‘Built for those moments’: Prescott, McCarthy credit Cowboys defense with saving game late

From @ToddBrock24f7: The Dallas defense hadn’t recorded a sack or takeaway in the first 58 minutes, but then they delivered both when it mattered the most.

In a game where they hadn’t done anything really special, the Cowboys defense finally woke up in the nick of time and put the exclamation point on the team’s 20-17 nail-biter of a win Monday night.

For 58 minutes of play, Dallas had not registered a single sack nor gotten a takeaway, two things they excelled at last season. But after taking a three-point lead late and then giving Los Angeles a chance at a game-winning drive, two of the Cowboys’ biggest names stepped up on back-to-back plays.

First came Micah Parsons, beating a double-team block to take down quarterback Justin Herbert for an eight-yard loss. It was Parsons’s first sack since Week 3’s loss in Arizona. (Parsons has- still- only had one three-game stretch as a pro without a sack, Weeks 5 through 7 of his rookie season.)

“To watch a guy like Micah show up,” Prescott told reporters afterward, “that’s what great players do: show up in great big-time moments. First sack of the game; hadn’t had one all game, and there he goes, here he comes. It’s an important time, gets a sack.”

“That’s how we feel we’re built, for those moments,” Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said in his postgame press conference. “Our pass rush and big-time players making big plays: an important part of these type of games. Hopefully we’re in that position each and every week, where our pass rush is put up to the forefront of the challenge.”

But Parsons’s well-timed takedown wasn’t the final nail in the Chargers’ coffin. Suddenly racing from deep in their own territory with no timeouts left, Herbert found himself in another collapsing pocket and tossed a wobbly pass that was picked off by cornerback Stephon Gilmore.

“It was a lot of back and forth all night,” the five-time Pro Bowler said after his interception sealed a game that had seen him get burned on a couple earlier plays. “Just trying to keep that short-term memory and was able to make a play at the end. That’s what big-time players do.”

“Veteran guy that’s a leader of this team,” Prescott said of Gilmore. “Talks about guys just doing the right thing, staying at it, staying consistent. And guys really picking up and just being there for one another. That’s what the defense did for me in that moment, did for the team in that moment, of getting that turnover.”

Just minutes earlier, Prescott had missed Tony Pollard in the end zone. That connection would have given Dallas a seven-point lead and made the Chargers’ final possession slightly less nerve-racking. As it turned out, though, the Cowboys defense came to Prescott’s rescue.

“I’ve got to make that throw to get the touchdown right there at the end,” Prescott said. “And I’m on the sideline pissed off about that and look up and hear our defense makes a play. That’s what it’s about: having each other’s back. Thankful.”

The back-to-back highlights in the eleventh hour salvaged what was nearly a second straight disastrous performance. And things hadn’t looked promising for much of the night; the Dallas defense was on the field for nearly 12 and a half minutes of the third quarter alone and looked legitimately gassed at times.

And while players like DeMarcus Lawrence, Osa Odighizuwa, and Markquese Bell turned in solid efforts, the defense as a whole just couldn’t seem to make the type of game-defining splash play that had earmarked earlier outings against the Giants, Jets, and Patriots.

Until the very end, when it mattered most.

“A tremendous amount of grit,” McCarthy noted of the unit. “I was worried about them there in the second half. They had those long drives, and we come out and ran twice with three-and-outs. I just can’t say enough about their tenacity. They keep battling. That’s the way we’re wired. Then we put it in their hands there at the end, and they delivered.”

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And on a night when he did just about everything else, with both his arm and his legs, Prescott was more than happy to share the victory spotlight with his teammates on the other side of the ball after they saved the best for last and came up huge.

“Credit to our defense,” Prescott raved. “That’s what it’s about, the brotherhood that we have. That’s when you can really hang your hat on the brotherhood; it’s not just a word.”

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