Monday Night Football: Dallas at Green Bay

After this game, he's boxing for the Soviets

Dallas heads north to Green Bay amidst inner turmoil and external goings-on within their own division. While the NFC Central isn't a cake-walk for the Acme Packing Company's favorite team, Dallas faces at least three other teams that don't expect to go anywhere for a while, and another that plays happily amidst 115 degree heat. Dallas needs a win to stay ahead of the surging Giants, while the Packers need to dig deep into their own gouda-covered souls just to keep pace with the league-best Minnesota Vikings. The Cowboys and Packers have identical 3-2 records, and while their style of play is mostly different, with Emmitt Smith on the ground for Dallas and Ed West trying out his moon boots to pull in Don Majkowski bombs for Green Bay, their will to win is the same. After all, you don't have to scour the internet to find out how far Troy Aikman is willing to go for this win--in fact, you just need to look to your left, courtesy of Pro Line Portraits.




Quarter One

Aikman can only watch in pixellated horror

Dallas wins the toss and greedily decides to take the kick, going against all social customs and I believe a few of the Camp David Accords. James Dixon takes a poor Chris Jacke kick to the Dallas 41 for a prime starting spot. After an incomplete pass to Jay Novacek and a modest, yet unsuccessful, run by Tommy Agee for 7 yards, Dallas finds themselves with a third-and-three situation. Not wanting to relinquish their drive and waste good field position, they decide to try and convert the third-down with another Agee dash around the end for 4 yards and the first down. After this successful display of professional football play-calling and a gutsy effort by Agee, Aikman gives it up anyway with a pick to linebacker Scott Stephen.

Starting from his own 40-yard line, Don Majkowski takes the field, and his mullet appears a bit perturbed that he's missing the hockey game. His first pass is a perfect strike to Perry Kemp, who carries it into Dallas territory with a 29-yard gain. This play inevitably sets up the Michael Haddix draw, which is usually almost always doomed from its inception. When his next pass to Kemp is blocked, Majkowski now faces an improbable 3rd-and-10 situation, and so he goes to the sure-handed Kemp again for a possible conversion. Unbeknownst to him, Kemp is now drawing about three defenders a play, and his pass is batted harmlessly away. Chris Jacke is on, and not even the cold October chill of eastern Wisconsin can stop his 50-yarder from splitting the uprights.

Nintendo goal post, or M.C. Escher drawing?

Green Bay leads 3-0

Dixon takes another nice return out to the Dallas 43-yard line. And what starts as a promising drive turns into a broken promise for Cowboys' fans when Aikman is picked off again, this time by another member of Green Bay's alliterative secondary, Chuck Cecil.

Majkowski keeps the momentum going with an overthrow of wide open Sterling Sharpe on first down. He makes up for this indiscretion with a 12-yard connection to Haddix. And if the conventional thinking here is to keep moving quickly to keep Dallas reeling, Lindy Infante does the opposite with a Sharpe reverse play, perhaps to go along with the fact that his clothes and hat are all on backwards and that he keeps telling the other coaches that "It's NOT OPPOSITE day".

All that paid-for weight training, yet Aikman
just can't buy this kind of talent

Quarter Two
The next quarter begins with a football bouncing off Michael Haddix's face mask, and it's 3rd-and-11. Out of the shotgun, Majkowski launches a beauty to Kemp that spends about 30 seconds in the air and goes 12 yards. The next two plays involve Keith Woodside and Sterling Sharpe, but because they're not Sharpe reverses, Green Bay scores a touchdown.

Green Bay leads 10-0

Like the middle brother, James Dixon takes another great return unnoticed to the Dallas 47-yard line. The first Aikman pass is blocked at the line of scrimmage, considered a great success by his coaches, so when his next pass is completed to Michael Irvin for a gain of 23 yards they're pretty much ready to dust off Roger Staubach's crown and scepter. Knowing when to cash in their chips, however, the Cowboys entrust the next play to Emmitt Smith, who sheds a defender or two for a 28-yard touchdown run and gets Dallas back in this one.

Green Bay leads 10-7

If that is your real name...

From their own 26-yard line, Green Bay starts with about two and a half minutes remaining to build on their lead before the half. Kemp pulls in a pass in double coverage for 13 yards, but the Packers' scoring campaign comes to a halt there after three straight sacks, two by Jimmie Jones. One of the NFC's best punters named Don comes out, and boots one 60 yards to pin Dallas at their own 26-yard line.

With 1:12 left in the half, it's Dallas' turn to take control of their destiny, and their scoring drive begins with a Smith burst up the middle for 11 yards. With 50 seconds left, Aikman drops back to pass and finds Smith again, this time hoofing it down the field. He characteristically breaks a tackle, and it's not until he crosses in for a touchdown when the next Packer defender finally breaks the 50-yard line.

Dallas leads 14-10

Charles Wilson doesn't fool anyone into thinking he's scoring on his 15-yard kickoff return, as the time runs out on the half and Green Bay's early dominance.

