Halftime: 'Wacky' Cowboys 13, Bewildered Steelers 9

ARLINGTON - Part "gutsy,'' part "wacky,'' the Dallas Cowboys emerged from the first half of Sunday's NFL Week 9 "mismatch'' with the powerful Pittsburgh Steelers here at AT&T Stadium not feeling too "mismatched'' at all ...

But still "feeling it'' when it comes to their bizarre brand of football, all part of a 13-9 halftime score.

Ezekiel Elliott is playing with a hamstring problem and surviving. Practice-squad vet Garrett Gilbert is surviving, too, with no Dak Prescott and no Andy Dalton available, leaving him to throw his first career TD pass.

The Steelers, 7-0 coming into the game and 14-point favorites over the battered and hapless Cowboys, were fooled by a kooky Dallas lateral-pass punt return and bedeviled by the home team's defensive aggressiveness, which sent Pittsburgh QB Ben Roethlisberger limping to the locker room just before intermission.

A typical up-and-down moment: Pittsburgh missed 54-yard field goal attempt at the halftime buzzer ... but that snap was wiped out by a Steelers’ false start penalty. Chris Boswell - who'd earlier missed an extra point - then made his ensuing 59-yarder.

It can be argued that the Steelers entered this one taking the Cowboys lightly, and that maybe they will pay for that. Or, it could be argued that their two-touchdown superiority will show itself in a second half that promises to be full of as many deflected-passes-turned-catches, missed-kicks-turned-makes and heroes-turned-goats - and vice versa - as the first half.