Kansas City, Mo. ? The last time the Cowboys played such a truly awful football game in Missouri, I thought the only thing that made any real sense was to fire the head coach.

Sure enough, after the season, it happened. The Rams fired Jim Haslett since St. Louis didn’t win another game after beating Wade Phillips and Dallas last Oct. 19, and they haven’t won since.

The only question is: Should Miles Austin’s record-breaking day and overtime-ending 60-yard catch-and-run on a pass from Tony Romo save Phillips’ job this time?

The appropriate and logical answer is no. You can’t coach a game or manage a business making results-based decisions. You can’t even stoop to the lowly form of writing sports columns in that manner.

Regarding the latter, it represents the lowest form of cop-out. A team makes a high-profile trade, and you write, “Well, it’s a great deal if the team wins, a lousy one if they don’t.”

An 8-year-old could figure that out.

You have to examine the evidence available at the time and decide whether it’s a trade that should or shouldn’t help a team.

On a different plane higher up the business scale, general managers and owners (in the Cowboys’ unique case, this is one person) should look at the body of work and the direction of a team, not just the final play of an overtime game, to make decisions of significance.

It’s not that I expect Jerry Jones to do the right thing this week. In fact, I’m certain he won’t. Fire a coach after a regular-season victory? It’s rare, yes.

The right thing now would be to remove Phillips during the bye week and give offensive coordinator Jason Garrett — the one-time heir apparent whose career has been a roller-coaster ride since 2007 — the final 11 games to see if he can create a sense of urgency as head coach.

I have my doubts, since this club is so far removed from real accountability, but it’s worth a shot. In fact, if Jones wants to keep that playoff winless streak from reaching 13 years, it’s his only chance.

The fact the Cowboys actually won, 26-20, against the winless Chiefs should not be a deciding factor. The Cowboys let a bad team hang around and committed atrocious penalties.

Have you ever seen a defense at any level called for offside five times in one half? That includes four times in seven plays, all by different players.

The Cowboys’ current head coach/defensive coordinator said he wasn’t sure what was happening, which came as no real surprise.

Just to win, the Cowboys needed two stops in overtime, Romo’s second-biggest yardage day ever (351) and Miles Austin to erase a Bob Hayes record that had stood since 1966 with a 250-yard receiving day.

All of that just to beat a winless team that is 2-19 since the start of last season.

All of that just to stay above the .500 mark in a conference that has three teams still unbeaten and six teams with better marks than the Cowboys.

“We didn’t do all the right things, obviously,” Phillips said, “but the bottom line is winning.”

The bottom line Sunday wasn’t a season-saving win for the Cowboys. It had more the feel of a job-saving win for Phillips, making the other save impossible and prolonging the start of a franchise turnaround until 2010 or beyond.