Tag: Dallas Cowboys vs San Francisco 49ers

Cowboys QB Dak Prescott already fired up for next showdown vs 49ers in Week 5

From @ToddBrock24f7: Prescott used a reporter’s question about last year’s playoff loss to flip the switch ahead of Sunday’s showdown: “I appreciate that. I do.”

The look, like so many of the 28 passes he had completed on the day, was laser-focused on its target and came with a noticeable amount of heat.

And then Dak Prescott held his glare, for nearly five full seconds, just to let it sink in.

Just minutes after one of the most accurate performances of his tenure as Cowboys quarterback, one in which the eighth-year veteran shook a couple monkeys off his back and delivered possibly the greatest head coach in history the worst defeat of his career in a 35-3 blowout of New England, Prescott found himself being asked to reflect back on January’s painful playoff loss to next week’s opponent, the San Francisco 49ers.

Specifically, one reporter wanted to know during Sunday’s postgame press conference, what was the feeling leaving that locker room a full 252 days prior?

And that’s when Prescott’s icy stare provided quite an answer, long before he even spoke a word.

“It’s obvious,” Prescott finally answered, a little incredulously. “I mean, we’re so far past that, to be honest with you. But that’s obvious. I mean, if you just want to piss me off going into this weekend, I appreciate that. I do, actually. I do.”

The two-time Pro Bowler was seemingly lost in thought for a moment as he processed this latest version of a question he’s been asked- and answered- maybe hundreds of times in various forms since that disappointing day in the Bay.

“Yeah, I appreciate that. Appreciate that.”

That 19-12 divisional-round loss saw Prescott turn in a day he himself called “unacceptable.” His 63.6 passer rating was the lowest of his half-dozen postseason appearances and was one of the 20 worst showings of his pro career. Another two interceptions capped off a mistake-prone 2022 season for the former fourth-round draft pick and raised alarming questions that have followed him into this year’s campaign, despite a 3-1 start that’s included blowout wins versus both New York teams and Bill Belichick’s Patriots.

But Prescott says their looming date with San Francisco wasn’t on his mind this past week as the team looked to simply amend for their letdown in the desert the Sunday prior against Arizona.

“This is a week-by-week basis,” he told reporters. “This week and everything in preparation for this week had nothing to do with San Fran coming up.”

Week 4’s decisive 35-3 win saw Prescott complete 82.35% of his throws, his sixth-highest mark as a pro. The team also recorded a rare red-zone touchdown, and Prescott hooked up with CeeDee Lamb, the first scoring catch by a Dallas wide receiver this season.

It was a return to form, more like the impressive wins posted in Weeks 1 and 2, but with an offense that feels like it’s still coming to life under the play-calling of head coach Mike McCarthy. (The Dallas defense put two of the Cowboys’ four touchdowns on the board.)

“We focused, we did what we were supposed to do what we wanted to do- capitalizing on our game plan, getting back to the things that work, scoring early, allowing our defense to go hunt with the lead,” Prescott explained.

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The win also continued a notable trend. ESPN’s Ed Werder pointed out that, over the past three years, Dallas is 9-1 coming off losses and has averaged 33 points per contest in those games.

Prescott and the Cowboys clearly know how to bounce back. Now they’ll look to do it against the team that’s sent them home from the past two postseasons.

“Now it’s about turning the page, studying the hell out of [the 49ers], understanding who’ve they’ve been, what this matchup’s been the last couple years. [We] had to play them in the playoffs, understand it’s a team that, if we want to get to where we want to get, we’ve got to play them again come playoffs. Looking forward to the matchup.”

But that doesn’t mean Prescott is eager to re-live that last meeting. There he was, though, standing at the podium moments after a confidence-instilling win, being grilled on how often he thinks about that gut-wrenching playoff loss.

“Every f–” Prescott started before biting his tongue.

He collected himself ever so briefly before trying again.

“Every day. Every day.”

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Cowboys open as underdogs to 49ers ahead of RoadTrip: Revenge

The first look at how Vegas sees the rematch of the NFC Divisional Round contest between the storied rivals. | From @KDDrummondNFL

No regular season game can ever rank in importance with playoff contests, but the Dallas Cowboys certainly have a huge game coming up on the horizon. Over the last two seasons, Dallas has managed to accrue 12 wins in each campaign, but failed to reach the NFC Championship game. The team in their way, both times, has been Kyle Shanahan’s San Francisco 49ers.

