Cowboys Take a Step Upward : Pro football: Dallas establishes itself as a team to be reckoned with in a 23-10 victory over the Redskins.

They are NFL powers again this year, but they are still playing football in conspicuously different ways.

The Dallas Cowboys aim to win with an old-fashioned two-back offense, staggering their opponents on power runs by halfback Emmitt Smith, then knocking them out with short passes by quarterback Troy Aikman.

The Washington Redskins operate in a more modern single-back offense, alternating Earnest Byner and Ricky Ervins, to set up quarterback Mark Rypien, who was the game’s best long passer the last two seasons.

But not Monday night.

When Rypien missed four of five long-range targets in the season opener for both teams, the Cowboys won going away, 23-10, with three touchdowns on a five-yard run by Smith, a 26-yard pass play from Aikman to wide receiver Alvin Harper and a 79-yard punt return by Kelvin Martin.

Washington Coach Joe Gibbs was impressed.

“They are big, they are strong, and they have good receivers,” he said. “It was their night.”

Said Dallas Coach Jimmy Johnson: “Every (Cowboy) put it on the line for 60 minutes. That’s what it takes.”

His offense was too much for the new-wave Redskins, who won the NFL championship last year with pretty much the same kind of attack they made on the Cowboys this time in sold-out Texas Stadium.

The Redskins ran well enough against Dallas, and they handled Aikman and Smith about as well as they ever have. The difference was that, this time, Rypien, a holdout who missed training camp and half the exhibition season, couldn’t find his receivers.

In the fourth quarter, with Dallas ahead by 13 points, Rypien missed three long passes to his three favorite receivers--Gary Clark, Art Monk, and Ricky Sanders, who were open by five yards or so.

If Rypien had made a connection on two of the three, as he so often did last year to get Washington into the Super Bowl, this game is a thriller to the last gun.

A short-pass attack is easier to polish and execute than a deep attack, and Aikman had it well-enough polished for opening night, when he completed 18 of 31 passes for 216 yards.

Aikman has rarely thrown a long pass in recent years--either at UCLA or for the Cowboys--but again against Washington, he was on the money with his usual short and medium-range throws.

He took advantage of Washington’s two 5-foot-8 cornerbacks, Darrell Green and Martin Mayhew, by throwing to Harper, 6-2, and Michael Irvin, 6-3.

Aikman also ran the Dallas two-minute offense skillfully. He is in his element in the two-minute drill, based on short passes, and in this game he made one pay off with a touchdown just before halftime, enabling the Cowboys to breathe a little easier, 16-7.

When Martin followed with his big punt return early in the third quarter, it was all over for the Redskins, the way their quarterback was playing.

The running star of the game was Smith, who had 139 yards in 26 carries.

Smith, up to 209 pounds this year, can make three or four cuts in the instant that others take to make one. And he is always slithering forward.

Until the Redskins had to abandon their ground game, however, Byner stayed close to Smith statistically.

That was more than other Redskins did. They failed in part because of the crowd noise, which kept them from using the motion and movement necessary to their offense, and in part because linebacker Charles Haley is here now instead of in San Francisco.

“I’m glad he’s here,” Dallas Coach Johnson said. “And the crowd kept giving us a lift. When (the Redskins) tried to audibilize, the fans got louder. It sounded like we were playing in a domed stadium.”

Ask the Redskins. They thought so, too.