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Owens leads Cowboys to second straight win

Nov 23, 2008 - 11:35 PM By John Tranchina PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

IRVING, Texas (Ticker) -- Terrell Owens wanted the ball more and he got it.

Despite still wearing a protective splint on his fractured right pinkie, Tony Romo completed 23-of-39 passes for 341 yards and three touchdowns, while Owens hauled in seven receptions for 213 yards and one score to lead the Dallas Cowboys to a 35-22 victory over the San Francisco 49ers Sunday.

The Cowboys (7-4) won their second straight game with Romo back in the lineup after he missed three contests with the pinkie injury, while the 49ers (3-8) have lost seven of their last eight.

"I'm really just enjoying the process right now," said Romo, who surpassed 300 yards for the fifth time this season. "I'm starting to get the feeling back where I think I know what I'm doing. I feel confident when I'm out there.

"(The pinkie) was pretty good. I was able to control the ball in the hand. I don't know that I can go without the splint yet. I will probably use it one more game."

After Owens talked about wanting to be more involved in the offense, he delivered with his first 100-yard outing of the season and second-best single-game output of his 13-year career. The only other time he surpassed 200 came almost eight years ago, December 17, 2000, when he played for San Francisco and gained 283 on 20 receptions against Chicago.

"I think we brought in some new wrinkles and tweaked the offense a little bit," Owens said. "They unleashed me today. It was good to get my hands on the ball today. I was really mad about the one I dropped. I've just been patient. Every week, I practice hard and try to perfect my craft. Regardless of the situation and how the games turn out, I've tried to be patient and take advantage of the opportunities I get."

"The demise of Terrell Owens has been overly exaggerated," Dallas coach Wade Phillips said. "I think we can see that he still has it and if we get him the football, he can make plays and we did give him the ball."

The Cowboys' running game didn't get much traction, however, as Marion Barber gained just 37 yards on 14 carries until the final possession, ending up with 59 yards total on 19 carries. Barber also added 50 yards on seven receptions.

Kicker Nick Folk booted four field goals for Dallas, with all of them coming from beyond 40 yards out.

Defensively, Dallas held the 49ers to just three Joe Nedney field goals until the game was pretty much already decided midway through the fourth quarter. The Cowboys entered the contest wanting to limit damage from 49ers running back Frank Gore and they did that, holding him to just 26 yards on 14 carries.

"They just played good defense, their front seven, front eight, they played great," Gore said. "They played great, they stopped the run and we can't do nothing about it, they played good. They just played good defense."

Shaun Hill completed 21-of-33 passes for 303 yards and two touchdowns for San Francisco, while also tossing an interception. Receiver Isaac Bruce, who had his helmet knocked off on a hit in the first possession that caused a gash on the back his head, returned after getting several staples put in and hauled in eight passes for 125 yards and a touchdown.

"Everybody kept fighting," Hill said. "That's the kind of guys we have in the locker room. It's our genetic make-up as a team. Everybody's going to keep fighting until the end, but that's what we're supposed to do. Our job is to make plays and we need to play better than we did tonight."

Despite advancing inside the Dallas 5-yard-line twice in the first quarter, the 49ers couldn't get in the end zone and settled for 23- and

22-yard field goals by Nedney, who also missed a 52-yarder on the first drive of the game.

Trailing 6-0 instead of 14-0, Dallas came alive with a 22-point second quarter. They seized the lead on their first possession of the second, when Romo connected with Owens on a 75-yard bomb, with Owens shaking off 49er cornerback Nate Clements the last 15 yards to score.

"TO's touchdown changed the momentum of the game," San Francisco coach Mike Singletary said. "At the beginning of the game, we were running the things that we needed to run to stay on the game plan that we wanted to have. But that play was something that we did not want to happen but it did. We then had to recover and regroup."

On the 49ers' subsequent drive, punter Andy Lee's attempt from the end zone was blocked by Dallas' Carlos Polk and the ball ricocheted out of bounds for a Cowboys safety and a 9-6 lead.

After Folk kicked 48- and 41-yard field goals, Dallas linebacker Zach Thomas recovered a Hill fumble on the San Francisco 19 and five plays after that, Romo hit rookie tight end Martellus Bennett for a 1-yard touchdown pass to give the Cowboys a 22-6 halftime lead.

A 10-yard pass from Romo to Patrick Crayton early in the third quarter made it 29-6 and another Folk field goal, this one from 47 yards, put Dallas up by 26 on the first play of the fourth.

The 49ers tacked on two touchdowns in the final quarter, as Hill hit Bruce for an 18-yard touchdown with 8:20 remaining, and then after a 42-yard Folk field goal, Hill connected on a 9-yard TD pass to DeShaun Foster.

"It was an important win for us," Phillips said. "Our coverage was great. We let down a little at the end defensively and that bothered me a little bit, but nothing is perfect."