The Athletic has live coverage of Packers vs Cowboys in the NFC wild card matchup.
LANDOVER, Md. — As the Dallas Cowboys were taking care of business in Washington, D.C., locking up the NFC East and the No. 2 seed, the rest of the NFC playoff picture was coming together. The Green Bay Packers secured the final playoff spot in the conference with a win. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Rams rallied to beat the San Francisco 49ers to solidify the seeding.
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“Regular season is cute,” Cowboys star pass-rusher Micah Parsons said. “People will be like, ‘Oh, you played great for a while.’ But this is legacy. There’s a term, ‘Be phenomenal or be forgotten.’ The way that Jimmy (Johnson) and (Michael Irvin), the way that people show them love, and Charles (Haley), that’s where me, CeeDee (Lamb) and Dak (Prescott) all want to be, into that legacy and earn our way into that type of Cowboys Hall of Fame.”
Parsons and the rest of these Cowboys know that to be revered like those Cowboys are years after their craft, playoff success is non-negotiable. Prescott leading the NFL in touchdown passes this season is phenomenal. Lamb breaking Irvin’s records (in the same 16 games Irvin had) is impressive. Parsons moving past the 13-sack mark for the first time in his career is great.
None of that holds up in the way of those legends of the ’90s if the success in January — at the very least, but eventually into February, too — doesn’t follow. The first ingredient for a strong January is to be solid in-house. The Cowboys’ offense, defense and special teams are clicking at a high level as the postseason preparation begins.
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The other part is the opposition. For the Cowboys, the bracket — at least to the NFC Championship Game — has set up as nicely as they could have hoped.
“Yes, I do, completely,” Cowboys owner and GM Jerry Jones said about if he feels the path to the Cowboys’ first NFC championship in 27 years is manageable. “To have this home game, we’ll see what happens, but if we have success, we’ll have another home game. We feel pretty good about playing at home. If we’ve got to play some place, we prefer to play at home.”
The home-field advantage is the most obvious thing, as the Cowboys have the NFL’s longest active home winning streak (16 games) over the past two seasons. The teams that will be coming through AT&T Stadium present a great opportunity for the Cowboys, too.
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The first order of business for Dallas is a young Green Bay team. The Packers aren’t merely young — they are the youngest in the NFL, according to the average roster age when the first iteration of 53-man rosters were set following the 2023 preseason. They’re led by a 25-year-old quarterback in his first season as a starter and he has 18 starts under his belt.
That’s not to say Jordan Love — second to Prescott (36) in touchdown passes with 32 — and the Packers aren’t talented; they’re just at a different stage of their development, much like the 2016 Cowboys were when they were led by rookies Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott and went against prime Aaron Rodgers, Mike McCarthy and the Packers at AT&T Stadium as the favored top seed. This time, it’s Prescott and the Cowboys who are the battle-tested vets. They’ll be favored, for good reason.
Should the Cowboys take care of business in the first round, they’ll face either the Detroit Lions or the winner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers–Philadelphia Eagles game in the second round.
• The Buccaneers (9-8) are 1-5 against playoff teams this season — their lone win against a playoff team coming against the seventh-seeded Packers a few weeks ago. The Bucs were 4-7 before mounting a 5-1 finish to the season and the Packers were the lone playoff opponent Tampa Bay faced in that stretch.
• After a 10-1 start, the Eagles finished the season reeling, going 1-5 in their last six games. That stretch included three losses against non-playoff teams, including Sunday against the New York Giants when the Eagles fell behind 24-0 in a game they started off playing to win. They’re also dealing with injuries to notable players, including star wide receiver A.J. Brown and quarterback Jalen Hurts. The Cowboys handed the Eagles a 33-13 loss at AT&T Stadium during that final six-game stretch.
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• The Lions would be the most likely opponent — and the toughest test — in the next round. The Cowboys beat the Lions in a controversial nail-biter at home last week. The Cowboys and Lions would again meet at AT&T Stadium and Dallas would have the edge at quarterback with Prescott over Jared Goff. The Cowboys also have an experienced coach in McCarthy, 60, who has been through the ups and downs of the NFL and postseason to a far greater extent than Lions coach Dan Campbell, 47, who is making his playoffs debut.
The Eagles are a veteran, tested team but they’re arguably in the worst shape of any team in the playoffs. The Packers and Lions are talented but they’re young and inexperienced. It could be advantageous for those teams, playing loose with nothing to lose, but it does set the stage for a veteran group like the Cowboys to teach them the ways of this time of year.
After all, it was McCarthy and the Packers who, not too long ago, did that to the Cowboys.
“As a rookie (in 2016), I thought we were just going to go and just wipe (the Packers) off the field,” Prescott said. “That didn’t happen. … I know my emotions now are exciting. I know we have a team — three units, coaching staff, support staff — that’s equipped to play against anybody, anywhere.”
Obviously, the Cowboys’ goals this season extend beyond just the next two games. There are two more games after that the team has aspirations to win and the outlook for those is far more challenging: A potential trip to San Francisco, followed by the final test on the ultimate stage against the AFC’s best.
“History will show you one thing: Don’t think you’ve got it figured out for where you’re going to be as you move through these playoffs,” Jones said.
If the Cowboys beat the Packers and move into the next round of the playoffs, they wouldn’t mind seeing another team take care of the 49ers. Whether that happens or not, because of how the Cowboys finished their season, they don’t have to worry about it until the NFC Championship Game. That’s a place Dallas hasn’t been in nearly three decades.
This season, the path to returning to the final four is as practical as it’s been in a long time.
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(Photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
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