(AP) -- Once they stopped beating themselves with penalties, the Dallas Cowboys took command of the NFC East by riding their biggest stars: Tony Romo and Terrell Owens .
Romo hit Owens on two of his four touchdown passes and Dallas opened a big lead in the division by ending the Giants' six-game winning streak with a 31-20 victory on Sunday.
"If you want to call it swagger, yes we have the confidence that we know we can go out and beat teams," said Owens, who broke the game open with second-half TD catches of 25 and 50 yards.
Owens finished with six catches for 125 yards, his third straight 100-yard game. "Obviously today, we had more penalties than we would like and we have to eliminate those," T.O. added.
"That was everybody's emotions running high. There was a little trash-talking by them. We came here. The game was played and I feel like we made a statement."
With the win, the Cowboys (8-1) opened a two-game lead over the Giants (6-3), a three-game edge on Washington (5-4) and a four-game margin on Philadelphia (4-5).
Dallas also swept the season series with New York, so it has the tiebreaker should they finished tied.
(Copyright, The Associated Press)
