Cowlishaw: There's hope! Maybe this crazy idea of Cowboys in playoffs will happen

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- Tony Romo could not have known exactly what to expect Sunday. He had never returned to play an NFL game after missing two months with an injury. Then the game began at ironically named Sun Life Stadium ... and it was worse than he had imagined.

"There's gusting winds, we've got rain, we've got maybe the best defensive line we'll go up against, their defense is changing coverages, [Ndamukong] Suh moves after not moving around all year ... but you look at it and say, 'That's the way it's supposed to be. That's the NFL.'

"You take it as a challenge and it makes it even more enjoyable, if that makes any sense."

Romo survived, occasionally thrived and certainly enjoyed his first NFL test in nine weeks, and, yes, the Cowboys won for the first time since his last start in Philadelphia on Sept. 20. Romo threw two touchdowns, was intercepted twice and mostly lifted this team by his presence, and that was enough to allow Dallas to dismiss the Dolphins 24-14.

On a day where backup quarterbacks provided victories for Denver, Houston and Indianapolis, the Cowboys were thrilled to send theirs back to the bench.

So let the Cowboys celebrations begin. And let them end just as abruptly. The undefeated Carolina Panthers will be here in a matter of hours, it seems.

The Cowboys are winners, and they're alive because no one else in the NFC East won Sunday, and we'll just have to see how long Romo's return can carry a 3-7 team. Maybe the euphoria is gone before the pumpkin pie has been devoured Thursday. Or maybe Romo came back just in the nick of time to allow this crazy idea of a 2-7 team reaching the playoffs to come to fruition.

It still looks like a long shot from here. The beginning wasn't pretty. His first completion was a left-handed toss made under duress that came up just short of the first-down marker.

"I practiced that about seven or eight years ago," Romo said. "So I was ready."

Romo was rusty and in addition to being picked off twice and getting sacked twice, he bounced two passes and missed a couple of open targets. That, he explained, was a sign of the rust.

"Sometimes I threw it away or threw low because you're not 100 percent certain. That comes with the layoff," he said.

Throwing it into the ground beats doing what his his counterpart did. Ryan Tannehill broke up a scoreless punters' duel in the second quarter with a pick-6, the easiest touchdown linebacker Rolando McClain will ever score from 12 yards out.

With minimal exceptions the defense played well, and Romo even got credit for that.

"Our defense was very hungry, but we had Romo out there," safety Barry Church said. "I just felt like we had one of our best players back in Romo. That [made] a heck of a lot of difference."

Late in the second quarter, Romo engineered his most impressive drive, a 93-yard touchdown march that included overcoming a second-and-27. His 31-yard touchdown pass to Terrance Williams was his finest throw of the day.

Probably the best sign for the Cowboys? Romo led the Cowboys to victory in much the same way he did in 2014 -- he handed the ball off. A lot.

Darren McFadden and the newest Cowboy, Robert Turbin, combined for 164 yards on 36 carries. That's how Miami ended up with the football for barely 21 minutes, minimizing any danger that Tannehill might have posed in this one.

Thoughts of McFadden having hit a wall against Tampa Bay (32 yards on 17 carries) were unfounded. His 129 yards rushing was his second best total as a Cowboy and suggested that Romo may have the running support he will need to lead this team back into contention.

Dez Bryant hauled in the go-ahead touchdown, the 50th he has caught from Romo as they moved one past Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin for that specific record. Bryant said Romo's return "gives everyone that much more juice. We all know who our leader is."

Jerry Jones, eternal president of the Cowboys' optimist club, put it as only he can: "When this season is over, I want our fans to say, 'But had they had Romo, this might have been one of the best teams or the best team in the NFL.'"

As was pointed out Sunday, there are three undefeated teams this late in the season -- New England, Carolina and the Cowboys with Romo. One of those will fall from the ranks at AT&T Stadium late Thursday afternoon.

All you can say after Sunday is that the one with the recent seven-game losing streak has a fighting chance.