Dallas, coming off a 38-3 win over the New England Patriots, have found their mojo at home. The victory was the Cowboys’ 10th straight at AT&T Stadium, the fourth time in franchise history a club has been that dominant at home. Getting home-field advantage isn’t an automatic ticket to the Super Bowl, but it certainly does help. In order to gain that, though, Dallas will need to earn the tiebreaker by beating the 49ers on the road.

Tony Pollard Rule? NFL to consider rule change after RB injury

The “hip-drop” tackle that left Pollard with a high ankle sprain and fractured fibula wasn’t illegal, but the NFL may look at making it so. | From @ToddBrock24f7

The play that ended Tony Pollard’s postseason had huge ramifications on the Cowboys offense in their divisional-round loss to San Francisco last Sunday.

It may ultimately have an effect on every defensive player in the league moving forward.

The NFL Competition Committee is expected to consider looking into the “mechanics of the tackle” during their offseason discussions and could perhaps even ban so-called “hip-drop” tackles like the one employed by 49ers safety Jimmie Ward.

On the play, Ward corralled Pollard around the waist from behind and then threw out an anchor by swinging his hips, pulling Pollard down while dropping his own body to the turf. Pollard’s leg got twisted underneath Ward’s midsection, resulting in a high ankle sprain and fractured fibula.

A similar tackle in Kansas City earlier in the weekend sent Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes to the locker room during their playoff game versus Jacksonville. Mahomes was able to return, though his movements were visibly limited. He will likely play through his high ankle sprain when Kansas City hosts the Bengals in the AFC title game.

Pollard had ankle surgery this week; the fibula will be left to heal on its own. He is expected to be fully healthy before training camp, but had the Cowboys won Sunday’s game, they would obviously have been without their 1,000-yard-rusher’s services for a conference championship appearance.

It’s important to note that both tackles were perfectly legal under the current rules. No flags were thrown, and it’s highly improbable that any punishment or fine is coming for Ward or Jaguars linebacker Arden Key.

The Washington Post notes that Australia’s National Rugby League banned hip-drop tackles after they “saw an increased occurrence of these types of tackles, some of which resulted in serious injuries to attacking players including a broken ankle, ACL tear, and many high-ankle sprains.” Starting in 2020, the NRL even imposed mutligame suspensions for players who used the technique.

To identify a hip-drop, that league looks for an “unnatural” movement that lets the tackler “drop or swing their hip[s] around.” The goal is not to ban lower-body tackles, but to discourage defenders from “trapping the legs/ankles of [ballcarriers] by dropping their body weight through their hips, legs, or buttocks.”

If the NFL does adopt a “Tony Pollard” penalty that outlaws the hip-drop, it would be far from the first time a Cowboys player has given birth to a new rule.

Most famous is the “Roy Williams Rule,” the one that made the horse-collar tackle illegal after the Cowboys safety made a habit of using it during the early part of his career. In 2005, wide receiver Terrell Owens, then with the Eagles, suffered a high-ankle sprain and broken fibula when Williams tackled him on a play that eerily resembled the Pollard incident.

The hip-drop is essentially a horse-collar tackle without the grasping of or reaching into the ballcarrier’s jersey at the neckhole, but the finishing movement is the same and presents the same danger to the player being dragged to the ground.

And it may soon be against the rules on an NFL field.

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Dak Prescott’s ‘unacceptable’ performance vs 49ers points to inconvenient truth

Fans wanted to believe Dak’s day vs Tampa Bay was the norm, but his inaccurate 2-INT performance Sunday is closer to recent reality. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Dak Prescott followed up a game he’ll remember his whole life with one he’d just as soon forget.

The Cowboys quarterback picked a bad day to have a bad day, going just 23-of-37 passing for 206 yards and a lone touchdown in the team’s 19-12 loss to San Francisco in the divisional round of the playoffs.

But beyond the obviously disappointing postseason exit, Prescott’s poor showing brings to light an unsettling notion.

Cowboys fans watched last week’s four-touchdown, 143.3-passer-rating day in Tampa and saw what Prescott is capable of doing when all the stars align.

But then…

Prescott’s 63.6 passer rating this past Sunday was the lowest of his six total playoff appearances, and it was just the 18th time in his career he’s ended a game with a rating of under 70.0.

The Cowboys’ record in those games: 2-16.

Worst of all? Four of those sub-70 outings have come in the Cowboys’ last 20 games.

They are: last year’s wild-card loss to the 49ers, the 2022 season opener at Tampa, the 2022 season finale at Washington, and this past Sunday’s divisional defeat.

All four still hurt, they’re so fresh.

