ARLINGTON, TEX.
Last week, Tony Romo, the Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback, got word that Redskins defensive back DeAngelo Hall had claimed that he would target Romo’s broken rib when the Redskins met them here on Monday night.
Redskins vs. Cowboys: Battle of the quarterbacks goes to Tony Romo
Toni L. Sandys/WASHINGTON POST - Once again, Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo was at the center of it all in Dallas’s win.
Tony Romo persevered through pain to lead the Cowboys and kicker Dan Bailey booted six field goals, including a 40-yarder with 1:57 left, to give the Cowboys an 18-16 victory over the Washington Redskins. (Sept. 27)
With less than three minutes to play, it looked like the Redskins and Hall would escape from Dallas with a 3-0 record and his boast intact. Their lead stood at the slimmest possible margin, 16-15, behind a short touchdown pass from Rex Grossman to Tim Hightower.
But on third down and 21 yards to go from the Cowboys 30-yard line, Romo, who had stayed safely in the pocket all night, rolled to his right out of desperation. Far down the field, he spotted his only tenable receiver, star Dez Bryant, who had burned Hall a few times for shorter gains.
In the end, it was not Hall who targeted Romo, but the other way around. Romo’s bomb hung in the air interminably but when it fell, Bryant made the catch for a 30-yard gain and an improbable first down. Worse, Hall, who’d talked about the tackling he’d do with his helmet, grabbed Bryant by his face mask to bring him down, adding a 15-yard penalty that made the play a 45-yard gain to the Redskins 25-yard line.
Yes, from the brink of fourth-and-21 desperation and a punt that probably would have doomed them, the Cowboys were suddenly in field goal territory. Romo, kept under wraps all night, had struck with his trademark audacious improvisation. The late mistake, the mental Romo blunder? Not this week.
Football and bad karma, they go together through the years like the words “Redskins and Cowboys.”
“They sent just about everybody,” Romo said of that Redskins third-down blitz. “Dez did a good job of continuing to run his route. I put a little air under the ball and let him run under it.”
The Cowboys squandered as much time as they could, then let Dan Bailey kick his sixth straight field goal of the night, a 40-yarder for an 18-16 victory that left both teams with 2-1 records. For the Cowboys, it was a vital victory. But for the Redskins, it was more documentation that even on the road and, yes, with Grossman at quarterback, they could be competitive to the end.
That final Dallas field goal set up the perfect last 100 seconds of a night that was a war of attrition between two frequently frustrated but always gallantly game quarterbacks, the handsome Romo and Grossman, the Redskins’ far less heralded journeyman.
Perhaps the final 1-minute 40-second test wasn’t fair, not in Cowboys Stadium with its wall of noise. Grossman, who’d thrown that one key touchdown pass as well as a first-half interception, ended up with 250 yards on 22-of-37 passing. And Romo? He was 22 for 36 for 255 yards, but no touchdowns. Yes, a virtual draw. But not quite.
In those final 100 seconds, Grossman made hearts jump all across Texas, and all over America, no doubt, as he completed two balls for 31 yards to get the Redskins close to midfield.
Then the cruel final act, so typical of Grossman’s career, befell him. Rolling to his left, he never saw Anthony Spencer rushing him from behind — his blind side. The sack stripped the ball from Grossman, just like the two crucial fumbles he lost here last year in a 33-30 defeat. Dallas recovered with less than 30 seconds to play. The End.
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