EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ – There was a sense that the Cowboys players and coach could breathe a little during a three-day weekend.

A 20-15 victory over the Giants on Thursday night ended a two-game losing streak and put an end to discussions about a lack of professionalism, poor chemistry between the star quarterback and receiver, and maybe people can going on about the Cowboys’ inability to stop the run.

“I have to stay pro,” Dak Prescott said. “You don’t do that when you win.”

Prescott was great Thursday night. He completed 21 of 27 passes for 221 yards with two touchdowns. He compiled a 125.5 quarterback rating and restored impact in receiver CeeDee Lamb.

He caught seven passes, on eight targets, for 98 yards and a touchdown reception of 55 yards. If you want to ignore Lamb’s only four-yard catch in the second half, that’s fine, because the running game did something that had been missing thus far: become effective.

In total, the run game gained 80 yards on 23 attempts, and although it was only an average of 3.5, the final scoring drive of the game proved that coach Mike McCarthy could rely on it. The Cowboys pushed their lead to five points thanks to a 40-yard field goal by Brandon Aubrey, ending a 10-play, 48-yard drive. There were four running plays, two of which ended with gains that produced first downs. The only negative play was a Lamb run for a loss of one yard.

McCarthy wants more carries because that means he’s closing games, which was the case Thursday night.

And speaking of the running game, the Cowboys defense showed up against the run.

Finally.

The Giants finished with 26 rushing yards.

The 1.08 yards per carry was the sixth-lowest allowed in Cowboys history. The last time the Cowboys allowed less than a yard per carry was in 2015, when they held the Eagles to just 20 rushing yards (0.58 average) on nine carries.

“We cleaned up some things on film,” linebacker Eric Kendricks said. “We changed some things and we had to look ourselves in the mirror, play physical and obviously we have a long season ahead of us. That was one game and we had to bring it every game. That was a good, good win. We are going to enjoy it in the coming days.”

Now that the communication has been cleaned up and the quality play on the field has improved, the Cowboys say they are not satisfied.

“Winning is important,” linebacker Micah Parsons said. “It’s hard to perform in this competition, so getting a 20-15 win wasn’t perfect. I’m done deleting. I don’t want to come over anymore. I want legit wins and winning consistently.

There are issues on the defensive end as both DeMarcus Lawrence (foot) and Parsons (ankle) did not finish the game with injuries.

McCarthy was forced to bench cornerback Andrew Booth in the second half for poor play, but was rewarded by Amani Oruwariye, whose interception ended the game with five seconds left.

The Cowboys were penalized 11 times for 89 yards, the second time this season they reached double figures in flags.

“We have a lot of work to do,” McCarthy said of the penalties.

You also hope there’s nothing wrong with Aubrey, who missed a 51-yard field goal late in the fourth quarter that would have given the Cowboys a 23-15 lead and forced the Giants to go for a two-point conversion to win the game to equalize. . Aubrey had made all 12 field goal attempts and was six for six from 50 or more yards this season before the miss.

It was an ugly win, but a win was needed for a McCarthy team that hadn’t lost three straight games under him since 2020. Losing would have stung before the next game, in ten days in Pittsburgh.

The Cowboys have come to realize — despite what the NFC East may look like this weekend — that they can’t slip again with the same issues that surfaced during the losing streak.

“This is an everyday thing,” says Lawrence. ‘You just can’t come in a week and be accountable, you have to come every day. I feel like we’re on a good path to doing that and we should get back to work on doing that next week.

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