LANDOVER, Md. – This match was tied at 3-3 at halftime. The score was 13-9 after six minutes of the fourth quarter.

To use an analogy, there are probably many people who are somewhat sober around midnight or 1 a.m

But it is the last hour – and in this case the last five minutes – that can turn the most normal situation upside down.

Make no mistake, this Cowboys-Commanders game was downright drunk.

Are you serious? Five touchdowns in the last five minutes? Two kickoff returns for touchdowns, including KaVontae Turpin’s fumbled kickoff, slow jog to center, then a burst, a spin, another burst and a touchdown that may go down as one of the greatest special teams plays in team history .

And to think we weren’t even done with the drama yet.

The first 55 minutes were like an old-school NFC East game with more mistakes than big plays. The final five minutes were something you’d see at Wimbledon, with the back-and-forth volleys probably giving everyone in the stadium a sore neck.

Let me just say this before we get too far into this game. I get a lot of questions, especially on the daily podcast Cowboys storyline, about my favorite game of all time. I always bring up my first game to beat the team in 1999, when the Cowboys rallied from 21 down in the fourth quarter to beat Washington in Week 1. Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin, Troy Aikman and Rocket Ismail made huge plays. It’s just never going to be better than this one, because it was the first.

Well, right now, as I sit here trying to catch my breath, I’m going to say that this last game against Washington is a close second.

Who knows, 25 years from now, it’s unlikely that names like Cooper Rush, Turpin, Josh Butler, Luke Schoonmaker and Chauncey Golston will still be used like the ones I just spit out. But I can promise you that we won’t find another game where there was so much back and forth in the last five minutes.

The funny thing is, I saw on Twitter that the first comment sent to me was how lucky the Cowboys were that Washington missed that extra point.

Well, I’ll say this in return…the Cowboys have been mentioned a lot in recent weeks, and “luck” is certainly not one of them.

So Commanders kicker Austin Seibert missed a crucial kick to tie the game. Well, he missed another one in the third quarter, which probably played a role in the second. You know, these kickers have to think a lot. Once things get into their heads, it can be difficult to block it out.

So let’s turn it around and compliment Brandon Aubrey. His first two kicks of the day were not good: one was blocked and the second hit the upright.

How did he react? Well, he made a 46-yard field goal before halftime, which gave the Cowboys some momentum heading into the break, with the score tied at 3-3. Then he hit a 48-yard field goal in the fourth and all his extra points, which we know are crucial.

So if the Cowboys were lucky that Washington missed the kick, give them credit for making their own kick.

If you really think about the entire 60 minutes of football, the Cowboys were the better team. Are they a better team overall? Well, the record doesn’t suggest that at this point.

But if you looked at that game closely, from offense, defense and special teams, the Cowboys were better. Rush will never be as flashy as Jayden Daniels, who is already a star in this league. But Rush was better on Sunday because he took care of the ball a little better and controlled the entire game better.

Let’s also not forget the players who weren’t there for the Cowboys. This was the game they had to give back players like Jordan Lewis, Marshawn Kneeland and DaRon Bland. Still, they had to play without both starting guards, Zack Martin and Tyler Smith, along with cornerback Trevon Diggs and tight end Jake Ferguson. My count had a total of 13 combined Pro Bowls on the inactive list.

And think about it: some of the most important players in the game were the guys who directly supported the injured players. Butler was phenomenal with 12 tackles, a sack and three pass breakups for Diggs. TJ Bass and Brock Hoffman brought some attitude up the middle of the line, and the Cowboys ran the ball quite well, pushing the pile a few times to open up some running lanes. And Schoonmaker had two catches, but both were big, including the 22-yard touchdown catch that should have iced the game.

Rush is of course the next man up for Dak Prescott and certainly had his best performance of the season. That was the veteran backup we expected to see. Nothing dynamic, but solid and effective.

Now you can win that way if your defense lights up. And it sucks that they gave up the 86-yard touchdown in the final seconds to spoil the phenomenal effort for most of the game. But overall, you have to give Mike Zimmer’s crew a lot of credit for the way they kept the commanders out of control for most of the day. It wasn’t perfect, but it was something to build on, especially if they can get some guys back from injury.

As I type this, I’m still going back to the stat sheet and trying to tell myself that the game actually happened.

But that certainly happened. So far this season, one unexpected event after another has occurred, week in and week out. Most of them have gone against the Cowboys.

Fittingly, they finally got the ball to bounce their way… or hook left.