In his first trip to Dallas since signing with the rival Washington Redskins during the offseason, defensive end Jason Hatcher said "it was a thrill" scoring a 20-17 overtime victory against his former teammates.
"It was awesome," he told the media after the game. "It was a great team win. Me coming back home, like I told them, it wasn't about me.
Here's an exclusive look from the Washington Redskins' sideline during their Week 8 game with the Dallas Cowboys.
"It is just about getting this next win, and we went out and did it. It was awesome."
Hatcher – who spent his first eight NFL seasons with the Cowboys – is coming off a Pro Bowl season in which he recorded a career-high 11.5 sacks.
While he didn't take down Cowboys quarterbacks Tony Romo and Brandon Weeden in the game, the Redskins defense was swarming, registering five sacks and two forced fumbles.
Two of those sacks came on the Cowboys' first two third-down attempts of the game.
It set the tone for what would become a strong outing for the defense.
"That's important, especially on the defensive side of the ball," Hatcher said of the sacks. "That just gave us confidence and we just came [with] even more. We did a great job of hitting him early and we continued to hit."
Despite his league-wide reputation of weaseling his way of out collapsing pockets and extending plays, the Redskins were able to keep Romo contained for most of the night.
And when they did, it led to consistent pressure.
"We weren't trying to knock him out the game at all," Hatcher said. "We just applied pressure, not letting him out the pocket; we did a great job of doing that. When he gets out the pocket, he makes all those big plays, so we kept in the pocket, did a great job and the blitz came free."
Then in overtime, after the offense held onto the ball for a nine-play drive that was capped off by a Kai Forbath 40-yard field goal, the defense had perhaps its best series of the season.
On first down, Cowboys running back DeMarco Murray was able to rush forward for an eight-yard gain.
It was the closest they'd get to a first down, as the Redskins would hold the Cowboys short of the marker on the next three games to claim the victory.
Hatcher credied their final stop to fresh legs.
"The last game, they kept the ball a ton, so we were able to stay fresh down the stretch," he said. "So hats off to the offense for keeping the ball, putting drives together and keeping us fresh."
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