Dak Prescott threw a 32-yard fourth-down touchdown pass to Cole Beasley and the hit Michael Gallup with the winning 2-point conversion in a 36-35 Dallas win.
Don’t tell Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys their regular-season finale against the New York Giants was a meaningless game.
They played it to the end and got momentum for the playoffs.
Prescott threw a 32-yard fourth-down touchdown pass to Cole Beasley on a play that was reversed by video replay and added a winning 2-point conversion pass to Michael Gallup with 1:12 to play as the NFC East champion Cowboys rallied twice in the final 10 minutes to beat the New York Giants 36-35 on Sunday.
“You saw it out there, the intensity that we played with, the ups and the downs and how we stayed through it,” Prescott said after going 27 of 44 for 387 yards and a season-high four touchdowns, three to tight end Blake Jarwin. “We stayed positive, knowing we were going to give ourselves a chance to come out on the end. It was a great win.”
The win was the seventh in eight games for the Cowboys and it has them looking forward to next weekend’s wild-card game at home.
Dallas coach Jason Garrett downplayed the meaningless angle, even though he rested NFL leading rusher Ezekiel Elliott and two of his top offensive linemen.
“That might be for people outside our building, talking about the meaningful or meaningless nature of a game,” Garrett said. “They’re all very meaningful to us. It’s opportunity for us to improve as a football team, to finish strong, to have some momentum going into the playoffs.”
For the Giants (5-11), it was another late loss. They lost eight games by seven points or less in Pat Shurmur’s first season, the last two by a total of two points.
