Dak Prescott moved to his left, then kept drifting even more. On a long night, what was a few extra seconds going to hurt?
With a quick throw as T.J. Watt and the Pittsburgh defense closed in, the NFL’s highest-paid player made a perfect pass to Jalen Tolbert with just 20 seconds left, leading the Dallas Cowboys to a 20-17 win early Monday.
For more than three hours, Prescott mixed great plays with confusing ones, throwing two interceptions and fumbling the ball, which nearly kept the struggling Steelers in the game.
However, when Dallas (3-2) got the ball back down by four points with 4:56 left, Prescott calmly guided the Cowboys 70 yards in 15 plays. He even smartly jumped on a fumble by teammate Rico Dowdle when the ball came loose as Dowdle tried to score.
This quick thinking gave Dallas two more chances, and after a missed pass, Prescott capped off his 352-yard game, leading the injury-plagued Cowboys to their second straight win.
“We talk about it, staying neutral, being resilient, understanding there’s going to be ups and downs, ebbs and flows,” Prescott said. “We just know who we are. (If) we just stay with it, we can come out with a win. This was a great example.”
Pittsburgh (3-2) lost its second game in a row after starting 3-0, showing a lackluster performance, especially on offense, on a night when the opening kickoff was delayed by nearly 90 minutes due to severe weather.
The skies eventually cleared, but the Steelers struggled, especially on offense, managing only 226 yards against a defense missing key players like Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence.
“I think the common problem is just shooting ourselves in the foot,” Steelers quarterback Justin Fields said. “Penalties, false starts, it’s just coming down to execution.”
Pittsburgh got the ball back after Tolbert’s go-ahead touchdown, but a series of laterals went nowhere, and the Cowboys celebrated their victory in a game that ended just before 1 a.m.
Dowdle gave the league’s struggling rushing attack a boost by running for 87 yards. He also caught a sliding 22-yard touchdown pass on the third play of the fourth quarter, capping a 16-play, 90-yard drive that put Dallas ahead 13-10.
It seemed like that might be enough until Prescott threw a deep ball into double coverage, hoping for a big play with about 10 minutes left.
Instead, it ended up in the hands of Pittsburgh’s Joey Porter Jr. The Steelers then moved 63 yards in 12 plays, finishing with a 6-yard shovel pass from Fields to tight end Pat Freiermuth, which gave them the lead.
Fields threw for 131 yards and two touchdowns while rushing for 27 yards, but struggled with his accuracy, completing only 15 of 27 passes.
With veteran Russell Wilson’s calf injury finally healing, Fields’ inconsistent performance gave head coach Mike Tomlin room to consider bringing Wilson—who won the starting job in training camp—back into the lineup next week in Las Vegas.
“We just missed opportunities and shot ourselves in the foot again,” Fields said.
The Cowboys missed several chances to pull ahead early due to mistakes by Prescott, who fumbled when sacked by T.J. Watt and Nick Herbig, ending one drive deep in Pittsburgh territory in the first quarter.
That half-sack brought Watt’s career total to 100, making him the second-fastest player to reach that milestone in NFL history (109 games).
