In a game so ugly that it rivaled (maybe surpassed) the ugliness of the Seattle game, the Dallas Cowboys fell to the Chicago Bears 34-18 on Monday night in Arlington, to drop to .500 (2-2) on the year.
The game was scoreless for more than 25 minutes of play, until the Bears’ Robbie Gould hit a 43-yard field goal to give the away team a 3-0 lead. It would get a lot worse.
On the Cowboys’ ensuing drive, Tony Romo tossed his third interception of the season, on what looked like a miscommunication between Romo and Dez Bryant. Charles Tillman, who picked off the pass, took it untouched 25 yards for the touchdown, to make it 10-0 Bears.
The Cowboys answered after the pick six, with Romo bouncing back to lead a nine-play, 80-yard drive, capped off by a 10-yard touchdown pass from Romo to Miles Austin, which made it 10-7. The drive took 2:24 off the clock, leaving the Bears to simply kneel on it and go into half with a three-point lead. Unfortunately, the second quarter touchdown drive would be a rare bright spot for Dallas on Monday night.
The Bears extended their lead on the first possession of the second half, with Jay Cutler hitting Devin Hester on a 34-yard touchdown pass, the first touchdown pass allowed by Dallas in 2011.
Romo threw his second interception of the game on the ensuing drive, but the defense bailed him out, with DeMarcus Ware forcing a fumble from Cutler and giving Dallas the ball back. On the first play of that drive however, Romo threw his third interception of the day and his second pick-six, with Lance Briggs returning it 74 yards for the score to make it 24-7.
Dallas managed a field goal late in the third, but the Bears quickly answered with Gould’s second field goal of the day to once again extend the lead to 17, a three-possession game, at 27-10.
Romo’s fourth interception of the day with about eight minutes left pretty much ended it, but that didn’t stop the Cowboys from being awful a little bit more. Brandon Marshall scored (untouched) on a 31-yard catch and run to make it 33-10. Romo threw his fifth interception--tying a career high--in the fourth, after which he was pulled.
Kyle Orton came in and threw a touchdown pass to Jason Witten (and added a two-point conversion on a pass to Bryant) in garbage time to make it 34-18, but this was little consolation for the scores of Dallas fans that left (understandably) early.
At 2-2, the Cowboys will have a bye next week before taking on the Ravens in Baltimore in week six.
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