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Who wants the NFC East now?

By Rich Hofmann

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

(KRT)

LANDOVER, Md. - It was billed as a battle of running backs. On one side was proud Emmitt Smith, of the Dallas Cowboys. On the other side was persistent Terry Allen, of the Washington Redskins. Suspect defensive fronts confronted them both. A national television audience awaited the collision eagerly.

And now it's over. And now, as Redskins coach Norv Turner said Monday night, "Everybody in the country is going, 'Stephen Davis?' "

Smith was good. Allen was injured. Davis, in his second year out of Auburn, stole the headlines and the Redskins took the game, 21-16. So they get to 4-2 and take first place in the NFC East, a half-game ahead of the, ugh, New York Giants (4-3). The Cowboys fall to third at 3-3. The Eagles are 2-4. The Arizona Cardinals are 1-5.

The division is a wreck.

The Cowboys are making odd noises.

"It could very well be a real ugly season for us," said Smith, the warrior back trapped in an offense that again could score only one touchdown in the game. In the last five games, if you're counting, that's five offensive TDs for Dallas.

Ugly? Ugly how?

"You can figure it out," Smith said. "You're not dumb."

Ugly? Wideout Michael Irvin, who caught five passes for 81 yards while locked in a great battle all night with Redskins cornerback Cris Dishman, said he wasn't ready to go that far. But he did say this, after Dallas's last gasp from midfield ended 39 yards short of the go-ahead score:

"If we can't go 50 yards, we don't deserve to win the damn game."

And guard Nate Newton?

The always-quotable Nate Newton?

"We can win nine or 10 games, who knows, do that wild-card thing," he said.

Ugly. Not deserving. Wild cards.

Cowboys! Wild cards!

The world really is upside down.

So why not Stephen Davis?

"Every week, they tell me to be ready, be ready, and opportunity came," said Davis, who got 94 yards and two touchdowns on 22 carries, all after Allen sprained his left knee when he was tackled out of bounds on a swing pass in the first quarter.

"And I was ready," Davis said.

And did we mention the cast?

It was to protect his right thumb, the one with the torn ligaments. He still has stitches in it from the surgery he had a couple of weeks ago. Did we mention the surgery?

When they took off the cast after the game, it looked as if Davis was concealing a golf ball underneath his skin. No matter. He ran with authority behind an offensive line that was humbled the week before at Veterans Stadium against the Eagles.

The 'Skins ran wide left. If they did it once, they did it 15 times, apparently targeting the inimitable Shante Carver and Antonio Anderson on the Cowboys' defensive line. And if all the pounding did more damage on Davis's thumb, well, who knows?

"I might have," he said. "But right now, I can't tell."

He was smiling.

"It was my first time being in a Monday night game, and I was excited," Davis said. "I've always watched it on TV. This time, I was playing."

Davis's very presence on the field at Jack Kent Cooke Stadium was an act of serendipity. The only reason he dressed for the game at all was because backup fullback Marc Logan had a pulled muscle and couldn't really run. And the only reason he got to play was because Allen went down. (PS: Allen says he's had much worse knee injuries and should be fine.)

"It just worked out right for us," Turner said. "Stephen's a fine runner. He's a big, strong guy, and he's faster than Terry."

And he pounded the Cowboys. Still, Dallas didn't fall over. Down by 21-3 after the second series of the third quarter, the Cowboys held Washington with only one first down over the next 20-odd minutes. A significant amount of perspiration was expended by the 76,159 in attendance on a cool October night. A couple of boos, too, after three-and-out followed three-and-out followed three-and-out followed three-and-out.

As it turned out, the Redskins' key play was a sack by blitzing linebacker Ken Harvey at the start of the second half, a sack of Troy Aikman that left both Aikman and the ball on the ground. Rich Owens recovered on the Dallas 25-yard line. Six Davis runs later, and the 21-3 lead was built.

"It obviously was the key play in the game, as it turned out," Turner said, when asked about the sack and fumble.

Dallas, though, inched back. Its biggest play also was on defense, when safety Darren Woodson - who was supposed to be out because of an injury - magically recovered enough not only to dress for the game, but to start. Woodson knocked the ball loose from running back Brian Mitchell, and linebacker Dexter Coakley scooped up the fumble and ran 16 yards for the touchdown.

When the two-point conversion failed, it was 21-9. And two series later, when Aikman rolled right and hit Irvin with a 14-yard TD, it was 21-16 with 9:40 left. And when the Redskins went three-and-out again, and again, Dallas had two shots to go ahead. And two misses.

"This was really a heck of a physical effort by our football team," Turner said. "After the game last Sunday (against the Eagles), I said that for us to have a chance to win, we have to play well in all three phases. And we did."

Well, they played well enough.

Which is all it takes in the NFC East anymore.

Or, as Cowboys cornerback Deion Sanders said, "The Giants are in first place. Something is wrong with this picture."

They're not in first place, but something is wrong.

So why not Stephen Davis?

(c) 1997, Philadelphia Daily News.

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