Cowboys Do Two-Step on Eagles, 30-11

IRVING, Texas —  Lombardi, meet Prime Time.

Deion Sanders is already thinking about how he wants to celebrate a touchdown next week in the NFC championship game against the Green Bay Packers.

He not only wants to perform his end zone dance, he wants to put it to music.

“Choreograph it,” he said. “Get the place going.”

Why not? It’s playoff time, which means it’s . . . don’t say it.

Let Sanders say it after he emerged from a season-long funk to lead the Dallas Cowboys to a 30-11 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC divisional playoffs.

“Right now, this is my nickname,” said the man known as “Prime Time.” “The big guys come out in big games. This is where we earn our money. If your big players don’t come out now, you go home.”

He smiled. “Just ask ‘Frisco.”

Or his teammates, who appeared to be enjoying themselves for the first time since their last Super Bowl championship as they watched Sanders score his first touchdown as a Cowboy, sneak an interception, catch a 13-yard pass, and return two punts for more than 10 yards per return.

Sanders’ heroics were directly involved in 20 of the Cowboys’ 30 points.

His excitement, despite 26-degree temperatures, was more contagious than a chill.

The lately sullen and defensive Cowboys were waving towels, pointing fingers, and gang-tackling teammates after big tackles.

It helped that they took a 17-3 halftime lead, knocked Eagle quarterback Rodney Peete out of the game in the process, and weren’t threatened.

“It’s been a while since we’ve had this much fun,” Cowboy guard Nate Newton said.

Next up, the Packers, who upset the San Francisco 49ers on Saturday but haven’t had a dancer since Paul Hornung, and only then after dark.

“Who knows, maybe the San Francisco game unleashed a monster,” Cowboy safety Darren Woodson said.

But maybe Sunday’s game here did the same thing.

Even Cowboy Coach Barry Switzer was vindicated for blowing an earlier game against the Eagles this year. Sort of.

Remember when he unwisely tried and failed to convert a fourth down not once, but twice, in the fourth quarter of an eventual 20-17 Eagle victory? A decision that nearly had him fired on the spot?

Early in the third quarter Sunday, Switzer was faced with fourth and one from the Eagle one-yard line. This time, kicker Chris Boniol jogged out and holed a chip shot to increase the Cowboy lead to 20-3.

A lesson learned, right? Except moments before Boniol’s appearance, cameras caught Switzer gesturing and shouting, “Go for it, go for it.”

There were no postgame explanations for this seeming disparity, only laughing curses and feigned threats.

When asked if this fourth-and-one decision reminded him of the previous Eagle game, Switzer said, “There’s a big difference, because we kicked their . . . this time. Last time, if we had done that, it wouldn’t have even come down to a fourth and one.”

He smiled at a radio reporter who again asked about the fourth-down call and said, “Let’s bury that [question] . . .”

So went the only controversy of a team that played as if somebody finally unlocked the handcuffs.

Sanders showed up, long-ignored Kevin Williams caught 124 yards’ worth of passes, maligned linebacker Darrin Smith had a team-leading seven tackles, and long-forgotten defensive end Tony Tolbert had two sacks.

The struggling Cowboy run defense, which could be the key against the Packers, held Pro Bowl runner Ricky Watters to 39 yards.

Peete, who exited with a concussion at the end of the first quarter, and backup Randall Cunningham combined to complete 14 of 31 throws for 189 yards.

An Eagle offense that gained 452 yards and scored five touchdowns in its first playoff game last week against Detroit totaled 227 yards with one score.

For the Cowboys, it could have been simple playoff aggressiveness. Or it could have been relief over the fact that they can advance to the Super Bowl without facing the nemesis 49ers.

The players admitted it was probably both. “I remember telling Michael Irvin last week that one of us [Cowboys or 49ers] was going to slip,” said Sanders, who helped the 49ers win the Super Bowl last year before defecting to Dallas. “I prayed to God that it wouldn’t be us.”

Now, says Sanders, the truth about his importance should be clear. “The team I played on last year is at home,” he said. “And the team I played on this year is still here.”

He laughed. “I sort of predicted it with the 49ers,” he said. “I remember a guy a couple of months ago in a press conference saying they were in denial over their problems. I wonder who that guy was?”

It was hard to argue with him on a day when his tender hamstrings had finally healed enough for the Cowboys to allow him to return punts full time and play offense at least half the time. The results:

--Sanders broke two tackles and dashed through a crowd to return a punt 22 yards midway through the first quarter in a scoreless tie. The play was nullified because of a silly penalty away from the ball, but the Cowboys had a rallying point.

Especially since Sanders finished his run with a new dance in which he acted as if he was being stabbed. “That was my way of saying, ‘Oh, that run hurt,’ ” Sanders said. “But then after the penalty, it really did hurt.”

--Early in the second quarter, on the Eagle 21-yard line, Sanders lined up as a wide receiver right, then ran left through the backfield and took a handoff from quarterback Troy Aikman.

But the left side was blanketed in green uniforms, so Sanders simply stopped, turned, and ran the other way, past five Eagles and into the right corner of the end zone.

It was the Cowboys’ first score, giving them a 10-3 lead.

“He’s faster than I-don’t-know-what,” Emmitt Smith said of Sanders. “But he don’t have any moves.”

Hopping on sheets of ice behind the end zone, Sanders managed some agility during his first end zone two-step as a Cowboy, even if he did almost lose the ball.

“I haven’t done it in so damn long, I was rusty,” Sanders said.

Said Switzer: “His run was what got us going.”

--With the Cowboys leading, 23-3, early in the fourth quarter, Sanders sneaked behind Calvin Williams and picked off a pass from Cunningham, returning it 12 yards. This set up the final Cowboy score, a nine-yard touchdown pass to Irvin.

Sanders has now intercepted a pass in all four postseason games in which balls were thrown in his direction. Last year, against the Bears in the first round, he was not tested once.

“Tell everybody in Dallas to come back next Sunday,” he said before leaving the stadium while wearing a brown beret and a suit with loud brown checks. “We’re going to have another celebration.”