An ugly win for Dallas

IRVING, Texas -- For most of the afternoon, the Dallas Cowboys pretty much stunk.Wade Phillips won't agree with that.Neither will Tony Romo.And -- "Praise the Lord" -- the Rev. Terrell Owens might even accuse me of bearing false witness."A win is a win, and we are happy to win" was the echo of all the Cowboys players and coaches on Sunday.But you aren't blind. You saw the same game that I saw Sunday.And you couldn't be real happy with what you saw.You watched a team that was once preordained to win a Super Bowl struggle to survive an 0-4 Cincinnati team that they were favored to beat by 17 points.The weird thing about it is that Dallas had that spread covered three minutes into the second quarter.When Romo hit Jason Witten with a short touchdown pass to put the Cowboys up 17-0, I figured, you figured this was going to be a blowout.But as it turned out, the Bengals outscored Dallas 22-14 from that point on, and the Cowboys had to get a lucky bounce at the end to escape with a 31-22 win.Before and after T.O.'s sermonette, the head coach and quarterback of this team tried to convince us that everything is OK in Cowboyville."Making mistakes and overcoming them is part of learning to win. We kept fighting and finally came through at the end," was Phillips' positive slant on it all. "I thought our guys played as hard as they could play. Things weren't going right, and we didn't play well in some areas, but we played well enough to win."Yes, but this was Cincinnati, whose record is as ugly as its uniforms.The Cowboys team that played here Sunday could not have stayed within 10 points of any of their NFC East brethren."I think some teams would have lost this game because things weren't going well, but I thought our team came through," Phillips argued.The Lions, the Rams the Texans and the Bengals scout team may have lost to the Bengals.Now please bow your heads.T.O. is coming to the pulpit. He says he will make a statement but take no questions."I have been dealing with a lot of stuff. This was a great team win. We fought hard to get back in the ballgame. I had taken criticism all week, but it was about giving God the glory for the opportunity he gave me today. It was frustrating out there, but I just kept with it and my teammates stuck with it," he said.I don't mind a man expressing his faith. In fact, I admire it.But this was something we always expected from a Deion Sanders or a Reggie White. It was a first, as far as I know, for T.O. and just came out of nowhere.Romo talked football and said there is no need to panic about his or his team's struggles the past couple of weeks."If you are never going to turn the ball over as a quarterback, you're probably not going to be that good," he said after having a fumble and an interception against the Bengals. "Everyone strives for no turnovers, but there is no way you can make certain throws if you don't trust it and let it go."The young quarterback said that although the fans and the media may question him or the team after a game like this, winning ugly isn't all that bad."An ugly win is sometimes more important than a great 50-7 win. You get to learn why you didn't execute. The greatest tool is experience," he explained. "If everything is hunky dory and you're winning, you don't have to go back and assess what you are doing wrong."The Cowboys have shown they have a long list of things to work on if they are going to be the team everyone expects them to be.But at the same time they are 4-1."I'm sorry that I'm not sorry that we won," Romo said with a smile. "That's something we have to fight around here. If you don't win pretty, it's not a positive."Dallas always wants to win the Super Bowl in September. But you are not going to be crowned champions because you are the best looking team right now."We found that out last year.Remember, we're not blind.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)