That all-too-recent history suggests that it’s Dak’s wild-card showing that was actually the anomaly… and what we saw on Sunday was, unfortunately, closer to the inconvenient truth.

While Prescott got to enjoy last week’s surgical performance versus Tampa Bay for just a few days, this latest loss will linger for an entire offseason. The Cowboys were in the game right until the end, but they’ll once again watch the conference championships from home, just as they had for the past 26 years.

“Those guys in that locker room gave it all, both sides of the ball,” the quarterback told reporters from the podium Sunday night. “Put me in a position to go win the game, and I wasn’t able to do that. I put it on my shoulders. When you play this position and you play for this organization, you’ve got to accept that. That’s the reality of it. It’ll make me better. It sucks that I don’t get another shot at it for a long time.”

Most troubling for Prescott and Cowboys Nation, though, were the passer’s two interceptions, building on the theme that will live on as the lead story of the team’s entire 2022 season.

“Just two throws that I can’t have, you can’t have in the playoffs, you can’t have when you’re trying to beat a team like that, you can’t have on the road,” Prescott admitted. “No excuses for it. Those two are 100 percent on me.”

The first came early, ending Dallas’s second offensive possession. Prescott dropped back on a third-and-nine and hurled one toward Michael Gallup on the sideline, not realizing that 49ers cornerback Deommodore Lenoir had run the route even better than the Cowboys wide receiver.

 

That turnover gave San Francisco outstanding field position and led to an easy field goal and first-quarter lead for the home squad.

Prescott’s second pick proved even costlier.

Driving deep in 49ers territory late in the second quarter, Prescott tried to force a throw to CeeDee Lamb through a very tight window. Jimmie Ward deflected it, and linebacker Fred Warner was waiting with open arms.

That mistake not only ended what appeared to be a scoring drive by the Cowboys, but allowed San Francisco to tack on another field goal before halftime. What should have been a seven-point Dallas lead at the break was instead a 9-6 deficit.

“I’ve got to play better than I did tonight, simple as that,” Prescott said.

But of course, it wasn’t just Sunday night. Prescott’s 2022 pick problem dates all the way back to opening night, when Tampa Bay safety Antoine Winfield Jr. jumped a Noah Brown route in Week 1 and nabbed a bad Prescott toss.

Prescott went on to finish the regular season with 15 interceptions, a career-worst for him. And that’s with him sitting out five full games due to a fractured thumb.

Some of those turnovers came from receiver miscommunication. Some were the result of a poor quarterback decision or just a bad throw. Some came off an unlucky bounce.

But whatever the reason, they all counted. They all haunted Prescott over the course of a rollercoaster season. And after a wild-card week hiatus, they came back Sunday in Santa Clara.

“They all have their own story,” Prescott said. “Two tonight. As I said, unacceptable. I can’t put the ball in jeopardy like that, whether they’re tipped up in tight throws or whether I’m late on a stop route. Can’t happen. The number that it’s gotten to is ridiculous. I can promise that the number will never be this again. I can promise that.”

Problem is, Prescott had been promising to clean up the misfires for most of the season. And in a game when the defense held the powerhouse 49ers to under 20 points, these latest self-inflicted wounds helped prove fatal to the Cowboys’ postseason run.

“For us to only put up the points that we did, that’s unacceptable. And it starts with me. I’ve got to be better. No other way to sugarcoat it.”

That’s the taste that the Cowboys- and especially Prescott- will have in his mouth from now until the 2023 season.

Sadly, it’s more than a postseason problem, although the team’s 27-year absence from the conference championship round seriously stings the day after getting booted from the tournament.

Ultimately, Prescott says he doesn’t know why the club can’t seem to get over that hump.

“If I had the answers, we would have won tonight,” he told media members. “I promise you, we will, though. In my time, playing on this team, for this organization, we will.”

But not if Prescott can’t figure out why this keeps happening to him, with increasing and alarming frequency, playoffs or otherwise.

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Cowboys safety Jayron Kearse’s emotional offseason to include shoulder surgery

The Cowboys safety took Sunday’s loss especially hard, the end of a season that saw him and others battle through multiple injuries. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Cowboys safety Jayron Kearse fought back tears after the team’s 19-12 loss Sunday to the 49ers in the NFC’s divisional round.

“I gave it everything I had,” he told reporters.

Turns out, he gave more than most on the outside realized.

Kearse will need offseason surgery to repair a shoulder injury he’s had for two months. The seven-year veteran suffered a dislocated shoulder and labrum tear versus the Giants on Thanksgiving, yet played on through the team’s postseason run.

