On Sunday night — in prime time, Minnesota Vikings’ quarterback Kirk Cousins’ least successful time to play — the 6-3 Vikings visited Dallas to play the 5-3 Cowboys. Both teams depend on their star running backs — Minnesota’s league-leading Dalvin Cook and Ezekiel Elliot for the Cowboys — to help move the chains and open up passing opportunities by forcing the defence to focus on stopping the run. The team that managed to force the issue was likely to end up on the winning side of the equation, and that team turned out to be the Vikings. Dalvin Cook was bottled up for a while, but ended up with 97 yards on the ground and 86 receiving yards. Elliot was held to 47 yards rushing and 16 yards in the air.

Cowboys Stadium (now AT&T Stadium) on 1 October, 2009.
Photo by bobbyh_80 via Wikimedia Commons.

Coming into the game, both teams were facing reputations for “not beating anyone” despite their respective records. While the Vikings have struggled against teams with a winning record (and Kirk Cousins had a 1-6 record against the Cowboys from his time in Washington), the same could be said of Dallas:

In 2019, Dallas started the season 3-0, and the NFL torches came out right behind them. The Cowboys are always good for business.

This team hadn’t been 3-0 to start a season in over a decade. The Dallas Star Telegram even printed a history of the Cowboys Super Bowl victories after starting so quickly.

It was on again in Texas.

In reality, those three wins came against the now 2-7 New York Giants, the 1-8 Washington Redskins, and the 1-7 Miami Dolphins, a three-pack of tin cans if ever were packaged.

A month later, the again ascendant Cowboys, “America’s Team” refortified, were merely a .500 squad, having lost to the NFC South-leading New Orleans Saints, the NFC North-leading Green Bay Packers, and the AFC East bottom-dwelling New York Jets.

Yes, I said the New York Jets – a team with the now 31st-ranked offense and 25th defense in the league.

After that embarrassing loss in New York, the 3-3 Cowboys then took a bye week to prepare for a game against division rival Philadelphia Eagles in Dallas, licking their wounds and out of the fickle view of the press.

The Cowboys then bounced back – in pure tomato can fashion – by handing the Eagles their fourth loss in six games in AT&T Stadium and then traveling back to New York to give the lowly Giants their fifth consecutive defeat.

In short, both teams came into Sunday’s game needing a win to change “the narrative”.

In the early going, it looked like Minnesota was going to run away with the game, getting out to a 14-0 lead before Dallas could put together a scoring drive. Both first half touchdowns were passes to tight end Kyle Rudolph after solid running by both Dalvin Cook and Alexander Mattison. The first TD looked more like Cousins was just trying to throw the ball out of the end zone, but Rudolph made an amazing one-handed catch with both feet inbound for the score.

The second quarter wasn’t as picture-perfect for the Vikings, as Dallas scored twice to tie things up and Minnesota could only muster a field goal on the last possession of the half to go into the locker room at 17-14.

After the break, the Vikings got the ball first, but again were only able to get a Dan Bailey field goal to make the score 20-14, and the Cowboys did better with their next possession scoring a TD to take the lead for the first time in the game. On the Vikings next drive, Cook and Mattison again provided most of the yards, with Mattison almost scoring a rushing TD, but he was marked down inside the 1-yard line after review. Dalvin Cook did manage to get in from there, and then the Vikings elected for a two-point conversion attempt with Cousins getting the ball to Kyle Rudolph to put the Vikings ahead by 7.

In the fourth quarter, neither team could get a sustained drive going, and the only scoring was a Dallas field goal. In the last few minutes, the Cowboys got dangerously close to the Vikings end zone, but stalled out inside the 10-yard line and turned the ball over on downs. The Vikings final possession wasn’t pretty, but it forced the Cowboys to use all their time-outs before getting the ball back for a final chance. The game ended on a failed Hail Mary pass that was intercepted in the end zone by Jayron Kearse.

Update: Andy Carlson wraps up the game’s winners and losers on his post-game podcast:

I might quibble with a few of his choices, but I think he’s right that Mike “The Cornerback Whisperer” Zimmer needs to get his bag of magic tricks out and fix the secondary. The Cowboys should not have converted all those third-and-forever passes in the direction of Mike Hughes and Xavier Rhodes. Every team we face for the rest of the season will be dialling up plays to take advantage of our corners because they can’t seem to stop anyone.

Chris Tomasson compliments Kirk Cousins on getting the “can’t win in prime time” monkey off his back:

Say what you want about Kirk Cousins not being able to win big games on a national stage. He got one Sunday night.

The Vikings quarterback had a stellar showing in a 28-24 win over Dallas in a nationally televised game at AT&T Stadium.

It was easily Minnesota’s biggest win of the season. And it followed road losses earlier in the season at Green Bay, at Chicago (when the Bears were still good) and at Kansas City.

Cousins, in the second year of a three-year, $84 million contract, has had his share of struggles in prime-time games. He entered Sunday 1-7 in his career in such games against winning teams.

“I think I’ve played well in prime time,” Cousins said. “Have we won them all? No. But to get this one was a great step in the right direction. Hopefully, we can get a few more here. We need to get a few more before the season ends.”

