With the Dallas Cowboys electing to rest star quarterback Dak Prescott because of his strained right calf, backup Cooper Rush took over and threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to Amari Cooper in the back corner of the end zone with 51 seconds left to give them a 20-16 victory over the Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium.
After Greg Joseph put the Vikings up 16-13 with a 24-yard field goal with 2:51 left, the Cowboys drove 75 yards for the winning score.
The Cowboys (6-1) won their sixth straight game, and the Vikings (3-4) had their two-game winning streak come to an end.
“This was a tough loss tonight,” Vikings coach Mike Zimmer said. “We had a good crowd. It was loud.”
Prescott was injured when he threw the winning touchdown pass in Dallas’ previous game, a 35-29 overtime win Oct. 17 at New England. He warmed up before Sunday’s game but was made inactive 90 minutes before kickoff.
The game was televised nationally on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. And though NBC studio analyst Tony Dungy predicted earlier in the week that the game would be a “shootout,” it was mostly a defensive struggle. But Rush did come on strong at the end and finished 24 of 40 passing for 325 yards with two touchdowns and one interception.
Zimmer said the Vikings had enough film on Rush. When asked how they did against him, he said, “Not good enough.”
The big surprise was Minnesota’s offense being unable to do much of anything against a hardly dominant Dallas defense. Kirk Cousins completed just 23 of 35 passes for 184 yards and a touchdown, and the Vikings were 1 of 13 on third-down conversions.
“Not a lot to say after a poor performance like that,” Cousins said. “We didn’t stay on the field long enough. Too many third and outs.”
The Vikings opened the game with a 75-yard touchdown drive that finished with Cousins’ 20-yard TD pass to Adam Thielen for a 7-0 lead. But they didn’t manage another touchdown the rest of the game, settling for three Joseph field goals.
The Vikings led 10-3 at halftime. The Cowboys tied the score 10-10 when Rush hit Cedrick Wilson for a 73-yard touchdown pass with 14:07 left in the third quarter.
The Vikings took a 13-10 lead on a 40-yard field goal by Joseph with 6:31 left in the third quarter. But the Cowboys came right back to tie the score 13-13 on Greg Zuerlein’s 39-yard field goal with four seconds left in the quarter.
“First thing you’ve got to do after a loss like that is look yourself in the mirror,” Thielen said. “Everybody’s got to do that.”
After Joseph’s field goal put the Vikings up 16-13 with 2:51 left, Dallas drove for the winning score. The Vikings failed to slow down the Cowboys even though they faced third-and-16 at the Minnesota 24. It became third-and-11 after the Vikings inadvertently called two straight timeouts and were penalized five yards.
“I screwed up,” Zimmer said.
On third-and-11, Rush hit running back Ezekiel Elliott over the middle and he broke several tackles to gain 15 yards for first-and-goal at the 5. On the next play, Rush hit Cooper, who beat cornerback Cameron Danzler. Cooper finished with eight catches for 122 yards.
The Vikings were hampered on defense after Danielle Hunter was lost for the game in the second quarter due to a shoulder injury. Zimmer said that the loss of Hunter “affected us” and that he will get an MRI on Monday.
Hunter, a two-time Pro Bowl selection, missed all of last season with a neck injury. He looked like his old self in the first six games, leading Minnesota with six sacks.
The Vikings also didn’t have on defense cornerback Patrick Peterson, who recently was placed on injured reserve with a hamstring injury.
Still, the Vikings were in a position to win.
“We didn’t finish,” said Vikings safety Xavier Woods, who had an interception and a forced fumble against his former team.
The Vikings often have let teams hang around this season. In their previous two games, they blew late double-digit leads, but they were able to beat Detroit 19-17 on the final play on Oct. 10 and Carolina 34-28 in overtime on Oct. 17. But this time they didn’t survive
“We’ve got to put the foot on the gas,” Thielen said.
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