ARLINGTON -- Montrae Holland is not only lighter. He has pretty good timing.
The veteran guard came back to the Dallas Cowboys this week, got into the starting lineup, and contributed to DeMarco Murray's 253-yard rushing performance.
"I told him, 'This was a great game to have this type of a performance out of you,'" Holland said. "It makes it worth it coming back."
It was worth a change in fortunes for the Cowboys' running game, which got its licks in against the NFL's worst rushing defense.
"It's not as if we were playing the teams we've been playing in the past," offensive line coach Hudson Houck said. "Fortunately, we did what we had to do. And were supposed to do."
The re-signing of Holland, who injured his hamstring in training camp and was cut just before the season began, and the return to health of fullback Tony Fiammetta gave the Cowboys a more veteran punch on the ground.
Murray took advantage of it with his club-record performance for the Cowboys, who until last week had been starting two rookies and a second-year center in the offensive line.
And they had played with a true fullback in only one game before Sunday.
"Both those guys hadn't been playing a lot and hadn't been practicing," Houck said. "The fact that they were in good shape was really important, and Holland played basically the whole game. We checked him the whole time to make sure he wasn't getting tired. He seemed to weather it pretty well."
The Cowboys played five games without Holland, a nine-year veteran who had spent the previous three years with the Cowboys. So he knew his way around the offense.
So after just one practice last week, the Cowboys had a feeling they were going to start him at left guard, where rookie seventh-round pick Bill Nagy had been playing until breaking his ankle in the previous game.
Even 10 pounds lighter, Holland gave the Cowboys about 25 pounds more than Nagy.
"Ten pounds to me is probably two pounds to a regular person," Holland said with a laugh. "Nah, that's bad. I feel good, though. It's just amazing that I'm back."
Holland deflected credit.
"No, no, no," he said. "We had great communication throughout the whole line. Whenever we saw a problem, we talked to each other and tried to solve it."
The Cowboys' offensive linemen got validation early when Murray ripped off a 91-yard touchdown run. Those kind of plays have an effect on linemen, Houck said.
"I think it gives them a lot of confidence, honestly," he said. "You know, we needed this game to boost up our confidence a little bit more. We hadn't been running the ball very well, obviously, for a number of reasons. We had some guys in and out and different combinations, and we played really good teams that were good against the run."
Carlos Mendez, 817-390-7760
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