Buffalo’s Victory Is Super : Interconference: Darby’s interception with 12 seconds to play secures 13-10 triumph over Dallas in rematch of last season’s Super Bowl foes.

Matt Darby fell and was slapped by an angry Derrick Gainer at the one-yard line, but that didn’t stop him.

Darby jumped back up with the ball he had just intercepted for the Buffalo Bills and ran downfield throughout the stunned silence that enveloped Texas Stadium, leaping and shouting for 60 yards.

“I was so excited, I could have run a mile,” Darby said.

Behind the end zone, where Darby had just stolen a 13-10 victory for the Bills, Jerry Jones walked briskly away.

Jones, owner of the Cowboys, was looking for an exit before somebody threw something.

The rematch of last season’s Super Bowl opponents made eight months seem like eight years Sunday, with one team gaining redemption while the other lost face.

This time it was the Cowboys, defending Super Bowl champions, making the mistakes and suffering the embarrassment.

This time it was the Bills who celebrated like silly children.

With 12 seconds to play, Darby intercepted a pass from Troy Aikman on the goal line to seal a victory that was within a second of being something else.

Aikman’s pass, from the 11-yard line, hit Jay Novacek in the shoulder pads. Unfortunately for the Cowboys, it also hit Darby in the shoulder pads, as he hustled out of his zone and collided with the tight end when the pass arrived.

The ball ricocheted into the air, Darby caught it, was tackled, and the Cowboys’ 70-yard drive ended as the Bills’ celebration began.

“While they were driving, I was standing there thinking, ‘Oh no, this would be a terrible way to lose it,’ ” said Don Beebe, Bills’ receiver. “Then I thought, ‘What a perfect way to win it.’ ”

Perfect because this is essentially the same Bill team that lost Super Bowl XXVII in Pasadena, 52-17, after giving up 35 points and making nine turnovers.

On Sunday, the Cowboys committed four turnovers that led to all of the Bills’ points.

The game-winning 35-yard field goal by Steve Christie with 2:49 to play came after Kevin Williams, carrying the football like it was a clutch purse, had fumbled away his second punt return in two games.

The Cowboys also suffered through two missed field-goal attempts by Linn Elliott, which was the reason Aikman was throwing into the end zone in those final seconds instead of letting the kicking team take the field and attempt to send the game into overtime.

Jimmy Johnson, Cowboy coach, intimated afterward that Elliott had just lost his job.

“I hate to use the word revenge ,” Beebe said. “But I would be lying to you if I said that everyone in this locker room didn’t think this game was extra special to us, and that this win was really sweet.”

Emmitt Smith, the Cowboys’ absent running back, would use a different word to describe this game. How about leverage .

He has missed two games because of a salary dispute with Jones over a difference of about $625,000 a year on a four-year contract, and the Cowboys have looked miserable in losing both games.

In 16 games last season, they lost nine fumbles. Already this season, they have lost six.

Last season, they averaged nearly 26 points a game. This season, it has taken them two games to score 26 points.

They are only the third defending Super Bowl champion to begin a season 0-2. They are also behind history’s eight ball in that no team has ever started the season 0-2 and gone to the Super Bowl.

And boy, are they cranky.

“We’ve got to eliminate all the negative talk around, we’ve got one negative after another,” Johnson said afterward, his mood as foul as anyone has seen since he arrived in Dallas in 1989. “It wears on you. I know it wears on me .”

Jones, normally the most accessible owner in the league, had departed the Cowboys’ locker room before the media was allowed entry. He has often claimed that paying Smith, the NFL’s rushing leader the last two seasons, more than $11 million over four years would force him to release important veterans after a salary cap is imposed next season.

Smith claims that he is worth $13.5 million over four years because that is what the Bills are paying Thurman Thomas.

The 63,226 fans at Texas Stadium Sunday gave their opinion of Smith’s worth by chanting, “We want Emmitt, we want Emmitt.”

The Bills, who won despite gaining only 229 total yards, 133 fewer than in the Super Bowl, can understand the fans.

Darby, in fact, said that he may never have gotten a chance to make the interception if the Cowboys had Smith.

“On that last play, they probably would have run a draw to Emmitt if they had him,” said Darby, a former UCLA safety. “No doubt, him not being there is the key.”