Each week, THN chooses their three players of the game at each position. Here are week fifteen’s selections:
Offense: Chris Cooley
”Captain Chaos” had the best game of his career, catching 6 passes for 71 yards. Three of those receptions went for touchdowns. On the first, Cooley dived to make an unbelievable catch that not many wide receivers could make. On his second, quarterback Mark Brunell passed to a wide open Cooley in the corner of the endzone. On his third TD of the day, he broke a tackle from cornerback Jacques Reeves and ran over cornerback Terrance Newman en route to a thirty yard score.
Incidentally, Cooley was on the cover of the GameDay Program being sold at the stadium.
Defense: Phillip Daniels
Like Cooley, Daniels also played the best game of his 10-year career. Daniels tied Diron Talbert and Dexter Manley with the Redskins single-game record of 4 sacks. Daniels tortured Dallas offensive tackle Torrin Tucker all night. The defense pressured Dallas quarterback Drew Bledsoe the whole game.
Daniels also tipped a Bledsoe pass that was picked off by defensive tackle Cornelius Griffin. On just the third play in the second half, linebacker Marcus Washington sacked Bledsoe, forcing the quarterback to fumble. The fumble was recovered by–who else?–Phillip Daniels.
To make the night even better for the locker room leader, it was Daniels’ son’s 13th birthday.
Special Teams: John Hall
Hall was perfect on the night, connecting on all 5 extra point opportunities. Hall was also very solid on kickoffs, helping limit Dallas to just 22.7 yards per kick return. He even added another tackle to his resume. On the opening kickoff in the second half, Tyson Thompson broke to the left with just Hall in front of him. Hall opened his stance and waited for him, making a full body tackle that stopped Thompson on his longest return of the night (30 yards).
One testament to Sunday night’s special teams play is that not one Dallas drive began in Washington territory.
Edit: This blog was archived in May of 2016 from our original articles database.It was originally posted by Jake Russell