Sometimes life unfolds- all by itself- in a way that no Hollywood screenwriter would even attempt to pen, for fear of it being simply too fantastic for anyone to believe.
All that was missing from the blockbuster night Malik Hooker turned in was a chart-topping soundtrack and him literally riding off into the sunset after personally sticking it to his former team.
The Cowboys safety started the evening as one of the team’s captains, representing the defense against the very club that drafted him in the first round in 2015. He finished with his second interception of the season and his first-ever touchdown, the result of a fumble recovery and 38-yard return that was part of a record-setting 33-point fourth quarter for Dallas.
“I knew I was gonna make some plays, but plays like that — I wouldn’t dream in a million years,” said Hooker, per the team website. “I wasn’t expecting that, but I’m happy I performed the way I did, for the sake of the defense.”
Pick in the first half.
Fumble return for a TD in the second half.
It's officially a revenge game for 2️⃣8️⃣‼️#ProBowlVote + Malik Hooker📺: @SNFonNBC | #INDvsDAL pic.twitter.com/xSNbQ3Hphf
— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) December 5, 2022
No Cowboys defender had had a pick and a scoop-and-score in the same game since 1983, a full 13 years before Hooker was even born.
That’s a lot of backstory to overcome in one plot-twist moment, and the safety was definitely cognizant of his own personal history with Sunday evening’s antagonist.
“It was special,” Hooker said. “To be able to go out there and perform against the team that drafted me, that believed in me, it was special for me to go out there and perform like that. It was definitely a game for me that I wanted to perform [well] in, and not just because it was the Colts. I just felt like it was due … I just wanted to put my best foot forward.”
That he did, and the rest of the defense followed suit, notching five takeaways, recording three sacks, holding 2021 rushing champ Jonathan Taylor to his lowest yardage total in a month, and keeping their opponent to under 20 points for the eighth time in 12 games.
“The message for me today was, ‘If you’re a big dog, be a big dog today.’ And I feel like that showed up,” the veteran said in his post-game remarks.
But the safety was quick to credit the even bigger dogs on the Cowboys defensive line for whatever highlights he was able to be a part of on the back end.
“Those guys were just after it up front,” the Ohio State alum explained. “If you watch the game from beginning to the end, those guys were dominant up front. They were creating a lot of those takeaways, forcing the quarterback to have to get the ball out faster than he wanted to. When you do that, the timing of the routes is off, and that’s when tipped passes and sack-fumbles and all that stuff comes along. Hats off to the D-line, because that’s where that stuff came from today, I feel like.”
And Hooker believes that with the cast of supporting characters around him on the Cowboys defense, there could be a few sequels to Sunday’s monster 54-19 win still to come before this season is over.
And maybe even the ultimate storybook ending.
“There ain’t no ceiling,” Hooker said of this Cowboys defense. “We’re still hitting our stride. We feel like we still had some mistakes in that game… We’ve got a lot of guys from top to bottom that are capable of dominating the game. We’re just going to keep putting our best foot forward to build off of that.”
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