The Dallas Cowboys went from overwhelming in the first half to nearly overwhelmed in the second.
With scrambling Jake Plummer throwing for a career-best 465 yards, the Arizona Cardinals rallied from a 28-0 deficit but fell just four yards short of catching the Cowboys.Instead, Dallas won, just as it has in 15 of the last 16 meetings of the two teams. When the desert dust settled and the Cowboys rode off with a 35-28 victory, two things were certain: Dallas is perfect against the NFC East and Plummer is one young quarterback on the move.
"If you keep the right personnel around him, he's a special quarterback," Deion Sanders said. "He looked like a young Fran Tarkenton out there."
Arizona's second-year quarterback completed 31 of 56 passes for three touchdowns and had the Cardinals on the Dallas 4 as the game ended. His 57-yard pass to Rob Moore gave him two shots at the end zone with nine seconds left. Both passes fell incomplete.
The last one, a fade pass to Moore in the corner, was knocked away by Kevin Smith on a play the Cardinals insisted was pass interference.
"The guy was grabbing him - point blank," linebacker Jamir Miller said. "He was grabbing him, tugging him. That's called pass interference."
Plummer, whose passing performance was No. 3 on the Cardinals' career list and 1 yard short of the most by a Dallas opponent, charged the referees as they left the field. He said he told them: "You've got to step up and make that call."
Smith, often the target of NFL offenses, expected a flag.
"It would have been a sad situation if a flag had been thrown," he said. "I get that every week if I make a play, everyone on the sideline is jumping and screaming for a flag. I thought it was a clean play."
Cowboys coach Chan Gailey could afford to be philosophical.
"You don't get everything you holler for out there," he said. "That's part of the game. You hope it evens out through the year."
Dallas is 6-0 against the NFC East and has a two-game lead on the second-place Cardinals, a team the Cowboys now have beaten twice.
"We're ecstatic," Sanders said. "They're going to talk about it for a few days, but a win is a win."
Emmitt Smith rushed for 118 yards in 26 carries and three scores to move ahead of Walter Payton and Jim Brown to No. 3 on the NFL career touch-down list with 127. Only Jerry Rice and Marcus Allen have more.
Troy Aikman completed 14 of 18 passes for 208 yards and a touchdown, but Michael Irvin did not catch any, snapping his 117-game streak dating back to 1990.