Despite coming in as the NFC’s #2 seed, and a 7-8.5pt favourite at most sports books by kickoff, the Dallas Cowboys’ run of playoff incompetence continued Sunday, falling 48-32 to Green Bay.
Dallas, which had won 16 straight home games coming into the game, were behind from the opening kickoff as Green Bay went wire to wire to earn the win. Packers QB Jordan Love was 16 for 21 for 272 yards and 3 TD’s as Green Bay’s balanced attack had little trouble moving the ball on the Cowboys defense this afternoon.
Aaron Jones got the scoring started at the 7:08 mark of the 1st quarter with the first of his 3 TD’s on the day and the Packers never looked back from there. Jones finished the game with 118 yards on 21 carries, adding 13 yards receiving as well.
Green Bay went up 27-0, before the Cowboys got some favourable calls to allow them to score before halftime, to cut the deficit to 3 scores at the break.
Despite finishing with 403 yards and 3 TDs on the day, Cowboys QB Dak Prescott wasn’t at his best, as he and WR CeeDee Lamb struggled to get anything going in the 1st half of the game. A Darnell Savage pick six was one of several Prescott miscues on the day as he finished with 2 INTs and more than a few sailed passes when all was said and done.
The lone bright spot for Dallas on the afternoon was the play of tight end Jake Ferguson who led the team with 10 receptions, 3 TDs and 93 yards. RB Tony Pollard led the way for the Cowboys on the ground turning 15 touches into 56 yards and 1 score on the ground. However Dallas was forced to give up the run fairly early on in an attempt to play catchup, resulting in only 123 total rushing yards on the afternoon, while Prescott made 60 pass attempts.
Following the game, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was at a loss for words.
Mike McCarthy’s job status, as well as the long term outlook for QB Dak Prescott were hot topics of conversation in the postgame scrum. However both Jones and players alike were expectedly tight lipped with their comments.
With a 1-3 playoff record as Cowboys’ head coach, McCarthy was rumoured to be on the hotseat if Dallas failed to go on a deep postseason run this season. And giving up 48 points to a heavy underdog at home will do little to quiet talk about his job safety.
Already the NFL rumour mill has kicked into high gear with regards to “whom” could replace McCarthy if he is indeed let go. And it didn’t take long for whispers about recently released former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick to spring up.
For now, the Cowboys will give fairly boilerplate answers of “we’ll evaluate everything” in terms of the team’s burning offseason questions. But with an unbelievable crop of coaches available, including Belichick, Michigan Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh, recently fired Titans head coach Mike Vrabel and more, if Dallas were inclined to make a change, it would need to take place in relatively short order.
Green Bay will now advance to play San Francisco in the Divisional Round of the NFL playoffs next week.
Photo: Keith Allison. This file is licensed under theΒ Creative CommonsΒ Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 GenericΒ license.