Time Is on Dallas’ Side in Victory

Receiver Rod Gardner ripped his helmet off in disgust Monday night, unable to stop the clock, unable to save the Washington Redskins from the most excruciating kind of loss, a 21-18 defeat to the Dallas Cowboys.

Gardner, who four minutes earlier caught a touchdown pass to help pull Washington to within three points of tying, leaped to make a 46-yard reception to the Dallas 21 on the game’s final play. He tried to get out of bounds to set up a field goal but couldn’t because of a bone-jarring hit by safety Roy Williams that kept him away from the sideline.

Gardner and the rest of the Redskins watched in hopeless desperation as the final six seconds ticked off the FedEx Field clock.

“If he gets out of bounds, maybe we’ve got a chance,” quarterback Mark Brunell said of Gardner, who caught a game-high 10 passes for 167 yards and two touchdowns. “It’s unfortunate.”

Billed as a nostalgic showdown between coaches Joe Gibbs and Bill Parcells, fierce rivals who hadn’t faced each other since 1990, the game didn’t get interesting until the second half. That’s when the teams started trading touchdowns, and the record crowd of 90,367 shook the stadium with round after round of “Hail to the Redskins.”

In the end, though, it was Parcells who was strolling down memory lane. He ran his winning streak against Gibbs to seven games, and preserved his record of slamming the door on opponents down the stretch. Parcells is 85-1 when his teams have double-digit leads in the fourth quarter.

“We were a little less than perfect,” Parcells said. “But we didn’t turn the ball over, and we cut our penalties back. Had we not done either of those, I think we would’ve been in trouble tonight.”

The Cowboys have beaten the Redskins in 13 of their last 14 meetings. Washington’s only victory during that span came in a meaningless 2002 finale, when the Steve Spurrier-coached Redskins handed doomed coach Dave Campo his last defeat.

With Monday’s victory, the Cowboys improved to 2-1 and sent the 1-2 Redskins to the NFC East cellar, two games behind undefeated Philadelphia.

“I came back to try and win games for our franchise,” Gibbs said. “That’s the reason why I’m here. You just feel so much for your players.”

Those players came close to pulling off a dramatic comeback. Trailing 21-10 with five minutes remaining, they mounted a two-play scoring drive that covered 64 yards. Gardner caught a 49-yard pass from Brunell to the Dallas 15, then reeled in a touchdown reception on the next play. A successful conversion pass pulled the Redskins to within a field goal of tying with 4 minutes 30 seconds remaining.

Dallas answered with a seven-play drive that burned more than four minutes. The Redskins got the ball back on their 24 with 21 seconds left and no timeouts. Brunell connected twice with Gardner before the final seconds ticked away.

For most of the first half, the Washington offense was hardly something to behold. By the midway point of the second quarter, the Redskins had 64 yards in total offense and 66 yards in penalties. They mounted their best drive on their last possession of the half, though, marching 91 yards to the Dallas 1, where the Cowboys mounted a goal-line stand. John Hall kicked a 19-yard field goal with 12 seconds remaining to trim the deficit to 7-3.

“We had opportunities to put points on the board, but we’re beating ourselves right now,” Washington guard Randy Thomas said. “It’s two weeks straight that we’ve done that. If we’d have gotten those wins, we’d be sitting here with a pretty good record. But we didn’t get them. I’m not going to cry about it.”

Brunell, nursing a sore hamstring, threw for 325 yards but was sacked five times.

“We knew he came into the game a little hobbled,” Cowboy defensive tackle La’Roi Glover said. “We knew that was a way to attack him.

“A few guys got sacks, which was great, and we got some key hits on him.”

The Redskins were coming off an abysmal performance against the New York Giants in which they committed seven turnovers, including a pair of fumbles by Clinton Portis. Washington didn’t have any turnovers Monday, but the results were the same.

“I think we’re going in the right direction,” Portis said. “We just need to win.”