NFL divisional playoff primer: Cowboys and 49ers set for showdown
The Dallas Cowboys are moving on in the NFL playoffs.
It remains to be seen whether they’ll bring their kicker with them.
The Cowboys won at Tampa Bay on Monday night, but Dallas’ Brett Maher had a nightmare of a game, missing four consecutive extra points in the 31-14 victory. Dallas is one of three NFC East teams still alive in the playoffs, joining the Philadelphia Eagles and the New York Giants.
Before Maher’s meltdown, no kicker had missed three PATs in a postseason game.
A day after losing in nightmarish fashion to the Jaguars in the playoffs, Chargers players were adamant in their support of coach Brandon Staley.
Whereas Maher’s future with the Cowboys is uncertain, so is the playing future of Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady. The 45-year-old superstar, who has seven Super Bowl rings, retired after the 2021 season but returned 40 days later. It would not be a surprise if Monday night’s game were the last of his career.
The Cowboys advance to the divisional round, where they will play at San Francisco. Dallas has not won a divisional game since the 1995 season, which ended with the Cowboys beating the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl.
In other divisional games:
Jacksonville returns to Kansas City, where it lost in Week 10.
The Giants face Philadelphia for a third time, having been swept by the Eagles in the regular season.
Cincinnati plays at Buffalo in a rematch of a game that was suspended this month after Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered heart failure.
The only “new” matchup is Cowboys at 49ers.
This after every game in the wild-card round was a rematch from the regular season.
But as Giants coach Brian Daboll pointed out to reporters Monday, whereas there are elements to be learned from those previous meetings, those games have no bearing moving forward.
“Every game’s a new game,” he said. “Obviously, you have matchups that you’ve went against here over the last two times you played them. One week really has nothing to do with the next week, or one game has nothing with the next game, other than you take things from it, you learned from it, you try to grow from it.
“But it’s going to be how we execute on Saturday and how we prepare throughout the week. That’s our process — it’ll always be — and that’s what it’ll be this week.”
Both of those Giants-Eagles games happened in the final five weeks of the regular season. The Giants have gone L, W, L, W, L, W starting with the first matchup.
The Eagles, who are favored by a touchdown, have history on their side. This is the 25th time that a team has swept a division rival and then met that opponent again in the postseason. In 15 of the previous 24 games, the team that went 2-0 during the regular season won the third game.
After watching Brandon Staley get outclassed during a playoff collapse, the Chargers’ leadership must decide whether it can afford to keep him.
The Giants have not won at Lincoln Financial Field in nine seasons. In 10 career games against the Giants, Eagles running back Boston Scott has 10 touchdowns.
Meanwhile, Jacksonville made a turnaround after dropping to 3-7 with a 27-17 loss at Kansas City. The Jaguars have gone 7-1 since, including Saturday night’s against-all-odds comeback against the Chargers, who had built a 27-point lead in the second quarter before ultimately losing 31-30.
In that loss to the Chiefs, the Jaguars missed two field-goal tries and had a touchdown pass wiped out by a penalty.
Against the Chargers, the Jaguars saw four passes by Trevor Lawrence get picked off in the first half and found themselves in a deep hole.
“We just have to execute better,” coach Doug Pederson told reporters. “We’ve got to take care of the football. We can’t do what we did the other night and expect to win, not against this team. We’ll take a look at it and make some adjustments for the week.”
Pederson will match wits with one of his mentors, Chiefs coach Andy Reid. Both men were coaches in Philadelphia, with Pederson leading the Eagles to their only Lombardi Trophy five years ago.
The four remaining quarterbacks in the AFC represent the next generation of NFL superstars: Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, Jacksonville’s Lawrence, Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow and Buffalo’s Josh Allen.
The Chargers held a 27-point lead but played a horrible second half and lost their wild-card playoff game on a last-second field goal, 31-30, to the Jaguars
The Buffalo-Cincinnati game Jan. 2 was suspended in the first quarter with the Bengals leading 7-3.
This time, after a bruising wild-card game against Baltimore, the Bengals could be down as many as three starting offensive linemen. That’s worrisome against a Buffalo defense that collected four sacks in its playoff opener against Miami, a performance that also included 11 quarterback hits and seven tackles for loss.
If the AFC championship game were to wind up Kansas City versus Buffalo, that game would be played in Atlanta. A neutral site was selected because the Bills could have been the No. 1 seed — instead of Kansas City — had their game against Cincinnati been played to completion.
Go beyond the scoreboard
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