ARLINGTON, Texas -- Matthew Stafford lost to his hometown team again, and the playoff plans are on hold for the Detroit Lions.
Dez Bryant sandwiched his first career touchdown pass between a two scoring catches, Ezekiel Elliott ran for two TDs and the Dallas Cowboys kept the Lions from clinching a postseason spot with a 42-21 victory Monday night.
Detroit (9-6) still controls its postseason fate despite a second consecutive loss after five consecutive victories. The Lions will be at home against Green Bay (9-6) with the NFC North title at stake in the finale Sunday.
"It's a one-game season," Stafford said. "If you told me in Week 17 we would have a game at our place and got a chance to win the division, I'd take it all day."
Stafford, a championship-winning high school quarterback in the Dallas area, had a 1-yard scoring run, but was sacked four times -- matching a season high -- almost two years after losing a wild-card game at the Cowboys.
He was 26 of 46 for 260 yards, including an interception that set up Elliott's 1-yard touchdown early in the third quarter to break a 21-21 halftime tie.
The Cowboys (13-2) didn't let up en route to a seventh consecutive home victory evenn though they have home-field advantage already wrapped up.
No Dallas team has ever won more than 13 games in a season, but two others have matched it.
"There's just one way to play," Coach Jason Garrett said. "You can't put different meaning on different competition, like all of a sudden this is less important than that. That's not how we operate."
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One indication of how serious they were about this one came late in the third quarter, when Bryant took a reverse pitch from Dak Prescott and tucked the ball as if planning to run before pulling up and tossing a lefty lob to tight end Jason Witten for an easy 10-yard score and a 35-21 lead.
Witten, the normally stoic 14th-year tight end, flashed Bryant's celebratory "X" and was soon mirrored by the often-exuberant receiver.
"We've been working on that about five or six weeks, maybe a little longer," Bryant said. "You know how you practice plays and sometimes you don't run them? I did not think we were going to call that play. And we did, and we made it happen."
Bryant broke a tie for second with Hall of Famer Michael Irvin on Dallas' career touchdown receptions list with his 66th in the first half. The club record of 71 belongs to another Hall of Famer, Bob Hayes.
Elliott, the NFL rushing leader, had a 55-yard touchdown run in the first half and finished with 80 yards on 12 carries. He has 15 touchdowns rushing, two behind league-leading LeGarrette Blount of New England.
Elliott, who is 177 yards shy of Eric Dickerson's 33-year-old rookie rushing record of 1,808 yards, was almost upstaged by Detroit's "double-Z" -- Zach Zenner.
The little-known undrafted back in his second year out of South Dakota State, filling in with Theo Riddick sidelined for a third consecutive game with a wrist injury, had a career-high 64 yards and two touchdowns at halftime. But Zenner faded in the second half, finishing with 67 yards.
"Found some creases, made some nice runs," Stafford said. "We've got to have more of it. We've got to find a way in the second half to get a couple more yards here or there on the ground."
The Cowboys' already-depleted defensive line sustained two more injuries in the first half, to Terrell McClain (ankle) and Ryan Davis (knee). Starting end Tyrone Crawford missed his first game of the season with shoulder and hamstring injuries and cornerback Anthony Brown left in the first half with a possible concussion. Defensive end Randy Gregory did make his season debut after serving a 14-game suspension for violating the NFL's substance-abuse policy. The second-year player almost sacked Stafford in the fourth quarter and had two tackles.
Sports on 12/27/2016