Jean-Jacques Taylor

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ARLINGTON – Miles Austin was sensational. Again.

And Tony Romo was superb.

But please don't get seduced by the sexy display of offensive football we witnessed Sunday afternoon at Cowboys Stadium.

The Cowboys' pass rush won this game.

They hit magical Matt Ryan. They jostled him. Dallas sacked the boy wonder, who's in his second season, four times in its 37-21 victory.

Hey, Ryan had only been sacked twice this season, the league's lowest total. Actually, Ryan hadn't been sacked since the third quarter of Atlanta's first game, covering 123 pass attempts, in part, because the Falcons use a variety of three- and five-step drops to keep him out of harm's way.

Just so you know, the Falcons allowed only 17 sacks last season. Apparently, the Cowboys weren't impressed.

First, they whipped the Falcons' offensive line, then pummeled their quarterback. And they didn't do it with any elaborate blitz packages designed during the bye week.

Instead, they won one-on-one battles.

"When you get around a quarterback and hit him and make him feel some heat, it's going to affect him," said Marcus Spears, who collected the Cowboys' first sack. "You might not see it early, but late in the game, that's when you see them throwing the ball over guys' heads.

"If you're back there getting beat to death, you want it to stop. It's no disrespect to anybody. It's human nature."

This is the dominating defense Mr. Fix It – as Wade Phillips occasionally refers to himself – envisioned when the season began.

He's seen it in spurts at various times during the Cowboys' first five games, but Dallas turned in its most complete performance of the season against a quality opponent.

For the most part, the Cowboys stopped the Falcons' running game and harassed Ryan as soon as Atlanta became one-dimensional offensively. In the second half, they cranked up the intensity and delivered a bevy of body-rattling hits.

It all started with the pass rush, which is Mr. Fix It's specialty.

The pass rush that couldn't sack a mannequin the Cowboys' first two games suddenly has at least three sacks in four consecutive games, including four apiece in each of the past two games.

Dallas, which had a league-leading 59 sacks last season, has 14 this season.

The pass rush even created two turnovers, which is what it's supposed to do. Quarterbacks under duress screw up, whether it's Bart Starr, Joe Montana or Tom Brady.

That's why Ryan struggled.

As he tried to elude DeMarcus Ware and Stephen Bowen in the second quarter, Ryan lobbed a pass that Mike Jenkins easily intercepted. One series later, Ware stripped Ryan and Anthony Spencer recovered.

On the next play, Romo hit Austin for a 59-yard touchdown and a 10-7 Dallas lead.

In the third quarter, Jay Ratliff forced a fumble – Atlanta recovered – on a vicious hit to Ryan's chest. On the next play, Ryan's 5-yard out to Roddy White sailed five feet over the receiver's head.

Coincidence? Nope.

By that time, Ryan was shell-shocked.

Now, the Cowboys didn't play well on the game's first series, which we can probably attribute to the rust associated with not playing a game last week because of the bye.

Atlanta, leading 7-0 after a 16-play, 80-yard drive on its first possession, forced Dallas to punt without yielding a first down.

But Spears and Ware sacked Ryan on consecutive plays, thwarting the drive. Just like that, the Cowboys' pass rush ripped off Ryan's cloak of invincibility. Atlanta's opportunity to seize control of the game had vanished.

"Once we got those sacks early, we were confident that we could pressure him all game," Ware said. "We wanted to rattle him and make him move around in the pocket. We wanted to get in his face."

They did, and it's the reason Ryan had his worst performance of the season.