IRVING, Texas, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- Quincy Carter hit rookie Antonio Bryant with a 24-yard touchdown pass on a fourth-down play with 56 seconds remaining Sunday to rally the Dallas Cowboys to a 14-13 win over the Carolina Panthers.
On fourth and 14, Bryant made a leaping grab, but not before juggling the ball several times as he fell into the end zone. The play was upheld in a video review.
"We hadn't run that play all game and I kept asking the coaches to run it," Bryant said. "They said to keep patient. I told them I was going to catch the game winner."
The Cowboys (3-3) failed to score in the first 56 minutes of the game, but Carter led two late scoring drives, one of them ending with a fluke, 80-yard touchdown reception by Joey Galloway with 3:55 remaining that brought the Cowboys within six points.
Safety Deon Grant nearly intercepted a pass from a scrambling Carter, but instead tipped the ball right to Galloway, who ran untouched down the sideline for Dallas' first score.
"I always think you have to keep playing until the scoreboard shows triple zeroes," said Carter, who celebrated his 25th birthday with the come-from-behind win. "The quarterback gets too much credit when we win and too much blame when we lose, but that's the job of the quarterback. I have to give credit to all my teammates for believing."
"Give Quincy credit, he hung in there until the end," Cowboys coach Dave Campo said. "Quincy was the best I've seen him on the sidelines. He was always into the game and telling guys that we were going to get it done."
Carter faced constant pressure from the Carolina defense which tied a franchise record with seven sacks, including three by rookie end Julius Peppers, who also added an interception.
Despite throwing an interception and losing a fumble, Carter completed 15 of 32 passes for 225 yards, giving him at least 200 passing yards for the fifth consecutive game.
"That's a good team defensively," Campo said. The only way to do what we did is to play 60 minutes. We had a makeshift offensive line against a good defensive line. One thing our guys do is play to the final whistle."
Chris Weinke, who replaced Rodney Peete in the second half after the starting Carolina quarterback left the game with a headache, completed three passes in the last 51 seconds of the game to move the Panthers to the Dallas 41 with nine seconds remaining.
With no timeouts left, Carolina elected to run one more pass play instead of attempting a 58-yard field goal. That pass was a completion to the 32, but it was made inbounds and time ran out.
The Panthers' final drive was hampered by an injury that forced a timeout and a false start penalty that, by rule, automatically ran 10 seconds off the clock.
"There were some unfortunate things that happened at the end of the game," Weinke said. "So instead of 50 seconds left with two timeouts, we have 20 seconds and one. We were doing everything we could to get out of bounds."
Weinke completed seven of 12 passes for 114 yards while Peete was nine of 15 for 84 yards and produced Carolina's only touchdown, a 25-yard pass to fullback Brad Hoover in the first quarter that gave them a 7-0 lead.
Carolina (3-3) has lost three in a row by a total of seven points since starting the season 3-0, blowing fourth-quarter leads in each loss.
"This has been one of the worst losses that I have been involved in," Panthers Coach John Fox said. "It's a shame that we played so hard and so well only to come up short in the end."
Last week, the Panthers blew a 13-6 lead and lost, 16-13, to Arizona when Bill Gramatica kicked a 50-yard field goal with 16 seconds left. Two weeks ago, Carolina's Shayne Graham missed a 24-yard field goal with 13 seconds remaining in a 17-14 loss at Green Bay.
Despite struggling on offense all year, the Cowboys find themselves just a half game out of the lead in the NFC East.