“I battled a lot this year,” Kearse explained to media members at his locker. “I just…”

But his voice trailed off as he shook his head, stopping himself from going further.

There was a knee injury that forced his early exit from the season opener and cost him three outings. There was a back issue. A pregame scare when he landed awkwardly during warmups before the Houston game. And an MCL sprain against Tampa Bay just last week that he promised to overcome in time for San Francisco.

He did, turning in five tackles and one for loss against the 49ers, helping his unit put up a solid effort against a top offense by holding them to under 20 points.

“It’s tough when you know you could have won the game,” Kearse admitted, “and you’ve got to watch them celebrate.”

The veteran, about to turn 29, wasn’t the only Cowboys defender who fought through personal health issues this season. He credited Donovan Wilson, Malik Hooker, Leighton Vander Esch, Micah Parsons, and DeMarcus Lawrence with the same perseverance he showed over the promising 2022 campaign.

“I knew we had a chance to do it. And I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to play with those guys, play next to those guys. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get it done,” Kearse explained, his voice cracking once again. “This is why it hurts so much, because I know we had the team to do it. We had the right guys to do it.”

And he knows that some of those “right guys” won’t be wearing the star again in 2023.

“That’s the harsh reality of his business,” he said. “But as of now, this roster is the same. When we go in that building tomorrow, I get to see my teammates. Hug them. Just be around them. And wherever the chips fall, that’s just where they fall. You’ll never have the same roster two years in a row. But I know we have the right guys. I know that.”

For Kearse and the 2022 Cowboys, knowing it will have to be enough. Because they won’t get the chance to prove it.

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WATCH: McCarthy pushes camera after Cowboys loss; Jerry says job safe

Emotions ran high following the loss as Mike McCarthy appeared to push a videographer exiting the field; Jerry Jones stands by his coach. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Emotions were running high throughout Cowboys Nation in the moments immediately following the team’s ouster Sunday night from yet another postseason.

That goes double for the team’s embattled head coach and longtime owner.

Having watched his team turn in an uninspiring performance in a 19-12 loss to the 49ers, a game that ended with questionable clock management from the Dallas sideline and a bizarre final last-gasp play that was snuffed out by the San Francisco defense before it ever had a chance to materialize, coach Mike McCarthy wasn’t in the mood for photo ops as he exited the field at Levi’s Stadium on Sunday evening.

The 59-year-old coach blocked a local TV camera with his hand and even appeared to push the videographer away as he made his way to the visitors’ locker room.

The photographer, from Dallas’s KXAS-TV, explained via Twitter that it was more of a “hand to the lens” than a push and that McCarthy apologized in private.

McCarthy also chose to categorize the moment differently when asked about it, bristling at the use of the word “shove” in a reporter’s question.

“I obviously didn’t view it like that,” he stated to close out his postgame press conference. “That’s not how I saw the interaction. At all.”

Any physical contact whatsoever, though, is considered off-limits in such a situation and speaks to the clear frustration that got the better of the head coach as another promising 12-5 regular season ended with a whimper.

“Obviously just extremely disappointed,” McCarthy told reporters afterward, referring to the team’s on-the-field performance. “This has been an incredible journey with this group of men. We just came up short tonight to a very good football team.”

But despite the continuation of the Cowboys’ long championship drought, owner Jerry Jones maintains that he is not considering a change at the top of his football flowchart.

“No. No. No. Not at all,” Jones said in the tunnel after the loss.

“But this is very sickening to not win tonight.”

Jones’s pained expression was mirrored in the faces of many Cowboys players after the defeat, with some openly shedding tears.

McCarthy described the state of the locker room as “raw” as he addressed the media.

“This is not really the time to pick apart. I understand you’ve got a job to do, but that’s not where we’re at right now.”

Where the Cowboys are at, though, is home. Out of the postseason before the conference championship round. Again.

But in the moments after their division-round loss to San Francisco- one year and six days after coming up short to the 49ers in the wild-card round- McCarthy chose to look at that detail differently, too.

“Factually, we’ve taken one step closer to our goal. That’s what the comparable would be from last year to this year. I think they’re a different team than they were last year. I think they’re a better team than they were last year. I said this earlier in the week; I thought we’re a better team than we were last year.”

That difference, though- like many- feels like splitting hairs the day after.

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Anatomy Lesson: Cowboys teach master class on leaving points behind

A running tally of how the Cowboys’ myriad of mistakes cost them points in a contest they would’ve won comfortably if they played a clean game. | From @KDDrummondNFL

Minus 7. -7. That’s was the final scoring margin in Dallas’ final game of the 2022 season. A year where resilience was the well-played theme of their existence, the Cowboys never lost back-to-back games. That was the first time since 1994 they’d been able to accomplish such a feat, but it matters not in the one-and-done world of playoff football.

