ARLINGTON, Texas -- On one end of a raucous visitors locker room at AT&T Stadium, Seattle Seahawks tight ends Luke Willson and Nick Vannett moved to the techno music that was blaring through the speakers.
On the other end, Bobby Wagner gave fellow linebacker K.J. Wright some good-natured grief about the stomach bug that left him confined to his hotel-room bed all of Sunday. He jokingly offered repeated warnings to the assembled media to keep a safe distance.
Wagner struck a serious tone when asked what Sunday's performance meant to Seattle's defense coming on the heels of the disaster that was last week's 42-7 loss to the Rams.
"Last week left a bad taste in our mouth," he said. "We wanted to get out there and really just dominate. We had a lot of people doubting us, a lot of people, and sleeping on us, and we love it. We like to silence the doubters."
The doubts and long-term questions about Seattle's defense won't be silenced for good, but they will at least be temporarily quelled after what that group did Sunday in carrying the Seahawks to a 21-12 win over the Dallas Cowboys.
The defense kept Dallas out of the end zone, yielding only four field goals. It picked off Dak Prescott twice and forced a third turnover with a strip of receiver Dez Bryant, who was held to 44 yards on three catches. It recorded four sacks, generating pressure both with a four-man rush and with some well-timed corner blitzes. And it bottled up Ezekiel Elliott after some early trouble.
Dallas seemed intent on feeding Elliott in his first game back from suspension, and it's hard to fault that strategy given that Seattle had allowed 244 yards last week to Todd Gurley & Co., the most against the Seahawks since 2010. It didn't look promising when Elliott gained 51 yards on 11 carries (a 4.6-yard average) through the first quarter. But his final 13 carries gained 46 yards (a 3.5-yard average), a turnaround that coach Pete Carroll credited to an adjustment in pad level by Seattle's defensive linemen.
"They have playmakers across the board with Dak, Zeke and Dez," Wagner said. "To hold those guys to no touchdowns, that's big-time for us."
The Seahawks needed their defense more than ever Sunday. They managed all of 44 yards of offense in the first half and finished with 136, their fewest in a game since 2013. They became the first team since the Eagles in 1966 to win a game with more penalty yards -- 142 on 11 accepted penalties -- than offensive yards, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
The Seahawks' inability to move the ball on offense necessitated big plays on defense in order to keep them in the game. They got three of them, none bigger than Justin Coleman's 30-yard pick-six. Byron Maxwell's forced fumble on Bryant and Wright's interception of Prescott also set up Seattle touchdowns.
Carroll was asked if Seattle's defense showed pride Sunday after what happened a week earlier.
"I don't think there's any question," he said. "We're all in the same boat together on that one. There's no question. They responded beautifully. I thought it was really obvious."
Last week was a trying one for a Seattle defense that is not used to getting pushed around. It seemed to take the brunt of the fallout from that loss, even though the Seahawks' most lopsided defeat under Carroll was an all-three-phases effort. It led to speculation about the future of that group after Mike Silver of NFL.com reported that drastic changes could be coming on that side of the ball. And it also led to an odd postgame tiff between Wagner and free safety Earl Thomas.
Thomas was involved in another bizarre postgame scene Sunday when he tracked down Jason Garrett and urged the Cowboys' coach to acquire him if he were to ever become available. That comment and others from Thomas have left a strong impression that he believes -- for whatever reason -- that his days in Seattle could be numbered.
Thomas' situation aside, the conversation about an extreme makeover of Seattle's defense can wait at least another week. The Seahawks under Carroll have seemed to rise to the occasion in the face of adverse situations. They did it again Sunday.
"We've been doing this since I've been here the past seven years," said Wright, one of the team's longest-tenured players. "Whenever our backs are against the wall, we just find a way to bounce back. This team is not going to lie down easily. We could have easily taken the loss against the Rams, come back, pouted and moaned all throughout the week. But we're a group of guys that love to play ball, and we know that we're a talented football team. So we came out and handled business today."
And because of it, the Seahawks are still alive in the NFC playoff race. They can secure a wild-card berth with a win over Arizona next week in Seattle and a Falcons loss to the Panthers in Atlanta.
"We're still in it, we're still fighting," Wagner said. "That's what we do."