Cousins completed 23 of 32 passes for 220 yards and two touchdowns. He bounced back from the previous week, when he completed 19 of 38 passes in the 26-23 loss to the Chiefs, just the third time in first 82 career starts he had not completed more than 50 percent of his passes.

“I thought he played great,” said Vikings coach Mike Zimmer. “I thought he put the ball in the right place. He made some really good throws.”

And finally, Ted Glover’s Stock Market Report on the game, including the Junk Bonds section and his Buy/Sell recommendations:

Junk Bonds

Mike Hughes and the rest of the secondary. Amari Cooper and Randall Cobb (really, Randall Cobb??) made some great plays tonight, especially the 64 toe tap catches Cooper had. But … yeesh. The Cowboys carved up the Vikings secondary all night, as Dak Prescott had 397 yards passing, and both Cooper and Cobb went over 100 yards receiving. The Vikes did a great job of getting the Cowboys in third and long, but the Cowboys had four 3rd and 8 or longer plays in this game, and they converted all four of them. Minnesota had a good first quarter defensively, but couldn’t find an answer to what Dallas was dialing up for the rest of the night.

Buy/Sell

Buy: The Vikings first quarter. The Vikings started the game exactly the way they needed to. The defense stopped Dallas, and their first drive ended with Brett Maher missing a 57 yard field goal attempt. Minnesota answered by going 53 yards in five plays, and it was culminated by that crazy Rudolph catch to go up 7-0. After Dallas punted on their second drive, the Vikings went 90 yards in 13 plays, and once again Cousins found Rudolph for another one yard TD to go up 14-0.

Sell: The Vikings second quarter. But all of that slipped away in the second quarter. Minnesota’s offense stalled early in the quarter, and the Cowboys offense came to life. They scored two touchdowns, and evened the score at 14-14 with just under two minutes remaining in the half.

Buy: The two minute drive to end the half. But to Minnesota’s credit, they took the ball with 1:57 left in the half, drove the field, and stunted the momentum Dallas had built up with those two second quarter scoring drives. They took the ball down the field, in one of the better two minute drives the Vikings have had in recent years, and kicked a field goal to take the lead at 17-14 going in to the locker room.

Sell: Throwing to Irv Smith in the middle of the field with 10 seconds left in the first half. But it feels like the Vikes might have left points on the field before halftime. With 10 seconds left and the ball on the Dallas 15 with one timeout, Kirk Cousins threw a short pass over the middle to Irv Smith, Jr., for seven yards. It seemed inexplicable at the time, at least to me. The Vikes had one timeout, so it felt like there was time for two shots into the end zone, as it was second down. It seemed really important to get a touchdown there to thwart Dallas momentum, but it felt like the VIkings were content to settle for a field goal.

Buy: Opening up the second half with a scoring drive. Still, though, the Vikes took that scoring drive to end the first half and built on it coming out of the locker room. They took the opening kickoff and went 66 yards in 12 plays, culminated by a Dan Bailey field goal to take a 20-14 lead.

Sell: Giving up a scoring drive to lose the lead right after that scoring drive. But the Vikings defense couldn’t build on that. At that moment in the game, it really felt like if the Vikings defense could force a three and out they could blow the game open. The Dallas defense had been on the field for 12 plays, and a quick three and out would have put a tired defense back on the field, having to face a RB tandem in Cook and Alexander Mattison that seemed to be finding a bit of a groove. Dallas went 75 yards on five plays, and it culminated with a ridiculous Amari Cooper toe tap touchdown that gave Dallas a 21-20 lead.

Buy: Stonewalling Ezekiel Elliott. Minnesota came in to this game intent on not letting THE Ohio State legend Ezekiel Elliott beat them. And they succeeded in that. Zeke ended up with just 47 yards on 20 carries, couldn’t get untracked all night, and his longest run of the evening was only six yards.

Sell: Dak Prescott carving up the Vikings secondary like Dexter. But Zeke not being able to run didn’t really matter, as Dak Prescott had a whale of a game. He made some flat out sick throws to Amari Cooper, Randall Cobb, and Michael Gallup, who ended up with 76 yards and a TD. The Vikes had no answer for what the Cowboys were doing through the air, and the only time it seemed like the came up with a stop in the second half was the Jayron Kearse interception to end the game.

Buy: Football in the state of Minnesota this weekend. It was a great weekend for football in the state of Minnesota. On Saturday, the Golden Gophers upset fourth ranked Penn state and broke the top 10 for the first time since 1962. They control their own destiny to win the Big Ten West and advance to the Big Ten Championship game, and P.J. Fleck has made the Gophers relevant for one of the few times in my life. The Vikes beat Dallas on the road, advanced to 7-3, and have a really great shot to go to 8-3 heading into the bye. They have a lot of football left to play, and are still very much in the hunt for the NFC North title.

Sell: The season is over. For as good as this weekend was, neither the Vikings or Gophers have accomplished anything. Both teams have a lot of football left to play, and if they don’t stay focused, what could be special seasons for both could be rendered meaningless if they don’t keep their eye on the prize. Skol U mah, and let’s keep it going. Beat Iowa and bring Floyd home, and beat Denver.