KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The analogy was true before Sunday's game and it's true now. The Cowboys are not the prettiest bride in the church.

At least they don't have to go into the bye week wondering if they made a horrible mistake from which they can't recover.

The Cowboys were more thankful than euphoric with a 26-20 overtime victory over Kansas City. It took the most prolific game by a receiver in Cowboys history to overcome myriad mistakes and another crucial defensive letdown to slip by a winless Chiefs team.

A sigh of relief? Linebacker DeMarcus Ware admits to those emotions soon after Miles Austin capped his 250-yard afternoon with a 60-yard touchdown reception to put the Preston Road Trophy on the plane back to Dallas.

"Was it pretty?" tight end Jason Witten asked. "No. Did we play our best football? No.

"But give a lot of credit to these guys to battle and find a way."

One more play. That is the theme coach Wade Phillips and his staff drilled into his players. One more play against the New York Giants or Denver Broncos, and the Cowboys wouldn't have been in their 2-2 predicament entering Arrowhead Stadium.

One more play in each of those games, and maybe defensive end Marcus Spears wouldn't have talked about how the Cowboys weren't the prettiest bride in the church in the days leading up to the game.

The Cowboys weren't pretty for a large part of this game. Austin dropped two touchdown passes before he caught two. Tony Romo and Patrick Crayton each fumbled. Kansas City, wearing the Dallas Texans uniforms as a throwback to when the franchise played at the Cotton Bowl from 1960-62, needed only 11 offensive yards to jump to a 10-0 lead after those mistakes.

In the first half, it looked like Missouri is where the Cowboys go to watch their season die. It was a 34-14 loss in St. Louis – on this same October weekend – that accelerated last season's downward spiral.

"We had a slow start," Phillips said. "I don't know why."

Those problems didn't disappear in the second half. Penalties continue to dog this team. There were 13 for 90 yards, prompting owner Jerry Jones to concede, "we really stunk today relative to making mistakes."

The defense played well but again allowed an opponent to move the ball at the worst possible time. Kansas City's only sustained drive of the afternoon came on its final possession of regulation, when it went 74 yards in 10 plays to tie the score with 24 seconds left.

Did a case of deja lose grip the Cowboys much as it did against the Giants and Broncos?

"Why would I talk about us losing?" linebacker Bradie James asked. "We didn't lose the game. "You all [media] are going to talk about that losing stuff.

"I mean, we didn't lose. Last week, we lost at the end. So we found a way to win. How about that? It's up to me to accentuate the positive, the positive being we found a way to win."

The Cowboys won largely because Austin came up huge in the first start of his career for the injured Roy Williams.

"Losing was not an option today," James said.

It may not have been an option, but it was a distinct possibility.

"We didn't do all the right things, obviously," Phillips said. "But the bottom line is winning.

"I think we came together more as a team than you would with a different kind of victory. You learn who is going to come through and who is going to make plays."