Davis Gives Redskins a Lift

Standing ankle deep in a toilet paper celebration of Washington Redskin success Monday night, the stars are beginning to appear out of place on the Dallas Cowboys’ helmets.

The ‘Boys are playing like a team coached by Barry Switzer: undisciplined, under-achieving and easy prey for teams like Arizona, the New York Giants and Redskins who aren’t considered in their class.. But now all three of those NFC East opponents have beaten the Cowboys, with the Redskins running all over Dallas with Stephen Davis, a substitute running back, in a 21-16 victory before 76,159 raucous fans in Jack Kent Cooke Stadium.

If the holder doesn’t bobble the snap from center a few weeks ago, the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the Cowboys, and maybe Dallas is officially pronounced dead this night. As it is, the New York Giants (4-3) have more wins than the Cowboys (3-3).

“What’s wrong with this picture?” said Deion Sanders, the Cowboys’ cornerback.

The best team that Jerry Jones’ money could buy appears in need of a serious makeover beginning with a flabby offensive line which prevented quarterback Troy Aikman from outplaying a seventh-round pick named Gus Frerotte, and extending to Emmitt Smith, a potential Hall of Famer who appears to be running in sand uphill every time he nears the end zone.

After scoring 115 touchdowns in the first 105 regular-season games in his career, Smith has now gone 36 quarters without a score.

“We have to circle the wagons,” said Nate Newton, Cowboys’ guard. “The Indians damn near scalped us. Things are going to be ugly for awhile; all I can think about is the talk shows are going to go wild this week.

“We got Jacksonville next; maybe we can upset them.”

This is what it has come to: The Cowboys hoping they can upset a third-year expansion team, which already has two more wins than Dallas after six games.

The Redskins (4-2) lost their best offensive player, running back Terry Allen with a knee injury in the first quarter and a few minutes later their most explosive receiver in Michael Westbrook with a similar injury. And still they were better than the Cowboys, a team that has won three of the last five Super Bowls.

“At least we scored a touchdown [on offense],” said Switzer, and for the Cowboys these days, that is a playoff victory.

A Dallas Cowboys’ highlight film is now a one-man show featuring kicker Richie Cunningham, who once again started the Cowboys’ scoring with a 19-yard field goal.

And just maybe that was the difference in the game.

On the Cowboys’ opening possession they moved smartly from their own 19-yard line to the Washington two with first-and-goal and a chance to end Smith’s touchdown drought with one of his patent plunges.

But rookie tight end David LaFleur, the team’s No. 1 draft choice, moved too early pushing the Cowboys five yards back--and it might as well have been a mile--with the penalty.

“I thought to myself I hope that first penalty won’t be the difference in the ballgame, and it was,” said Switzer. “It’s frustrating as hell.”

Deflated by their inability to shove the ball into the end zone, the Cowboys went flat while the Redskins replied with 14 points.

Washington linebacker Ken Harvey sacked Aikman on the third play of the second half, forced a fumble and the Redskins took over at the Dallas 25-yard line set to take a 21-3 lead. Davis, replacing the injured Allen ran six-consecutive times, scoring finally from four yards for his second rushing touchdown of the game.

This game was over if not for a Brian Mitchell fumble, recovered by Dallas linebacker Dexter Coakley in the third quarter and returned 16 yards for a touchdown. New hope, and Aikman, while under pressure much of the night, rolled free in the fourth quarter and threw a 14-yard touchdown pass to Michael Irvin to pull Dallas within a touchdown of winning.

And the Cowboys of old, of course, would have come back and claimed victory. After all, they had the ball twice more in the fourth quarter, the last time with 49 yards to go to score and 4:41 to play.

But on third and 11 from the 39-yard line, Aikman spiked the ball to the ground to avoid being sacked, and on fourth down, while wanting to go to Irvin, double coverage forced him to go deep to Anthony Miller, but his throw was too high.

The Redskins took over, converted a third and 10 following the two-minute warning, and the Dallas dynasty has officially begun to crumble.

”. . . It could easily be a very ugly season for us if we’re not careful,” said Smith, and the Cowboys move on to Philadelphia and San Francisco after next week’s assignment against the Jaguars. “It’s going to take us to stay strong, keep believing in one another and keep pushing the envelop hard, and hopefully crack it open.”

Scoring a few touchdowns might also help.