first regular-season victory since Dec. 10. The Redskins are 0-5.
For most of the night, this game of winless wonders lived down to expectations, as the Cowboys and Redskins treated the end zone like it had barbed wire in front of it. After three quarters, the Cowboys led, 3-0.
With 12 minutes, 16 seconds left, the Redskins led, 7-3.
The turning point of game came with 2:40 left when rookie defensive tackle John Nix, 240th pick overall, forced a fumble by stripping Redskins running back Stephen Davis, who was in the process, it seemed, of putting the game away.
“I’d been trying to do that all night,” Nix said. “We knew they’d been fumbling the ball a lot. Somebody had to make a play. I guess it was me.”
The Redskins came into the game with a league-leading 13 turnovers, tied with Dallas. It was Washington’s only turnover of the game.
Safety George Teague admitted that it was beginning to get nerve-racking as the Cowboys trailed 7-6 and the clock wound down during an eight-play, 40-yard, late-game drive by the Redskins.
“I was worried we wouldn’t get the ball,” Teague said. “We were waiting around too long.”
Then Nix stripped Davis.
The Battle of the Beatens suddenly gained interest, if anyone was still awake watching ABC.