Two Easy Touchdowns and No. 3 Quarterback Give Cowboys a Title

One way or another, the Dallas Cowboys usually win at Texas Stadium. The New York Giants seemed the better team here Sunday, but the Cowboys were luckier, smarter and more resourceful, taking both the game, 28-21, and the championship of the National Conference East.

“I’ve been looking for the champagne,” Dallas cornerback Everson Walls said afterward. “I guess there isn’t any, so I threw diet Coke on everybody--I mean everybody but Tom Landry.”’

For Landry, who has coached the Cowboys for more than a quarter century, the divisional championship was his 13th in the past 20 years, for which he can thank:

--All three of his quarterbacks. The first two went out with injuries after throwing touchdown passes, whereupon No. 3 Steve Pelluer made the decisive plays of the afternoon on the winning 72-yard drive in the fourth quarter.

--The Dallas defense. On the game’s turning-point play, defensive end Jim Jeffcoat lumbered 65 yards to a touchdown in the second quarter with a deflected New York pass.

--The Cowboys’ special teams. Rushing New York punter Sean Landeta a half minute after Jeffcoat’s big run, Walls forced another turnover, setting up the Cowboys’ second touchdown in 46 seconds.

Before Jeffcoat and Walls got into the act late in the second quarter, this was a game that the Giants apparently had in hand. They had outplayed Dallas all the way on passes by Phil Simms and runs by Joe Morris. They were leading, 14-7. And they had reached the Dallas 20 on another surge that seemed sure to put them ahead at halftime by either 17-7 or 21-7.

Instead, after Walls had hurried punter Landeta into a desperate fourth-down pass that fell incomplete from the New York 12, the Cowboys scored their second quick, cheap touchdown in six plays to lead at the half, 21-14. From that moment on, they were never headed.

“The plays by Jeffcoat and Walls completely changed the momentum of the game,” Landry said.

The All-Pro in Dallas’ defensive line, Randy White, said: “The Giants had everything going their way until those two plays. It was a different game after that.”

New York Coach Bill Parcells said: “The Cowboys made a lucky play on that tipped ball (to Jeffcoat). But we still had a chance in the second half.”

Technically, they did. At times they moved the ball. But in the third quarter and even in the fourth, the Giants seemed demoralized by the strange turnovers of the second quarter. They played tentatively in the second half, settling for little plays instead of trying for big plays, and failing to capitalize on the injuries to Dallas quarterbacks Danny White and Gary Hogeboom.

As a result, the Giants (9-6) are down to their last shot. They will have to beat Pittsburgh next week to get a wild-card playoff berth.

Meanwhile, next week in San Francisco, the champion Cowboys (10-5) will be playing for the home field in the January playoffs.

In this division, the Giant-Cowboy event was the game of the year, and, in their honor, both the sun and a capacity 62,310 came out at noon.

It was in ideal football weather, with little wind and the temperature in the 40s, that the Cowboys won their division for the only time since 1981.

“It’s been a long, tough struggle to get back to the top,” Dallas safety Dennis Thurman said.

Giant linebacker Harry Carson, who would like to spend just one year on top, said:

“I can honestly say that this is the toughest loss since I’ve been here. They had some cheap touchdowns. The kind that you don’t want to give up. If a team is going to beat you, you want them to work for it. Long, sustained drives, something like that, not something that is more or less a gift. I would say that their first three touchdowns were cheap touchdowns. The last one, they worked for it.”

The last one was Pelluer’s. A former Washington Rose Bowl quarterback who is in his second NFL season, Pelluer had never before taken a snap in a regular-season Cowboy game.

Coming in with 12 minutes left and Dallas ahead by 21-14, Pelluer struck out on his first series.

But on his second, he drove the Cowboys to the touchdown that made New York’s next and last touchdown meaningless. The play of the game, advancing the ball into position for fullback Timmy Newsome to run it over, was Pelluer’s 28-yard pass to rookie Karl Powe on third and 15.

Against a New York blitz that Pelluer and Powe both read, Powe broke off his pattern and slanted to the middle, where Pelluer reached him with a perfect strike.

“It was what we call a storm blitz,” Powe said, meaning a free safety blitz. “It left the middle wide open. We practice it all the time.”

Reminded that Pelluer hasn’t practiced it at all, Powe said: “He studies hard.”

Asked what he did last week when Powe was drilling on the storm blitz, Pelluer said:

“I spent the week running Giant plays against our defense.”