The NFL playoffs are here and as usual, the football gods threw in plenty of narrative to get the postseason started. The first two days of the Super Wild Card weekend saw Houston run riot against Cleveland, Kansas City get the better of both the frigid weather and the Miami Dolphins, while Detriot claimed a rare home playoff win in a thriller against the Rams. We also saw the Bills-Steelers contest pushed back a day into Monday thanks to the weather, but the biggest surprise came in Texas.
The number two Dallas Cowboys - complete with a 16-game home winning streak - were huge favourites to ease past a young, inexperienced Green Bay Packers team, but it did not turn out that way.
The Packers began on the front foot, blowing the doors off at the AT&T Stadium as they raced into an early lead that they would not relinquish as Jordan Love threw for three touchdowns and Aaron Jones ran in three more.
Here’s a look at what we learned from the Packers’ 48-32 humbling of the Cowboys.
Take a bow, Jordan Love
Jordan Love has quietly been the most in-form quarterback of the last month of the NFL season, but on Sunday night he went mainstream. The first-year starter has been growing in confidence as the season has gone on and the whole of the football world now knows just how good a player Green Bay have on their hands.
Ending the game with a perfect passing rating, Love put together a complete performance in the biggest game of his fledgling career so far. Poised in the pocket, he showed off pinpoint accuracy and efficiency, while also displaying his athletic ability on the few occasions that the Dallas pass rush led by Micah Parsons was able to get in his face. Kudos also goes to Matt LaFleur for the game plan he drew up, but in Love, the Packers’ seamless succession of franchise quarterbacks will continue.
Green Bay's defense steps up
When looking at the game’s various match-ups before Sunday night, only the most optimistic of Packers fans will have believed that their defense would deliver that kind of performance against the fearsome Cowboys offense.
Packers defensive coordinator Joe Barry’s unit were able to pick off Dak Prescott twice in the first half, returning one for a touchdown, with Dallas’ first points coming right at the end of the second quarter. Prescott looked spooked from the get-go, rushing his throws and putting far too much touch on his passes, while CeeDee Lamb, who has sliced through defenses in recent weeks, could not get into the game until he finally put up some numbers in garbage time.
Full marks to Barry then, who now has the task of scheming up a plan to deal with an even more explosive offense in San Francisco next week.
End of the road for Mike McCarthy?
The Cowboys’ wait for a Championship game appearance continues as ‘America’s Team’ continues to fuel the narrative of perennial playoff bottlers. Expectation always weighs heavy on the Cowboys, but there were reasons to believe this year would be different, after they earned the NFC’s number two seed, had a quarterback in the MVP discussion, a receiver who was in historic form and a stellar defense.
But even by their recent standard of playoff defeats, Sunday night’s shellacking by the Packers was on another level. Shellshocked after falling behind early, the Cowboys had no answer, with this contest effectively over by the end of the third quarter.
All eyes are now on what owner Jerry Jones does next, with Mike McCarthy unlikely to be resting easy over the next few days. There are some big-hitter head coaches out there, with the likes of Bill Belichick, Mike Vrabel and Jim Harbaugh all on the open market and we know that Jones isn’t exactly the shy and retiring type when it comes to making headline moves.
The future looks bright for Green Bay
While the Cowboys latest playoff failure will be what hogs the headlines after this one, Green Bay deserve the final word. The Packers have one of the youngest and cheapest rosters in the league and while their early season form was something of a work in progress, LaFleur’s side consistently improved as the season progressed. They’re obviously peaking at a great time, but whether or not that will be enough to get past the 49ers next weekend will be this week’s big talking point.
Whatever happens there, they’ve proved they can win without Aaron Rodgers. The now-Jets QB only led the Packers to just two playoff wins in their last six seasons and given the potential of the current Green Bay roster, you’d back Love to quickly supersede that.