Expectations and Cowboys Beat Cardinals : NFC: Dallas has to do without quarterback Troy Aikman in rallying against Arizona.

Buddy Ryan let the football world see him sweat Sunday.

Large beads dripped from his nose to his chin to his shirt as he stood in the searing heat of Sun Devil Stadium.

This was it. Midway through his first season as coach of the Arizona Cardinals, this was his chance to show a league full of skeptics that they are the fools.

The Dallas Cowboys were falling through the ropes, and his Cardinals were standing above them with a half-crazed smile. There were 14 minutes left, his team led by a touchdown, the Cowboys’ All-Pro quarterback was wearing jeans and a sport shirt, and there should have been nothing to it.

And then it happened: a nine-minute stretch that gave the Cowboys a 28-21 victory and defined the league’s most controversial regime in four words.

Buddyball is all talk.

Overwhelmed by the courage of backup quarterback Rodney Peete and the acrobatics of receivers Michael Irvin and Alvin Harper, Ryan’s vaunted defense yielded 159 yards and two scores during those nine minutes to drop his team to 2-5 and probably out of the playoff picture.

The raucous crowd of 71,023, which began the game by screaming at the Cowboys and pelting them with ice, was left motionless and mute.

The hard-hitting Cardinals, who had knocked two Cowboys out of the game and bloodied several others, held their heads and limped away.

And the fighter suddenly looked like an old man.

Ryan jogged from the field without shaking the hand of winning coach Barry Switzer. That much was not new; he is the league’s only coach who refuses this tradition.

When he spoke a few minutes later, he was red-faced, raspy and humble.

That much was new.

“At halftime (with the score 14-14), I told my guys that playing these guys close wasn’t good enough,” Ryan said. “I told them that these were the defending champions and that only by beating them can we prove we belong in their league.”

He shook his head. “I guess this proves we don’t belong with the big boys.”

At least not with Irvin, 6 feet 2, and Harper, 6 feet 3.

After batting a pass from Peete out of the air and catching it at the back of the end zone to pull the Cowboys into a halftime tie, Irvin and Peete tied the game again with 13:18 remaining.

Peete, who took over in the first period after Aikman suffered a concussion, found Irvin at the Cardinal 45-yard line, where Irvin caught the ball and smartly cut inside cornerback James Williams before running untouched into the end zone.

Then it was Harper’s turn. The Cowboy defense held the Cardinals to four plays, then took over and drove 79 yards in nine plays thanks to 47 yards worth of catches by Harper against Williams, including a lunging 38-yard reception.

From the Cardinal six-yard line, Emmitt Smith bounced behind reserve guard and injured tackle Ron Stone and injured tackle Mark Tuinei before running into the corner of the end zone with the eventual winning score with 5:13 remaining.

Smith was asked if he remembered when Ryan--before his Cardinals were outscored, 66-24, in two games against the Cowboys this season--said nobody could run on his team.

“Well, I didn’t run, did I?” he asked after gaining 98 rushing yards in two games with Arizona. “But, I mean, so what? We all should know the bottom line is not whether you run or catch.”

Unspoken was that Ryan does not know. Because the bottom line is precisely where Ryan has failed.

“Pros are consistent,” Ryan admitted. “Amateurs are hot and cold.”

There was little doubt in which category he would place his team.

Most of this season the Cardinals have been beaten by the NFC’s second-worst offense, whose troubles have proven that Ryan knows little about that side of the line.

But for once Sunday, the offense survived, outgained only 312-305 by the Cowboys.

“We got beat by our defense today. We got beat by using a three-deep zone today, and that is almost impossible,” Ryan said.

“We needed this, we needed this,” Cardinal linebacker Eric Hill said while rubbing a bloodied, bandaged nose. “This game could have given us such an edge. This hurts so bad.”

As one of the most physical games in the league this season, it hurt both teams. In Aikman’s case, the pain came from a shot to the head by flying linebacker Wilber Marshall on the Cowboys’ first possession.

Or at least it proves that Williams, at 5 feet 10, doesn’t belong with the big receivers.

After the hit by Marshall, Aikman stood, rattled his helmet with his hand, then two plays later threw a 15-yard touchdown pass to Harper against Williams for the game’s first score.

The amazing thing wasn’t the pass, but that Aikman was only vaguely certain of where he was.

Team doctors knew Aikman could not play when they asked him the day, date and year . . . . and his only answer was “Sunday.” He is expected to return for next week’s game against the Bengals.

At this rate, look for Buddyball sometime next year.