When the NFL announced Dallas’ schedule – sending the Cowboys to the Meadowlands for consecutive games vs. Bill Parcells’ old clubs – it sure looked like some schedule maker was playing a twisted joke.
Turns out, the joke was on the Giants and the Jets.
Twice in as many games, sandwiched around last week’s bye, Parcells has beaten a former club.
First it was the Giants, in a game Dallas won, then lost, and had to win a second time. Yesterday it was the Jets, 17-6 victims to their old coach.
The notion of Dallas sweeping a pair of 2002 playoff teams on the road was incomprehensible as recently as last year – about as unbelievable as Quincy Carter developing into a solid QB, or Dallas maturing into a disciplined, cohesive team.
Such has been Parcells’ track record in the league. He makes longshots and long odds pay off, not with luck or shortcuts, but with attention to detail, sweating the small stuff, and most of all hard work.
That’s how Troy Hambrick, whose weight had ballooned to 260 pounds, got down to 239. That’s how he rushed 24 times for 127 yards and a score, ripping open the Jets Achilles heel with each bruising carry.
Dallas’ offensive line was decimated by injuries last year. The result was 54 sacks, a sorry ground game and a third straight 5-11 season.
But yesterday, there was T Kurt Vollers and Gennaro DiNapoli – both third-stringers – opening a big hole for Hambrick’s 31-yard TD run.
Carter was prone to horrible decisions last season, and was mistake-prone inside the 20.
But there he was yesterday, on third-and-3 from the Jet 13 with just 15 seconds left in the first half, throwing a perfect fade route to WR Antonio Bryant.
The play was originally ruled an incompletion, that he’d bobbled the ball. But after a review, the call was reserved to a touchdown and a 14-3 halftime lead.
After a sloppy loss to Michael Vick-less Atlanta in the opener, they’ve reversed their fortunes here in New York.
Granted, their slate includes a Falcon team robbed of the game’s most electric player, a Giant squad with a riddled offensive line and a free-falling Jet team minus Chad Pennington.
But you can only beat who you play … which is more than Dallas was doing before Parcells arrived.