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November 24, 2003
Cowboys hang on
Panthers fall to 8-3, can't get offense to full speed
By Joe Menzer | JOURNAL REPORTER
Perhaps statistical rankings don't mean anything in the NFL, as the Carolina Panthers had contended before yesterday's 24-20 loss to the Dallas Cowboys before 63,871 at Texas Stadium.
And perhaps they do.
The Cowboys showed why their defense was ranked No. 1 in the NFL while holding running back Stephen Davis of Carolina in check and harassing quarterback Jake Delhomme into general ineffectiveness. And the Dallas offense, which entered the day ranked 15th in the league, found life in the second half by peppering the Panthers with quick-hitting, short-range passes that enabled them to escape with the important victory.
It was a huge win in terms of what it might mean down the road, as the two teams left the field with identical 8-3 records. But the Panthers squandered an opportunity to put some valuable space between themselves and not just the Cowboys, but the rest of the NFC playoff contenders as well.
The Cowboys have the tiebreaker edge if the two teams finish with the same regular-season records, which could mean the difference between playing at home later in the playoffs or being forced to go on the road. The Panthers are one of four teams at 8-3 in the NFC, as Philadelphia and St. Louis also improved to 8-3 yesterday.
But the Panthers, who face the surging Eagles on Sunday at Ericsson Stadium in their next game, insisted that they are not yet thinking about the playoffs. And after yesterday, perhaps they shouldn't.
Coach John Fox was upset about the way the Panthers played.
"I was disappointed in the way we played defense, and the Cowboys defended better than we anticipated," Fox said. "I thought if we scored 20 points, it would be enough to win. It wasn't."
Left tackle Todd Steussie and defensive tackle Brentson Buckner of the Panthers said that the only hope is that the Cowboys haven't given the rest of the league a workable blueprint to beat them for the rest of the season. It will be up to the Panthers, they said, to ensure that what worked yesterday for the Cowboys on both sides of the ball isn't used against them again and again during the final five games of the regular season.
On offense, the Cowboys kept extra tight ends and backs in to block and kept their creativeness on pass routes to a minuimum. The strategy enabled quarterback Quincy Carter of the Cowboys to flourish, especially in the second half when he hit 17 of 22 passes for 248 yards. One of his two touchdown passes - a 5-yarder to tight end Jeff Robinson, who had not caught a pass all year - broke a 10-10 tie early in the third quarter.
"They kept a lot of people in blocking and ran a lot of two-man routes," Buckner said. "So you keep going and keep going (as a defensive lineman), hoping that sooner or later they were going to break. We got licks on (Carter), but you have to take your hat off to them. They aren't going to let us hit their quarterback. They were keeping two tight ends in, having their backs help out blocking. Sometimes it was basically four guys rushing against eight, and then they had their receivers running two-man routes."
In other words, the Cowboys kept it simple on offense. Of Carter's career-high 29 completions in 44 passes, 19 went to a total of six different tight ends and running backs on short routes.
On defense, the Cowboys mixed it up enough to keep the Panthers' running game stifled and quarterback Delhomme under pressure much of the afternoon.
"They played a disruptive style of football that we're going to have to make corrections on and get ready (for the future)," Steussie said. "I think they had the most success against us of anybody we've faced all year; therefore, we're going to see more of it from here on in. When you have problems with something, you'll see it until you fix it regardless of who you play against."
Davis struggled despite becoming the Panthers' single-season rushing leader with 1,143 yards. He finished with 26 carries for 59 yards - a 2.3 yards per carry average that was his second-lowest of the season.
Delhomme completed nine of 24 passes for 175 yards and one touchdown, a 1-yard pass to fullback Brad Hoover that tied the game at 17-17 with 7:27 left in the third quarter. He also was hit on the arm from behind on his only interception, which free safety Roy Williams of the Cowboys returned to the Carolina 11-yard line, setting up the Carter-to-Robinson touchdown pass two plays later.
After Delhomme's touchdown pass to Hoover, however, the Cowboys came back to drive 63 yards on six plays for another touchdown on a gimmick play in which Carter handed off to fullback Richie Anderson, who pitched to tailback Aveion Cason just as he was tackled. Cason grabbed the pitch and darted 16 yards for the go-ahead touchdown with 4:15 left in the third quarter.
The teams traded missed field-goal attempts on the windy day early in the fourth quarter, with place-kicker Billy Cundiff of the Cowboys missing wide right on a 49-yard effort and place-kicker John Kasay of the Panthers missing wide left on a 52-yarder on the next possession.
When Cundiff missed again on a 44-yarder after the Cowboys put together a long drive on their next possession, the score remained 24-17, and the Panthers seemed in prime position - considering the offense's recent late-game heroics under Delhomme.
This time, however, a seven-play drive bogged down at the Dallas 11-yard-line. Fox elected to go for a field goal that Kasay hit from 34 yards after a delay of game penalty, but the Panthers never got the ball back.
The Cowboys took possession at their own 20-yard-line with 3:47 left and produced back-to-back third-down conversions that enabled them to run out the clock. The first conversion came when Buckner was assessed a 15-yard penalty for grabbing Carter's facemask as he tackled the quarterback on a third-and-9 play; the second came when Carter completed a 13-yard pass to tight end Jason Witten on third-and- 8.
• Joe Menzer can be reached at jmenzer@wsjournal.com