Inside The Star
In a crucial Week 2 matchup after a season-opening loss that had more twists and turns than just about any game, we finally saw a Dallas Cowboys win, as they took down the Giants 40-37 in overtime.
From the jump, we saw some of the sloppiest football you’d ever see. New York opened the game up with a slew of penalties, and the Cowboys threw in their own mixture of undisciplined, mistake-filled play.
As the game dragged on, the sloppy play subsided to some degree, but this was never a clean game of football.
In the end, it cost New York more, resulting in a huge loss to fall to 0-2. For Dallas, it’s a potentially season-saving victory. It is nearly impossible to make the playoffs after starting the season with back-to-back divisional losses.
With this one in the books, let’s take a closer look with a recap of all four quarters, and overtime. Buckle up, this one gets crazy!
I have never seen an opening drive like this game had.
The Giants, receiving the ball first after Brian Schottenheimer deferred to take the ball at halftime, totaled over 100 yards while only scoring three points.
Four consecutive penalties by New York’s left tackle, James Hudson, kept setting Big Blue back as they were picking up chunks on Dallas’s defense. Before he was benched, Graham Gano knocked a field goal through for the first score of the game.
That opening drive took eight minutes and forty-nine seconds, while the Cowboys’ sole drive of the quarter was three plays and about a minute long.
New York tacked on a second field goal before the quarter ended, making this a 6-0 game.
Talk about an eventful opening quarter.
The second quarter started the same way it ended for the Cowboys offense: a three-and-out. They tried to go for it on fourth, but Dak Prescott snapped the ball too late, and they were forced to punt.
That was just an ounce of the total mistakes we saw from both teams today.
In total, this quarter had way more action; both teams scored touchdowns, starting with the Giants dicing up the Cowboys’ passing defense; KaVontae Turpin responded by catching the first Dallas passing touchdown of the season.
The points came in, but mistakes continued to as well. Matt Eberflus’s defense forced a stop, and the Cowboys could have had a chance at a last-second field goal, but squandered it with bad clock management.
We went into halftime with the Giants leading 13-10.
How did the Cowboys open the third quarter?
In perhaps the single worst way possible. Prescott launched an unnecessary pass for an early interception; it was clearly his worst moment of the day in an otherwise stellar showing.
The Giants failed to capitalize in a major way,...
