PITTSBURGH -- Never had there been a crowd as big in the history of Heinz Field than on Sunday when the Dallas Cowboys took on the Pittsburgh Steelers.
This wasn’t like last week, when Cowboys fans took over FirstEnergy Stadium in the 35-10 win against the Cleveland Browns. This wasn’t like in Santa Clara earlier this year when they beat the San Francisco 49ers either. Or any other time the Cowboys won on the road with a lot of fans in attendance. This was Pittsburgh, where babies are born with Terrible Towels and bleed black and gold.
With 42 seconds to play and the Steelers leading by a point, the 67,737 in attendance were as loud as they could possibly be as the Cowboys took over at their 25.
To the Cowboys, it was a Thursday practice inside a mostly empty Ford Center in Frisco, Texas, with music blaring from the sideline speakers.
“That’s what one of the guys said in the huddle, ‘It’s just another Thursday,’ ” wide receiver Cole Beasley said, “because Thursday is the day we do two-minute all the time. And we’ve actually had that situation before with 42 seconds and two timeouts. So it’s not somewhere we haven’t been.”
The Cowboys actually had three timeouts Sunday but wouldn’t need their last.
“It’s one thing to understand [the situation],” coach Jason Garrett said. “It’s another thing to go do it. Guys blocked well up front. They gave Dak time. He stood in there with people around him. Guys on the other end made plays. It was just a big-time drive.”
On first down, Dak Prescott’s pass was at Jason Witten’s feet and the veteran tight end wisely did not try to make the catch because it would have been a short gain probably requiring a timeout to be called.
On second down Prescott found Beasley for 10 yards to the Cowboys 35, leading to the first timeout with 31 seconds left.
On the next play he hit Witten for 13 yards, followed by another timeout with 23 seconds to play. On first-and-10 from the Dallas 48, Pittsburgh brought pressure and Prescott found Witten for another 5 yards. A face-mask penalty added another 15 yards moving the ball to the Pittsburgh 32.
“We work it so much,” Witten said. “You see it in training camp. We work on it time and time again. And there’s a lot of confidence just in the repetition, repetition, repetition, so when you get in the games it becomes easy. That’s a philosophy that Jason has preached to our football team, but there wasn’t one play you look at and say, ‘Oh, wow.’ ”
The wow came on the final play of the drive.
The Cowboys had the most accurate kicker in NFL history, Dan Bailey, ready to kick the game-winner. They used their jumbo package with two tight ends and guard Joe Looney as an extra blocker. Everybody knew Ezekiel Elliott would get the ball.
Nobody expected him to break free up the middle almost untouched for a 32-yard touchdown. Not even Elliott, who finished with 114 yards on 21 carries and three scores.
“Really we were just trying to run the ball, run the time down and kick the game-winning field goal, but they ended up doing the pressure,” Elliott said. “They lost the gap, the O-line picked it up perfectly and it parted like the Red Sea. All I had to do was run.”
As hard as it was supposed to be, the Cowboys made it look that easy.
“It is really all just noise,” Prescott said. “We have music at practice when we are doing it. There is really no difference. I don’t really look up into the stands or worry about people watching. It is all about executing the play that the coach calls. And it’s just fun.”
After the celebration by Elliott and his teammates, Steelers fans started filing out of Heinz Field, the Terrible Towels replaced by empty gold seats. The Cowboys fans in attendance were able to gloat.
They finally had the run of the place.