Steelers, Cowboys Catch Big One : Dallas Gets the Last Word, 38-27

He who laughs last howled long into the night Sunday, loud enough to wake up half of Pittsburgh.

The team considered too distracted to advance to the Super Bowl left the road there bloodied and burned with a 38-27 victory over the Green Bay Packers in the NFC championship game at Texas Stadium.

The Dallas Cowboys then held their sides and roared.

“We’re not going to the Super Bowl, we’re going home,” said receiver Michael Irvin, who will bring two championship-game touchdown catches with him. “It’s our house. Last year we just let somebody borrow it.

“Now we’re going to go check it out, see how it was left, see if it’s dirty . . . and then take it over again. We’re going home.”

But won’t the Pittsburgh Steelers also have a chance to win Super Bowl XXX in Tempe, Ariz., on Jan. 28?

Not according to cornerback/receiver Deion Sanders, who all but guaranteed that the Cowboys will win their third world championship in four years.

“You know what we’re gonna do when we get there?” Sanders said, raising his voice. “What are the statistics of the Super Bowl? What are the statistics? I deal only in facts. What are the statistics!”

The statistics are that the NFC team has defeated the AFC team in 11 consecutive Super Bowls.

Is that what you mean, Deion?

He stamped his feet and shouted, “I’m not saying nothing! But you know what I mean. You know!”

The only people the Cowboys showed less respect for than the Steelers were the Packers, whose charming return to glory was put on ice.

“I’m glad it struck midnight,” Irvin said. “Cinderella? Go home!”

After dominating the Packers for the sixth time in three years--particularly in the category of helmets sent flying--the Cowboys wouldn’t leave Texas Stadium without one more tiny victory.

“It’s hard to be a man and say you’re wrong,” said running back Emmitt Smith, glaring at dozens of reporters after gaining 150 yards and scoring three times. “But I think right now, a lot of you individuals out there should say, ‘We were wrong.’ ”

He referring what are now misconceptions that:

--The Cowboys could not go to the Super Bowl with an owner, Jerry Jones, who cared more about suing the league and walking the sidelines then building a winner.

--The Cowboys could not go to the Super Bowl with an overpaid spectacle like Sanders.

--The Cowboys could not go to the Super Bowl with Barry Switzer as their coach.

On a day when the Cowboys rebounded from deficits of 3-0, 17-14 and 27-24, all tenets were proven false.

Jerry Jones? The three players he has paid huge sums to keep happy--Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Irvin--combined to score all five touchdowns.

Sanders? He allowed only one short pass completion while causing Packer quarterback Brett Favre to force the ball toward cornerback Larry Brown, who had a game-clinching interception early in the fourth quarter.

Sanders also gained 35 yards on a catch-and-run that contributed to the Cowboys’ first score.

Barry Switzer? Say what you want about his lack of NFL knowledge and inability to strategize. Early Sunday evening, that was Switzer holding up a trophy named after George Halas.

A few moments later, that was Aikman giving him a game ball.

“I know I’ve gotten criticism, you’re always going to get criticism,” Switzer said. “But when I have players coming up to me, and looking me in the eye, and telling me how they feel about me. . . .”

For the first time since coming here two years ago, Switzer looked like something other than a smart aleck. He looked like he was ready to cry.

Even though the news conference had just begun, he quickly excused himself before he did.

“All year we have heard so much . . . about our coach, so much . . .,” Irvin said. “We’re in back-to-back NFC championship games, and everyone says the guy can’t coach.

“Will you please give this man a little credit? Just a little bit? He deserves it.”

Whatever Switzer did during the week, it helped the Cowboys maintain an even temperament Sunday despite early craziness that threatened to keep the obviously lesser-talented Packers in the game.

The Cowboys outscored the Packers by two touchdowns and outgained them, 83-2, in the game’s first 13 minutes.

But in the next three minutes, the Packers outscored the Cowboys by two touchdowns and outgained them, 108-2.

The Cowboys regained the lead at the end of the first half with a 99-yard drive that ended in one of Smith’s three touchdown runs.

Then the Packers regained the lead at the start of the second half by outscoring the Cowboys, 10-0, while outgaining them 131-8.

“It was something out there. They led, we led, they led . . . it was a long game,” Aikman said.

But it was the Cowboys who, in the words of Switzer, behaved like “an all-day sucker.”

Their eventual game-winning drive, a 90-yard push that ended in a five-yard touchdown run by Smith early in the fourth quarter, was typical.

The Packers finally wised up and double-teamed Irvin, so Aikman found Kevin Williams for 15 yards.

Both wide receivers were blanketed, so tight end Jay Novacek caught consecutive passes worth 23 yards.

The Packers dropped men off the line of scrimmage, and Smith ran for 11 yards.

“Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin are as fine an offensive team as I’ve ever seen assembled,” Packer Coach Mike Holmgren said. “And they were on.”

And Favre, the league’s MVP this season, was not.

The man who had only two incompletions in the first half against the 49ers last week had two incompletions after his first two passes Sunday. His second and third passes were a combined 20 yards over receiver’s heads.

He started 0 for 6 with an interception and never recovered, stumbling through the biggest game of his life as if in the dark. He completed barely half of his passes while throwing only one more touchdown pass (three) than interceptions (two).

Trailing by four points early in the fourth quarter, he never saw Brown, who stepped in behind Mark Ingram for the interception at the Cowboy 20.

After a 36-yard catch by Irvin off the shoulder pads of George Teague, the Cowboys clinched the victory with a 16-yard scoring run by Smith, who was untouched on the play.

“We had them,” Favre said afterward, as if he had also been knocked silly.

Other Packers also acted as if lost.

They accumulated 11 penalties, nearly twice as many as the Cowboys, with many of them leading to scoring drives. They gained only 48 yards rushing against a team that is suspect against the rush.

Even during crucial fourth-quarter action, they pushed and shoved and yelped at the Cowboys with the desperation of a loser.

“We lost our poise a little bit,” Holmgren said.

Cowboy linebacker Dixon Edwards thinks he knows why.

“They were tired, you could just tell,” he said. “We play the 49ers in these games and they are flying around the ball, but the Packers . . . they’ve had a hard road to get here. They weren’t fresh.”

Unlike the Cowboys, who are apparently merely getting started. And Arizona thought its wild West days were over.

“See you at the house,” Michael Irvin said with the smile of one nasty landlord.