Coach Wade Phillips said the slump that saw the Cowboys (7-4) lose four of six games at midseason wasn't without its benefits, the most prominent being a more committed defense, which they'll unleash on Seattle (2-9) today.

"I don't think it ever helps you to lose," Phillips said. "But we went through a couple of games where we lost and didn't play good run defense, and it made us concentrate, work harder and scheme better."

As a result, the Cowboys allowed a combined 118 rushing yards in wins the past two weeks over Washington and San Francisco. In the three games before their two-game winning streak, the Cowboys yielded a combined 428 rushing yards.

The turnaround is a significant accomplishment considering the Redskins and 49ers feature two of the league's best backs in Clinton Portis and Frank Gore, respectively.

"We shut both of 'em down," Phillips said. "Like I said, it doesn't help you to lose, but our defense in that rough stretch learned to fight and maybe step up and say, 'Hey, we got to make plays to help win games,' rather than leaning on the offense."

Said linebacker Greg Ellis: "We were humbled. I don't want to say we needed to have lost any games. I don't like saying that. But I think the humbling experiences we've had this year have helped us because our approach now is a lot better than our approach at the beginning."

During their slump, the Cowboys allowed St. Louis' Steven Jackson to rush for 160 yards and the New York Giants' Brandon Jacobs to gain 117. The Cowboys lost both games.

In between those contests, Dallas held run-oriented Tampa Bay to just 48 yards on the ground. That effort was diminished the next week, when the Giants rushed for 200 yards, a season-high for a Dallas foe.

But the Cowboys recovered to hold Portis to 68 yards and Gore to only 26. Thanks to those strong efforts Dallas ranks 10th in the league in run defense, yielding an average of 98.4 yards per game.

"I thought we could do it all along," Phillips said. "We didn't obviously. But I thought we were better than what we showed a couple of weeks in there. Even in the Giants game, in the first half, they really didn't have anything running-wise on us."

But the defense is doing more than just stopping the run. Four different players sacked the 49ers' Shaun Hill.

That's significant considering most of the pressure generated previously came from just two players - linebacker DeMarcus Ware and nose tackle Jay Ratliff.

In addition to Ware, the following players had sacks against San Francisco: Ellis, linebacker Anthony Spencer and safety Ken Hamlin.

"I like for it to come from different people because you have different threats," Phillips said. "If it's just all from one person, they can double them all the time. And they try to do that with DeMarcus, but he still gets there."

Ware is second in the league in sacks with 12.

"We hadn't been successful (with pressure), but now we're mixing a bunch of things up," cornerback Terence Newman said. "We're going to have a lot of teams on their heels because they don't know what we're going to do. We're throwing all kinds of stuff out there now."

Like Phillips, Newman credits tough times for making the defense better.

"It showed we weren't as good as we thought we were," Newman said. "It was kind of a blessing in disguise in that it made us work."