Halftime - Cowboys 14, Packers 10

Lake Michigan is closer than any Dallas defender on this play

Quarter Three
It's Green Bay's turn at the start of the second half due to NFL rules regarding ball control, and out from their own 38 Woodside takes a handoff to midfield for a first down. The Magic Man can't find his rabbit with an overthrow of Kemp, but he successfully saws the Cowboys defense in half on the next play with a lob to Kemp for a 51-yard touchdown connection.

Green Bay leads 17-14

Inspired by his team's last drive, Chris Jacke finally gets his kick past the Dallas 30-yard line, where Dixon is eventually stopped anyway. Aikman goes to the air on the first play from scrimmage, hitting Michael Irvin between the middle hashmarks for 13 yards. Jerry Holmes sacks Aikman on the next play, making Agee's ensuing bootleg run a bit questionable until he gets the ball to within inches of another Dallas first down. They go with the Agee run around the left again, and just when the Cowboys looked to be choking away their lead on Colby cheddar, Agee breaks a tackle behind the line and tacks on 13 more yards. Smith steals his thunder and perhaps his father's love on the next play, however, with a 30-yard burst up the middle to the Green Bay 4-yard line. In spite of this success, Dallas goes to the air on the next two plays, and although they try to involve Smith both times, he can't haul in the Aikman lobs and it's 3rd-and-goal from the 5-yard line. Smith goes around the right end, but the human wood-chipper named Bob Nelson is there to swallow him up, leaving nothing but a cloud of navy and gray molecules. Ken Willis is on for the chip shot and Dallas ties it up.

Score tied 17-17

After a considerably poor return by Wilson, Green Bay starts at their own 16-yard line. Majkowski scrambles into the fourth quarter with a 12-yard run.

Ed West, followed by Majkowski's magical floating football

Quarter Four
The Haddix draw play somehow nets the Packers 21 total yards into Dallas territory, wiping away nearly a minute, along with the smiles of any connoisseurs of defensive prowess. Majkowski hits Kemp for a 35-yard gain, and then Ed West in double-coverage for a touchdown, using up less than half the time it took Haddix to get back to the sideline.

Green Bay leads 24-17

Knowing that his team needs a touchdown just to tie with only 3:24 remaining, Dixon helps his team out with a return to the Dallas 46-yard line. Jimmy Johnson breaks out the cerebral coaching tactics he's so well-known for by using Smith to run down the clock, and then is taken over by his inner flashy offense demons when he calls for a deep pass to Kelvin Martin for a 48-yard catch-and-run touchdown to tie it up with two and a half minutes remaining.

Score tied 24-24

Misplacing a page from the James Dixon book of kick returning, Wilson only gets the ball to the Green Bay 18-yard line with 2:11 remaining for a final win-sealing score. After Woodside takes the ball for a short gain, Majkowski almost tosses the game away when his pass to West is nearly intercepted. With 3rd-and-5 staring at him in the face, Don goes to his favorite Sharpe, who pulls in a nearly impossible reception and streaks down to the Dallas 23-yard line. Needing just to run down the clock and put Jacke out on the field, Green Bay opts for a Sharpe reverse. Coach Johnson's got his Brainiac cap on, however, and decides to let Sharpe score on the reverse to put the ball back in his team's hands. Unfortunately for Dallas, the Sharpe play is designed to take off at least 45 seconds, and when Dallas gets the ball back they only have 30 seconds left and lots of Monterey Jack-covered egg to wipe off their faces.

Green Bay leads 31-24

Purely for football card stats only

Jacke puts everything into his next kick, apparently saving it all for this one, but Dixon carries it out of the back of the end zone anyway. Needing one of his patented exciting returns, Dixon can only get to the 7-yard line. With 14 seconds left, Dallas goes to the popular Last Play in Tecmo playbook and hands the ball and hopes for a win to Agee. And in true Tecmo fashion, he takes it for a 9-yard gain that still falls 55 yards short of spur-kicking, pistol-shooting glory.

Final: Packers 31, Cowboys 24

Fans of the Packers have to be happy with what they saw out of their quarterback and his favorite target, as they connected 5 times, twice for a touchdown. Majkowski leads the league with 18 touchdowns, 3 more than Jim Everett, and the Packers are hot on the heels of Minnesota and Chicago in the NFC Central leading into Week Seven. The NFC East gets a little messier here with Dallas' loss, and despite the Cowboys' efficient run game there is much to be desired by their offense. They fall into a tie with New York, looking up at Philadelphia, Washington and perhaps the roofs of their own coffins. Troy Aikman threw two early picks, but Dallas stayed close with Green Bay, even leading at the half. It sort of makes you wonder where they may have finished had the picks been touchdowns, but then again that sort of wondering might get you thinking about how much longer you have until you see your wife in bed with Babe Laufenberg.