Tuesday, September 22, 1998

Just in time, Deion Sanders heals ailing Cowboys psyche

By Gil LeBreton

Knight Ridder Newspapers

(KRT)

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - He whirls. He dervishes. And now, he even heals things.

Deion Sanders, that man of religion, performed his first prime-time revival here on Monday night.

With no Troy Aikman, no Emmitt Smith and little that happened in September to swell them with optimism, the Cowboys watched as Sanders almost single-handedly breathed fresh life into their season.

The former Neon Deion, now a professed reformed man - i.e., from neon to stained glass - took a second-period punt back 59 yards for a touchdown, made a soaring 55-yard reception to ignite another scoring drive and then, as if Giants fans weren't already ill enough, stepped in front of a fourth-quarter Danny Kanell pass and sashayed 71 yards for his second touchdown of the game.

He whirled. He dervished. He sent New York fans home early, 31-7.

Training camp never seemed so useless.

It was Deion whose mending ankle kept his early camp practice snaps to a minimum. And it was Deion who fractured a rib in a scrimmage against the Saints on Aug. 11 and didn't surface again until the season opener.

But with Aikman expected to be out for a month, coach Chan Gailey needed another weapon.

That would be Sanders - part weapon, part whoopee cushion.

A week of earnest practice with the offense enabled Deion to line up as an extra target in Gailey's multiple-wideout formations. His third-period, 55-yard catch came on a third-and-eight play.

More notable was that Sanders himself had felt sickly after his second-period punt return for a touchdown. The first announcement said that Deion was dehydrated. Later, he reportedly tossed up the pregame meal. The third period was already under way when Sanders emerged from the locker room and went straight onto the field to resume playing cornerback.

Nobody ever said the man doesn't have a flair for the dramatic. His 59-yard scoring punt return involved one major change of direction, followed by two signature jukes and then a final sidestep to the end zone.

The return left a conspicuous grin on Cowboys special-teams coach Joe Avezzano's face. Sanders has done these kinds of things before.

Yet, few of them have come at such a provident time. With a "Monday Night Football" audience watching, the two teams had traded punts and errant passes for most of the game's opening 15 minutes.

The start probably made Cowboys fans miss Aikman. It was NFC East football at its snoring worst. A defensive struggle, coaches would call it, as America reached for the remote control.

But Sanders changed all that with, first, the punt return and then the 55-yard reception. Two snaps later, the once-released, now-resurrected Sherman Williams was bursting into the end zone to make the Cowboys lead 24-7.

It was all over but the dervishing.

Nobody ever said the man couldn't play. From this end, the primary complaint against Sanders was always his considerable cost (underscored by a $12.9 million signing bonus) and the way his $7 million contract this season shackles the team with the salary cap.

But sometimes, even in pro football, you get what you pay for.

The asterisk on this lopsided Cowboys victory would have to be the Giants' stumbling secondary. Three New York defenders somehow managed to let the Cowboys' Billy Davis catch the ball at the visitors' 40 and turn it into an 80-yard touchdown.

Gailey, however, deserves credit for giving sub quarterback Jason Garrett an ace in the hole - Sanders, the erstwhile Neon Deion, the born-again Reverend Do-Rag. Deion doesn't exactly run well-chiseled pass routes, but the Giants were forced to pay attention to him.

By the time that Sanders dashed to the end zone again on his 71-yard interception return, few Giants fans were around to see it. There were heavy rains and Cowboys celebrations in the immediate forecast.

If you're scoring along at home, Deion extended his NFL record for most career touchdowns scored by returns (16).

All of his big plays Monday night included impromptu midfield hosannas from Sanders. The Cowboys provided the scoreboard amens.

(c) 1998, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.