ROMO FINDS WITTEN TO GIVE COWBOYS 27-26 COMEBACK WIN OVER GIANTS
By SCHUYLER DIXON | ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sep 14, 2015 6:34 AM CDT in Sports
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Tony Romo found Jason Witten for the winning touchdown after a series of Dallas mistakes put the New York Giants in position to beat the Cowboys in an opener for the first time.
Now the Dallas quarterback has to figure out how to make the comeback turn into more victories without All-Pro receiver Dez Bryant, who will miss four to six weeks with a broken right foot.
“We’ll try to reassess that and figure out where to put guys,” Romo said after his 11-yard scoring toss to Witten with 7 seconds left gave the Cowboys a 27-26 win over the Giants. “No one can replace Dez Bryant, but it’s my job to help that whole situation.”
The Cowboys drove 72 yards in 1:27 after stopping New York at the 1 and forcing Josh Brown’s fourth field goal when a touchdown would have sealed the Giants’ first victory in an opener against Dallas.
The defending NFC East champion Cowboys are 8-0 against their division rival in openers, and have beaten them five straight times.
“It was bad clock management,” said Manning, who had 193 yards passing with no touchdowns after throwing for 12 TDs in his previous four games against Dallas. “It was definitely an option to take a sack and run 40 seconds off the clock and give them less time. That’s 100 percent on me.”
But coach Tom Coughlin took the blame as well.
“The decision to throw the ball on third down was not a good decision,” he said. “It should have been a run, whether we scored or not.”
NO DEZ, SO DUNBAR: Running back Lance Dunbar got the final Dallas drive going with two catches for 40 yards. He finished with team highs of eight catches for 70 yards with Bryant twice leaving the game. The first time was in the first half because of dehydration.
REPLACING MURRAY: Joseph Randle got most of the work in the first game for Dallas without 2014 NFL rushing leader DeMarco Murray. He had 16 carries for 65 yards, and Darren McFadden had six for 16.
