Saints 31 Cowboys 24 A spirited effort led the Saints to a Christmas Eve victory over the Cowboys in Jake Delhomme's NFL debut. A short kickoff and a good return by Dino Philyaw let the Saints start things at their 45. However, Jake Delhomme's first pass was deflected at the line and intercepted. The ball went back to the O after the Cowboys were held without a 1st and punted into the endzone. A pair of Ricky Williams runs were good for a 1st; a play later Delhomme hit Josh Wilcox for 19 on a play-action rollout. On 3rd & 7 from the Dallas 49, Eddie Kennison outjumped his defender to snag a 32 yd catch along the sideline. The team ended up settling for a 32 yd Doug Brien FG. On the next play from scrimmage, an off-target Aikman throw was intercepted by Fred Weary and returned to the Cowboy 23. On 3rd & 10, Jake hit Keith Poole for an 18 yd gain; on 2nd & goal from the 8 he went back to Poole for a TD. The PAT made it 10-0 Saints with 1:38 left in the first quarter. Tucker returned the ensuing kickoff all the way to the endzone, but the play was negated by a holding call. The Cowboys drove to the NO 33, but a holding call bumped them out of FG range; a punt was fair-caught at the 13. The Saints were unable to gain a 1st, and Tommy Barnhardt's punt went out-of-bounds at the NO 36. Dallas scored quickly- Tucker caught an 18 yd throw, Smith ran for 15, roughing-the-passer put the ball at the 1, Smith ran in for the score. Neither team mounted a threat in the remainder of the second quarter. Tucker was the star of the first possession of the second half- he returned the kickoff to the 40, and caught passes of 15 & 20 yds (the second one was good for a TD). With less than five minutes gone in the third quarter, Dallas led 14-10. The ball went back to the visitors when Delhomme was hit and fumbled- the Cowboys took over at the NO 21. Dallas converted the turnover into a 33 yd FG by Eddie Murray, who used to kick in the Dome for Tulane a couple of decades ago. It took only two plays for the Saints to even the score- Ricky caught a ball out of the backfield for 14 yds; Jake went deep down the sideline to hit Kennison for a 51 yd TD. Tucker came close to breaking the ensuing kickoff; the Boys started at the NO 48. On 3rd & 10 from the 37, an illegal contact penalty negated a sack and gave the visitors an automatic 1st. From there, Dallas eased its way toward the goal and ended the possession with a 3 yd LaFleur TD catch. With 16 seconds left in the third quarter, the Cowboys were up 7. The Saints penetrated deep into Cowboy territory when Poole beat Sanders for a 50 yd reception. On 3rd & goal from the 4, Delhomme ran into the endzone on a QB draw. Brien's kick tied things at 24-all. On 2nd & 10 from the NO 42, Aikman dumped a throw over the middle to Smith; Robert Newkirk popped the ball free, and Weary scooped it up and ran in for the go-ahead score (the team's first defensive TD of the season). A pair of punts-for-touchback later, Dallas took control of the ball with 5:54 left. The Cowboys converted three consecutive 3rd downs, but on 1st & goal from the 6, Aikman's throw into the endzone was deflected by Keith Mitchell and intercepted by Mark Fields. The team didn't quite manage to drain the remaining 64 seconds off the clock, but the game ended happily when Sanders was tackled immediately after fielding a punt. stats (view with a fixed-width font, like Courier) ^^^^^ runnin'........../..........passin' & catchin' 2- 6-1 Jake Delhomme 23- 61 3- 31 Ricky Williams 3- 6 Aaron Craver Eddie Kennison 3- 95-1 Keith Poole 4- 90-1 Andre Hastings 1- 24 P.J. Franklin 1- 5 Cameron Cleeland 1- 5 Josh Wilcox 3- 28 28- 73-1 TOTAL 16-278-2 0- 0 inc 10 1 INT 1 0 runnin'........../..........passin' & catchin' Troy Aikman 23-110-1 Emmitt Smith 3- 3 3- 12 Robert Thomas 1- 4 Jason Tucker 7-128-1 Raghib Ismail 3- 28 Deion Sanders 2- 10 Chris Brazzell 1- 21 David LaFleur 4- 30-1 Eric Bjornson 2- 22 26-122-1 TOTAL 23-246-2 inc 14 INT 2 notes ^^^^^ * by no means does this game redeem the season, but it sure was fun * Jake may or may not be "the answer," but at least now he's an option * I suppose if I had to collide with somebody during the postgame on-field chaos, I could've done a lot worse than Keith Poole ******************************************************************************* Frank Serpas III serpas@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu