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Week 7 -  Dallas Cowboys (2-3) @ Arizona Cardinals (6-0) -7

Back to Sun Devil it is, to face our old nemesises... nemesi... nemesiss... nem... enemies, the Dallas Cowboys, led as ever by Bill Parcels In The Witness Protection Program.

As with most sides coached by Fat Bill In Disguise, the Dallas team is built around its defence and, in particular, its front seven. However, with Dexter Coakley and right end Pat Patterson (wasn't he in the WWF? No, not the World Wildlife Fund, do try and keep up...) both suffering with torn pectoral muscles (what sort of training are they doing in Dallas?), the unit's effectiveness is a little limited. They are, however, backed up by a secondary that's both strong and deep - meaning that the fact there are only 7 teams in the league who have conceded more points than the Cowboys is a little puzzling.

The team's rank of 28th in the NFL in terms of points scored is somewhat less of a mystery. Despite a cracking line, if you're pinning your success on a spine that consists of Quincy Carter, Troy Hambrick and Joey Galloway, it's probably best not to get your hopes up too high. Antonio Bryant supplies speed out wide, however, and Hambrick is just the sort of halfback that we seem to struggle against - ie he's slow, ponderous and useless. So we're not taking this lightly.

Alright, we are a bit.

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And yes, sure enough, the supposed weak-link Dallas offence takes the ball on the opening drive and shoots straight downfield without so much as a by-your-leave. The back-breaker is a Carter pass to Jason Witten on 3rd and 10 that whistles between our safeties to the tune of a 50-yard gain. Ade Wilson gets back to bring Witten down on the 2, and with two Hambrick runs stuffed it looks like we might hold out for just the 3 points. But on 3rd down, Carter fakes a handoff, Levar Fisher bites on it and loses the outside contain and Carter bootlegs into the endzone to put the underdog visitors up by a big fat seven.

Nuts.

Dallas, plainly having seen us play before, are selling out to stop the run, and it works - at a cost. Both safeties are lurking close to the line, which works great so long as none of our receivers beat the jam at any point, and so long as none of the Dallas corners miss a tackle.

And if someone beats the jam, and a cornerback misses the tackle, well. You're probably looking at about a 29-yard score as Macca accelerates into the gap between the linebackers and safeties to race untouched for six.

That's all the excitement for the first quarter and, in fact, most of the second as both defences get on top. Brian "Butterfingers" Westbrook, the man with less reliable hands than Ash in Evil Dead II then decides that a good way to keep people interested is to get hit four yards in the backfield and cough up the ball. Bloody, bloody, BLOODY hell. The Cowboys recover at our 15, but can't punch it in and have to settle for a short trey.

What time is it? It's time for Anquan Boldin's Big Play! On 2nd and 6 at our 32, one safety sneaks across to double Johnno, our legitimate deep threat, while the other goes with Jones, the tight end. Anquan's all alone out wide with Terrence Newman, and Newman's forced to give himself insurance against getting beat deep by playing off. Boldin runs the hook, and the loose coverage gives him time to set himself after the catch and avoid the tackle with a shifty side-step. No cover equals a 68-yard TD run,  and with 4 minutes left in the half we're back on top DAL 10-14 ARI

There's still time for everything to go disastrously wrong, of course. How so, you ask? Well, for a start let's try watching possibly the slowest starting halfback in the history of the NFL wander 80 yards for a go-ahead score straight up the middle of our defence. Then, just to put the absolute tin lid on things let's have our quarterback, who's 7/7 in the game so far for 151 yards and 2 scores, get sacked on 3rd and 10 and go down clutching his elbow, putting our recovery in the 2nd half squarely in the hands of a man who couldn't beat Jay Fiedler out of a starting job.

Suddenly, cutting Josh McCown in the off-season isn't look quite such a good idea. Halftime, DAL 17-14 ARI

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We start the second half with the predictably unpredictable "Ah! You Thought We'd Keep It Tight Now We've Got A Complete Prat Playing Quarterback, But Instead See Us Fling It Deep!" manoeuvre, which doesn't noticeably work. But fortunately, Quincy Carter, sensing that there are people who suddenly might not actually consider him the worst quarterback on show this afternoon, steps up to the challenge and slings a pick straight to Dexter Jackson that leads to a Thingamabob field-goal that ties the score. The deadlock's broken on the very next drive, however, as Carter leads his team straight back down the field. Our defence stands up to three runs from inside our 5, however, and so at the end of the third quarter Dallas are ahead by just a field-goal.

We're finally getting a bit of success on the ground as the battered Cowboy front seven wears down, and Marcel Shipp suddenly seems to be picking up six yards a carry, every carry. Inevitably, a safety creeps up toward the line. Just as inevitably, Johnno slants into the vacated gap and sprints away to the tune of 29 yards, right down to the Dallas 2-yard line and with five minutes to play Marcel gives us the lead for the first time in about a fortnight, DAL 20-24 ARI

So which Quincy Carter is going to come off the sideline? The Quincy Carter whose poise shepherded his team into the shadow of the goalposts on their last drive, or the Quincy Carter who's... you know, Quincy Carter?

Yep, it's the latter. On the first play of the drive, we get a decent rush from just our front four and the poor man's Kordell Stewart, showing the decision-making and coolness under fire that's made him the player he is today, launches a pass blindly at no-one in particular. The only player from either team even in the same postal district of the ball is Levar Fisher, who makes an unfussy interception that goes a good way toward ending the game.

We go the rest of the way toward ending the game as, once again, Johnno gets us in close and Shipp finishes it off, and in the blink of an eye we've gone from a sticky situation to a comfortable win. Brian Griese's done a job with 8/14 for 86 yards in the second half, but even so it's a relief to learn that Blake's injury is just a bad bruise and he should be fine to face Minnesota next week.

The unbeaten run continues. DAL 20-31 ARI, we move to 7-0.

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(c) daniel roe 2004