Let’s not complicate matters here — that was a butt kicking Thursday night in Arlington, Texas.

You say it was bad refereeing or a bad game plan; or you can say that, hey, it wasn’t that bad because it was only a one score game. But it wasn’t that at all.

The Dallas Cowboys just lined up and played old school, defensive football and defeated the New Orleans Saints 13-10. Actually, the Cowboys dominated them, though the score didn’t reflect it.

And it’s the way the Cowboys did it. Despite Fox’s Troy Aikman constantly gushing about the Dallas offense, the Cowboys won it with the defensive line. The Saints have one of the best offensive lines in the NFL and the Cowboys owned them. Especially up the middle.

Veteran quarterbacks like Drew Brees can handle pressure from the outside. But when it comes from the inside, that’s a different story. Brees look dazed and confused with some of his passes. He threw way too many where-was-he-throwing-that? type passes right from the start.

And he saved one for the end, when his interception (forced by pressure up the middle) floated into nowhere land and was picked off to basically seal the game.

They can say defense is dead in the NFL and it’s basically a 7-on-7 drill these days. That quarterbacks have it too easy. That the rules are stacked against the defense.

And maybe it is in many games. But you can still win a game with great defense and that’s exactly what the Cowboys did Thursday night.

Top NFL teams lose games all the time that make you scratch your head. And this may be one of them for the Saints. But maybe not. Maybe it just proves you can still win without having to score 50 points.