Barber’s Heroics Lift the Giants Past Cowboys

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. —  Tiki Barber provided the New York Giants with revenge for Deion Sanders’ heroics against them a year ago.

Barber returned a punt 85 yards for a touchdown, then took a short pass 56 yards to set up Brad Daluiso’s 22-yard game-winning field goal with one second left that gave the Giants a 13-10 victory over the Dallas Cowboys on Monday night.

“Our focus this week was not letting Deion make any plays,” said Barber, who had 233 all-purpose yards. “The other 21 made some plays.”

The score was tied, 3-3, with 7:50 left when Barber, that other No. 21, made his first play.

He took Toby Gowin’s punt at his own 15, sidestepped to the left, picked up a block from Dan Campbell and tiptoed down the sideline for a touchdown.

But Dallas tied the score on a two-yard touchdown run by Emmitt Smith and it looked like overtime--the punchless Giants aren’t exactly masters of the two-minute drill. But on a second and 10 at his 41, Barber took a pass in the flat, eluded Dat Nguyen, and raced to the Dallas three to set up Daluiso’s game-winner.

Not all went well, however, for the Giants.

On the ensuing kickoff, Daluiso was probably lost for the season when he tore a ligament in his left knee trying to make a tackle on a wild series of laterals by the Cowboys. The play ended with the Cowboys scoring, but it was called back because two of the laterals were forward passes.

“I was at Stanford during the Stanford-Cal fiasco,” said Giant Coach Jim Fassel, referring to the play on which California used a number of laterals on a last-second kickoff for the winning touchdown through the Stanford band. “We didn’t get it deep enough and I was seeing ghosts for a few seconds.”

The victory was the first for the Giants (3-3) in seven Monday night games against the Cowboys.

It also atoned for the game Barber was so intense about--a 31-7 thrashing on a Monday night last season by Dallas (3-2), when Sanders returned a punt 59 yards and an interception 71 yards for touchdowns and a 55-yard reception that set up a score.

This was a game for defense, or poor offense, if you prefer.

Until Barber’s punt return, the only scoring was field goals of 27 yards by Daluiso and 41 yards by Richie Cunningham. Cunningham, however, also missed from 48 and 41 yards, the latter on the final play of the third quarter, when the Giants called time out to force him to kick into the tricky Meadowlands winds of 10-to-20 mph.

Smith, who needed 25 yards to get to 13,000 career yards, got there on his touchdown run. But he finished with only 26 yards in 22 carries as the Giants shut down the Dallas running game. They played eight and even nine men at the line of scrimmage, knowing that without Michael Irvin, the Cowboys’ receiving corps was thin.

“It was frustrating for me, frustrating for all of us,” Smith said. “I don’t ever remember running the ball outside as much as we did tonight and every time I slipped away from one guy, there were two other guys there to tackle me.”

Those two guys were often outside linebackers Jessie Armstead or Ryan Phillips, who combined for 19 tackles as well as strong safety Sam Garnes and middle linebacker Corey Widmer.

Troy Aikman was 20 for 33 for 266 yards, but he did major damage only on the drive that led to Smith’s score.

Graham finished 15 for 21 for 183 yards in his return as a starter after missing last week because of a concussion.

Still, it was mostly defense.

The Cowboys sacked Graham five times and the Giants got Aikman three times as both quarterbacks were constantly pressured.

But in the end, it came down to Barber.

“Obviously the game came down to big plays. They made them and we didn’t,” Dallas Coach Chan Gailey said.