The Packers still "own" the Cowboys as they have since 2008 with impressive Wild Card win

 

As I mentioned last week, the Packers have had the Cowboys’ number in the post-Favre era, winning 7 of their last 8 regular season games against them (one the 23-point come-from-behind win behind Matt Flynn), and two playoff wins. Make that three playoff wins against the Cowboys and 10 of the past 11 meetings against the Cowboys. The Packers actually won 8 of the first 9 meetings against the Cowboys—two of them the last two NFL championship games of the Lombardi era—which meant that the Packers were just 4-15 against them in between. Still, overall, the Packers are a “surprising” 22-17 against the Cowboys.

And the Packers had won five straight in the Cowboys new stadium, including the 2010 Super Bowl. So the Cowboys’ No.2 seed position didn’t mean much when the pressure was on; this was a team that had a reputation for not playing well under pressure, and could get into trouble if it fell behind early. Furthermore, despite winning one Super Bowl with the Packers, Coach Mike McCarthy had over time become the object of frustration for Packer fans during his tenure, although to what extent that was his fault could be speculated, as we saw the Matt LaFleur was no more successful that McCarthy in getting Aaron Rodgers to make the plays in the (next) biggest game.

McCarthy was probably familiar with the defects in Rodgers’ game, but he had never seen Jordan Love before. Listening to the game on the Packer radio network, it was just one big play after another as the Packers were seemingly unstoppable until their last three-and-out possessions that might have been concerning if the Packers were facing a Brady or Manning; but instead it was Dak Prescott, who threw two first half interceptions, one returned for a touchdown by Darnell Savage (his first INT of the season), and another by Jaire Alexander (his first of the season) that gave the Packers the ball in the red zone and another easy touchdown. The Packers had intercepted only seven passes in 17 games in the regular season.

Although the 48-32 score seemed “competitive,” it was hardly that for most of the game. Just how bad was the Cowboys' defense? They were so focused on stopping Cowboys-killer Aaron Jones—who topped 100 yards for the fourth straight game and scored three rushing touchdowns--that it allowed itself by the time the third quarter came around to be completely faked-out by TE Luke Musgrave, who pretended to be a blocker and was allowed to run out to a completely abandoned part of the field to catch a pass and run to the end zone unmolested:

 

For a Cowboys fan, it was that kind of day.  On a 93-yard drive aided by a 39-yard completion to Romeo Doubs and finishing with a 20-yard TD pass to Wicks, it was just that easy. Savage’s pick-6 in the second quarter made it a mind-blowing 27-0 before the Cowboys—who averaged 35-points-per-game during their 16-game home winning streak—finally found the end zone on the last play of the first half, but the way the Packer offense was lighting-up the field, this reminded one of the Seahawks blowing out the Broncos in the Super Bowl; the supposedly "superior" Cowboys looked like a beaten team with their minds too scrambled to understand what had happened to them and what to do about it.

Each team traded points in second half until a loss on downs by the Cowboys on their own end led to a TD pass to Dobbs and 48-16 lead early in the fourth quarter. The game felt over by then, but the Cowboys scored a couple touchdowns in “garbage time” and they actually got down to the Packer 29 with over a minute to play, and, you know, anything is possible with another TD and two-point conversion and then an on-side kick conversion and all of sudden it is “Hail Mary” TD pass and two-point conversion from OT. Fortunately with a team like the Cowboys that was pure fantasy, and the heavy underdog 7^th-seed Packers “stunned” the football world with their “upset” win in a game they clearly dominated throughout most of it.

As mentioned, Jones gained over a hundred yards and scored three touchdowns, and Love was nearly perfect, completing 16 of 21 for 272 yards and 3 TDs. The only “blemish” on his day was coming in at the end to throw an inconsequential incomplete pass, which ruined his chance to be only the fourth quarterback to have a “perfect” 158.3 passer rating in a playoff game. Prescott himself threw for 403 yards, but on 60 pass attempts. The Cowboys ran 89 total plays for 510 yards with 37 first downs, which really doesn’t look that great for the defense on paper, but fortunately the Packers did more with their own opportunities; their 54 offensive plays resulted in 6 touchdowns.

The Packers play next on the road against the top-seed 49ers, who lost to two teams—the Vikings and the Bengals—who didn’t make the playoffs. Do the Packers have a chance? Well, no one thought the youngest team in playoff history had a chance against the Cowboys, either. And younger guys play like they have something to prove.