Cardinals Have No Kick as Cowboys Win, 17-14

It would have been a 41-yard field goal. Not too tough for a pro kicker. But the Phoenix Cardinals ran the kicker instead Monday night. They asked him to run 24 yards for a touchdown on the last play of the first half--instead of kicking for three points--and in the end, they lost by just that much.

On a big night for Dallas Cowboys running back Herschel Walker, the Cardinals lost, 17-14, in the first regular-season National Football League game played in Arizona.

The Cardinals were usually losers in their first 90 years, having left first Chicago and then St. Louis when they couldn’t cut it there. But on Monday, they were playing for a share of first place in the National Football Conference East.

Well, the loss made the Cardinals 0-2 and gave them sole possession of last place, while the Cowboys (1-1) vaulted into a first-place tie with everyone else in their slow-starting division.

The play of the game was the fake kick, Al Del Greco’s improbable run at the end of the half. Normally a kicker, if not a very good one, Del Greco was less than a 50-50 shot, the Cardinals thought, to make a 41-yard field goal on a clear, calm night.

If so, he was less than 1-1,000 to run it that far. Taking a lateral from holder Cliff Stoudt, he ambled out for a few yards and was easily collared.

Why did the Cardinals do that?

“(Del Greco) wasn’t kicking that well tonight,” Cardinal Coach Gene Stallings said. “He’d already missed one. He wasn’t even kicking real good in practice (before the game).”

Which might have suggested a couple of alternatives to Stallings:

--Some other kind of fake kick that might have some chance.

--Another kicker.

And so Phoenix quarterback Neil Lomax lost a duel with young Steve Pelluer after outpassing the Cowboy quarterback by more than 100 yards (266-162).

Although this was a special-teams defeat for the Cardinals, they didn’t put up much defense against Walker, either, on a night when Walker averaged 5.1 yards from scrimmage, netted 149 and added 22 yards on 3 catches.

The Cowboys, who led at the half, 10-7, and in the fourth quarter, 17-7, drove 79 and 81 yards to their touchdowns, which were scored on short runs by Pelluer and Walker.

The Cardinals, driving 70 and then 57 yards to their touchdowns, scored on Lomax passes of 16 yards to fullback Earl Ferrell and 23 yards to tight end Jay Novacek.

A photographer whom Walker ran down on his touchdown play, Dan Sinkman of Phoenix, was listed in good condition with an arm injury at a local hospital, where he was taken for X-rays.