By Matt Stuart | Published | 1 Comment
It got ugly in Dallas. In a game that Dallas seemed destined to win and finally make good on a long playoff run, ended in a very familiar fashion for the Cowboys.
The Cowboys shockingly lost 48-32 to the Green Bay Packers. It was essentially over at the half.
Things might also be over for this current iteration of this Cowboys coaching staff.
The Cowboys became the fist team to lose to a seventh seed, since the playoffs were expanded in 2020. That is not likely to sit well with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who had to feel sick to his stomach at what he was watching from his luxury suite.
The Cowboys were more than a touchdown favorite at home, as the NFC’s second seed. They were facing the youngest team in the NFL, with little to no playoff experience. Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love was making his first career playoff start. Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott was making his seventh start in the playoffs.
But it was Love who looked the far more composed quarterback on this Sunday afternoon.
Love moved the ball effortlessly against a Cowboys defense that finished the regular season giving up just 18.5 points per game, fifth best in the NFL. The Cowboys had been perfect at home this season and had only given up more than twenty points once at AT&T stadium, when they gave up 35 points to the Seattle Seahawks in week 13.
Love finished with three touchdown passes. His top target was Romeo Doubs, who caught six passes for 151-yards and one touchdown. Love added two more touchdowns to Luke Musgrave and Dontayvion Wicks.
As good as Love was, and he finished with a perfect passer rating, it was running back Aaron Jones who may have had the even bigger impact.
Jones got the Packers on the board with the first points of the game when he went up the middle for a three yard touchdown. After Dak Prescott threw an interception on the Cowboys second possession of the game, Jones would score his second touchdown to give the Packers an early 14-0 lead.
Love’s first touchdown pass of the game went to Wicks, on a 20-yard strike over the middle of the field, to give the Packers a 20-0 lead. The Packers would miss the extra point.
On the very next possession for the Cowboys, Prescott, on a pass intended for Ceedee Lamb, was picked off by Darnell Savage for a 64-yard interception returned for a touchdown. That gave the Packers a 27-0 lead in front of a stunned Cowboys fan base at AT&T stadium.
Dallas would score a late touchdown at the end of the half, just as time was expiring, to finally get on the board. But the Packers were just as relentless on offense in the second half.
Green Bay added three more touchdowns in the second half and even though the Cowboys got two late scores in the fourth quarter, mostly the result of the Packers taking their starters out of the game, the outcome was never really in doubt.
Prescott finished with three touchdown, but also two costly interceptions. Overall Prescott was 41 for 60, throwing for 403 yards.
Green Bay gets their first playoff win on the road since defeating the Cowboys, in the divisional round, back in 2016.
Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy lost to his former team on Sunday, and he now has grim playoff record in Dallas. He is 1-3 in the playoff since becoming the Cowboys head coach in 2020, and two of those loses have occurred at home.
The Cowboys season ends with another playoff disappointment. Meanwhile, the Packers will prepare to head out West where they will face the NFC’s top seed San Francisco 49ers in the divisional round next week.
The cowboys need a new coach