Friday, November 27, 1998

Cowboys better hope for a rematch with these guys

By Tim Cowlishaw

The Dallas Morning News

(KRT)

DALLAS - Maybe the playoff rematch in the Metrodome will be different. That's about all the Dallas Cowboys have to cling to for the rest of this season.

Four games remain on the schedule, but there is little to learn about this team. Forget the nonsense about not knowing where this club is at. We know exactly where it stands.

The Cowboys are superior to their NFC East rivals. In most cases, far superior. Their 6-0 record against NFC East teams proves it. The division title is theirs, and nothing from Thursday's 46-36 loss to Minnesota changes that.

On the other hand, the Cowboys have played two of the NFL's elite teams - there may only be two - and been found lacking. Sorely lacking.

Despite notions to the contrary, there was no room for a moral victory after Troy Aikman threw for a personal-record 455 yards.

"We don't come out of this saying, 'Well, we kept it close.' That's not what it's about," Aikman said. "If you looked at this as some kind of measuring stick for us, well, then you got it. We didn't see it that way. We came here to win."

But they ultimately didn't compete. Chances are the Vikings, now 11-1, will earn home-field advantage for the NFC playoffs. So how do the Cowboys reverse the outcome if there is a rematch?

How about a little time travel back to the April draft. Just why isn't Randy Moss wearing a Cowboys' uniform?

This one has been hammered to death, and really his performance changes nothing. It can't. Moss actually did more than live up to advance billing, he exploded far beyond it: three catches, all for more than 50 yards, all for touchdowns.

Throw in the 50-yard pass interference call that set up another Vikings' touchdown, and Moss was the entire story.

But Moss' run-ins with the law that followed him from Notre Dame to Florida State to Marshall made it impossible for the Cowboys to draft him, given their own checkered past. Once Jerry Jones made that determination - and it was the only one that could have been made if this team was to move beyond its outlaw image - then even the most remarkable three-touchdown day from Moss can't change it.

So here's what the Cowboys have to hope could be different.

Deion Sanders will play next time.

The best cornerback in football was absent Thursday, a useless spectator to the car wreck created by Moss. Would a healthy Sanders have shut him down? Of course not, but he wouldn't have been burned as badly as Kevin Smith and Charlie Williams were.

"If Deion Sanders is on the field, he makes a difference, I guarantee," Coach Chan Gailey said.

Ten-point difference? Probably not.

A healthy Sanders would force the Vikings to go to more second options, not that they don't have them. The offense Randall Cunningham directed Thursday is every bit as dangerous as the Bronco bus that rolled over the Cowboys, 42-23, in September.

The Vikings played without wide receiver Jake Reed, and lost 1,000-yard rusher Robert Smith to a first-half knee injury. So even Sanders' return could be offset by a healthier Minnesota team in the rematch.

Maybe next time the Cowboys' receivers won't be so intimidated by the Randy Moss Show that they will remember to catch the football. Michael Irvin, David LaFleur, Eric Bjornson and Billy Davis combined for a minimum of eight drops. Aikman should have erased Don Meredith's single-game team passing record of 460 yards.

Maybe next time the officials will be more gracious. Okay, let's be honest, the officials were pretty good to Dallas on Thursday. Maybe they missed a couple of little ones, but a bogus call wiped out a 69-yard punt return by David Palmer that could have been huge for Minnesota.

Maybe next time the pressure of the playoffs will catch up with the Vikings. Remember, this is a franchise that hasn't been to a Super Bowl since it left behind the frozen tundra of Bloomington for the heated comfort of the Metrodome.

Cowboys' fans can argue these points throughout December, because there is little else to be resolved. With an 8-4 record, the Cowboys are set to finish with four opponents whose combined record is 13-31.

A four-game sweep of the Saints, Chiefs, Eagles and Redskins would lift the Cowboys to 12-4. Impressive as that sounds, doubling last year's victory total, it would not change the Cowboys' playoff fate.

Their Super Bowl road will take them through Minnesota - if they get that far - where things might be a whole lot different in six weeks.

Then again, maybe that turkey leg Randy Moss carried out of Texas Stadium more closely resembled Jerry Rice's torch than we can, for the moment, realize.

(c) 1998, The Dallas Morning News.

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