Dallas puts division away with victory over Giants

Terrell Owens caught six passes for 125 yards and two touchdowns in the Cowboys' win over the Giants. AP

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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- The calendar says there's still another seven weeks to play. But we don't need that long to discover the pecking order in the NFC East.

It's the Dallas Cowboys, followed by three teams that can only wish they were the Dallas Cowboys. I've seen enough to know that. How about you?

How much better are the Cowboys than the New York Giants, the next best team the division has to offer? Well, Dallas beat New York by 10 points in Week 1, and by 11 on Sunday in Giants Stadium. And if they happen to play again somehow, I'd like the Cowboys by 12. So give me Dallas by double-digits against the rest of the NFC East, and call me when you're ready to concede the argument.

In back-to-back weeks, Dallas has gone on the road within the division to beat Philadelphia and the Giants by a combined 69-37. The Cowboys are 8-1 overall, 7-0 in the NFC, 3-0 in the division, 5-0 on the road, and haven't lost away from Texas Stadium in the regular season in more than a year -- since a Week 9 defeat at Washington on Nov. 5, 2006.

Whether or not Dallas is bound for supremacy over the entire NFC is a matter that probably won't be resolved until the Cowboys play host to Green Bay (8-1) in Week 13. But Wade Phillips' team just took the best shot that a fellow NFC East team could deliver, and didn't flinch. The Cowboys' 31-20 mashing of the red-hot Giants wasn't dominating from start to finish, but it was decisive when it mattered, with Dallas outscoring New York 14-3 to break a 17-17 halftime tie.

"Our team came out in second half just about like we have all year, and we played well,'' Phillips said. "When the pressure's on they seem to play better. We just told them [the score was] was nothing-nothing. We've done that all year. The second half is ours, so just go out and do it.''

The Cowboys went out and did it in the second half against a Giants team that was trying to pull into a tie for the division lead, and win its seventh in a row for the first time since 1990 -- New York's most recent Super Bowl season. During its six-game winning streak New York had allowed just 79 points, an average of 13.1 per game. But against the Cowboys, the Giants looked more like the team that had gotten hammered 45-35 at Texas Stadium on the first Sunday night of the season.

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