Dallas improves to 13-2 with 20-13 win at Carolina.

It wasn’t sealed until Marion Barber’s 11-yard run inside the final two minutes, but Dallas has their 13th win of the season by a count of 20-13 over the Carolina Panthers.

Barber ran for 110 yards, the second-highest total of his career behind a 127-yard game against Arizona in his rookie year, and Dallas needed all of those yards tonight, especially at the end.

Tony Romo bounced back well from Sunday's nightmare game against Philadelphia and finished 28 of 42 for 257 yards, with one touchdown and one interception, and broke Danny White’s single-season team record of 3,980 yards (it now stands at 4,125).

Give credit to the Panthers for staying in it even though the Cowboys should have had it sewn up well before the end. Matt Moore certainly has the tools to be a success as a starter in the NFL, as he’s shown in his first two starts - it wouldn’t have taken long for him to be the backup in Dallas, but he’s much better off in Carolina - and he nearly came back to haunt his old team.

But, the defense certainly didn’t take it easy on Moore, sacking him five times, with DeMarcus Ware upping his total to a career-high 13 with two sacks and Greg Ellis adding one to his total, which is now at 12.5 for the season. The key plays for the defense were keeping the Panthers out of the end zone both times in the second half when they had a chance to cut into the Cowboys’ lead.

Judging by the statistics, it was a dominating performance by the Cowboys, even though the scoreboard indicates otherwise - 405 to 216 in total yards, 25 to 12 in first downs, 39:00 to 21:00 in time of possession.

That dominance could have translated on the scoreboard if not for a few missed opportunities for Dallas, but in the end, it’s not about the opportunities you miss, but the ones that you convert, and the important thing is that the Cowboys converted more than the Panthers, and thusly, Dallas is a Packers loss (or a win at Washington next week, if the Packers beat Chicago tomorrow) away from having home-field advantage in the NFC, while 6-9 Carolina is eliminated from playoff contention.

Cowboys well-represented on NFC Pro Bowl roster.

A league-high 11 Cowboys were named to the NFC’s Pro Bowl roster yesterday, with most of the names you‘d have expected to see on the list making it.

Seven offensive players were named to the team, with Terrell Owens and Jason Witten being named starters, along with three starters along the offensive line - center Andre Gurode, tackle Flozell Adams, and guard Leonard Davis, who makes the Pro Bowl in his first season in Dallas.
Tony Romo leads the NFC in touchdown passes and is second in yards, but he is only a reserve on the Pro Bowl roster, as the rejuvenated Brett Favre gets the starting nod.

The other Cowboy to get an invite on the offensive side of the ball is Marion Barber III, who isn’t exactly the starter at running back, but with 1,130 all-purpose yards and 11 total touchdowns, he’ll be going to Hawaii.

On defense, DeMarcus Ware is unsurprisingly a starter, with a career-high 75 tackles, along with 11 sacks (.5 off of his total from last year) and about 572 QB pressures.

Terence Newman is a reserve at corner, and Ken Hamlin was also named a Pro Bowler in his first season in Dallas. Hamlin was named a reserve at free safety, with the league honoring late Redskins safety Sean Taylor by very deservedly naming him the starter - an honor that he likely would have received if not for his untimely death last month.

Rookie kicker Nick Folk, who beat out Martin Gramatica for the starting job in training camp, was rewarded for his excellent rookie campaign by being named as the NFC’s placekicker.

The only move that could be considered a snub is Greg Ellis being left off of the roster. Ellis missed the first three games as he was trying to overcome nagging Achilles’ issues, but has 11.5 sacks in the 11 games since, two higher than the career high he set in 16 games in 2004.

Anthony Henry was off to a Pro Bowl start this season, with four interceptions in the first three games, but missing three games with injuries hurt him, though he’s still having an excellent season, with five interceptions.

The question now is: How many of those who were invited will show up?