The seven-point defeat, 19-12, to the San Francisco 49ers is the final chapter of this book. The difference between the two teams was never a gulf, but Dallas was unable to limit their mistakes and in this game, they directly tied to the scoring.

The playoffs are not forgiving. They magnify mistakes because the level of competition at this stage means failures will be capitalized on. Here’s a look at how the myriad of Cowboys mistakes les to their undoing.

4 Takeaways: Cowboys shrink in big moments, waste defensive effort

The Cowboys made mistakes at the wrong time in their 19-12 divisional playoff loss to the 49ers. @BenGrimaldi says fans are tired of the script.

The Dallas Cowboys are the most predictable team in the NFL. They’ll do things that make fans believe one week, only to make them want to pull their hair out the next. Nothing ever changes with the Cowboys.

Another year, another disappointing playoff loss for the Cowboys, and for the second year in a row, it comes at the hands of the San Francisco 49ers. It’s another season that ends where the Cowboys had the opportunity to win and finally end their embarrassing streak of not appearing in the NFC title game.

Players and coaches may change, but the results in the playoffs for the past 27 years haven’t. Most Cowboys fans have grown numb to the experience of losing before NFC Championship contest, they’re just waiting on how the team will blow. In the latest loss, it was a combination of things that doomed Dallas, including the quarterback coming up short in his chance to silence the critics.

Here are four takeaways from the Cowboys in their latest failure of the divisional round of the playoffs.

Good, Bad, Ugly: Cowboys blunders vs 49ers lead to offseason questions

The Cowboys’ season ends on an inglorious note and it dovetails into an important offseason. Here’s the analysis of what went down. | From @KDDrummondNFL

The season’s over for the Dallas Cowboys, but there’s still things to sort out. The 19-12 defeat at the hands of the San Francisco 49ers leaves an empty feeling where the hope of finally ending the long drought should be sitting. The game was intense, edge-of-seat action but from the beginning the feeling of impending doom seemed to be closing in on Dallas.

There were certainly periods of euphoria sprinkled in, but all in all there were too many regret-causing moments for Dallas to pull off the road upset. Here’s a look at the most important takeaways from the contest; which ones were good, which were bad and which were downright ugly.

Mistakes doom Cowboys again as their season ends in San Fran, 19-12

The Cowboys’ season once again comes to an end at the hands of Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers. | From @KDDrummondNFL

With all of the good vibes and positive takeaways from their wild-card win propelling them into the week, things felt hopeful for the Dallas Cowboys going into San Francisco. A near-perfect performance against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers save for a yippie kicker, had a lot of people believing the Cowboys were more the team from the middle of the season than the team down the stretch. Alas, it wasn’t to be the case.

They certainly weren’t overmatched, but the mistakes that had plagued Dallas throughout the year were joined by two untimely injuries. Re-invented run stuffer Carlos Watkins was lost with a calf. Do-it-all RB Tony Pollard was lost to a high ankle sprain. Combined with a return of INT-throwing Dak Prescott and the Cowboys squandered a chance to make their first NFC Championship game since the mid-1990s. A stout defensive effort couldn’t maintain their composure and with a chance to tie Prescott had a horrific set of plays. A three-and-out when they had to score to tie and Dallas finds themselves in offseason mode after losing, 19-12.

The Cowboys made several blunders on the game, including two interceptions off the arm of Prescott in the first half. That was compounded by Trevon Diggs missing two interceptions on what ended up being the 49ers lone touchdown drive of the game. It was a drive where Dallas thought they ended it with a sack, but a downfield hold gave the 49ers new life.

Sprinkle in bad direction decision by kick returner Kavontae Turpin on what could’ve been a touchdown and it put Dallas in a hole with three minutes remaining.  Needing to drive for a win, Prescott almost threw a PIck-6, missed an open Michael Gallup downfield, and then stepped into a sack.

Dallas actually got the ball back with under a minute to go, but the offense wasn’t able to do much with it from the shadow of their own end zone as TE Dalton Schultz cost the team with two mental blunders that derailed their last-ditch effort.

For a team that admitted they were nervous in last year’s loss, they certainly didn’t appear to have enough additional composure to end the 49ers winning streak before it reached 12.

And now, the offseason begins for Mike McCarthy and his coaching staff, whatever that may look like after interviews.