The last time the Cowboys played such a truly awful football game in Missouri, I thought the only thing that made any real sense was to fire the head coach.

Sure enough, after the season, it happened. The Rams fired Jim Haslett since St. Louis didn't win another game after beating Wade Phillips and the Cowboys last Oct. 19, and they haven't won since.

The only question is: Should Miles Austin's record-breaking day and overtime-ending 60-yard catch and run on a pass from Tony Romo that gave Dallas a 26-20 win over the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday save Phillips' job this time?

The appropriate and logical answer is no. You can't coach a game or manage a business making results-based decisions. You can't even stoop to the lowly form of writing sports columns in that manner.

Regarding the latter, it represents the lowest form of cop-out. A team makes a high-profile trade and you write, "Well, it's a great deal if the team wins, a lousy one if they don't."

Thanks for the insight. An 8-year-old could figure that out.

You have to examine the evidence available at the time and decide whether it's a trade that should or shouldn't help a team.

On a different plane higher up the business scale, general managers and owners (in the Cowboys' unique case, this is one person) should look at the body of work and the direction of a team, not just the final play of an overtime game, to make decisions of significance.

It's not that I expect Jerry Jones to do the right thing this week. In fact, I'm certain he won't.

But he's more than capable of it.

Fire a coach after a regular-season victory?

It's rare, yes, but this is a man who changed coaches after a Super Bowl win.

The right thing now would be to remove Phillips during the bye week and give offensive coordinator Jason Garrett - the onetime heir apparent whose career has been a roller-coaster ride since 2007 - the final 11 games to see if he can create a sense of urgency as head coach.

I have my doubts since this club is so far removed from real accountability, but it's worth a shot. In fact, if Jones wants to keep that playoff winless streak from reaching 13 years, it's his only chance.

The fact that the Cowboys actually won, 26-20, against the winless Chiefs should not be a deciding factor. The Cowboys broke all the rules regarding letting a bad team hang around, making poor plays and turnovers to help a bad team, committing atrocious, inexplicable penalties at all the worst times.

Have you ever seen a defense at any level called for offside five times in one half? That includes four times in seven plays, all by different players.

The Cowboys' current head coach-defensive coordinator said he wasn't sure what was happening, which came as no real surprise.

Jones said he thought the unnecessary roughness penalty on safety Alan Ball was a huge play and "a tough call," but really it was just a terrible mistake. Did Ball hit the receiver in the head as called or just come close, leaving it to the official's interpretation?

Doesn't matter. Either way, it was on a third-and-26 play! A catch by the Chiefs' receiver would not have come close to a first down.

It's the kind of mistake a team like Dallas makes all the time. That's why its 3-2 record leaves die-hard fans hopeful, but it's also why this team is losing ground on the teams it needs to pursue in the NFC East.

Jones, who said he never considered a coaching change even when Dallas was losing the game, recognizes that much. I asked him about the difference between needing overtime to beat the Chiefs while watching the Giants (44-7 over Oakland) and Eagles (33-14 over Tampa Bay) beat up on bad teams Sunday.

"We ought to be aware of that fact, that we aren't playing as well as those teams apparently are," Jones said. "This loss could have been very impactful. It would have put us at three losses, and that's just too close for this type of thing to happen."

And that's just how close the Cowboys were to 2-3.

The bottom line Sunday wasn't a season-saving win for the Cowboys. It had more the feel of a job-saving win for Phillips, making the other save impossible and prolonging the start of a franchise turnaround until 2010 or beyond.