The Morning After Wildcard - The Baffling Exit

In what might have been their worst playoff disappointment yet, Dallas goes quietly.

This one might take a bit.

I have thought this one through quite a bit in the 12 hours since the end of the 2023 Dallas Cowboys season. A campaign in which I was reasonably certain would offer some glimpses of January glory for those who have been waiting for decades to see it again. I had some levels of optimism that they would participate in the NFC Championship on Jan. 28 and while that might not be the big prize, it would at least be a giant step forward to show you that ceilings are made to be broken.

And yet, roughly 90 minutes after the Cowboys playoffs began, they were over. Dallas had taken 28 minutes to be down 27 points to a Green Bay Packers team that was 6-8 on Christmas Eve. That last sentence has enough meat on the bone to feel incredibly fictional, but every single word of it is factually correct.

The Cowboys are the first team in NFL history to lose to a No. 7 seed.

I realize that the 7-seed has only existed since 2020, but you never want to be the first when the last several years have shown that those teams are no match for a No. 2 seed and the average margin of victory had been 12.2 points per game.

Not only does that it end a historic 16-game home win streak at AT&T Stadium, but it was bad enough to end an entire era of Cowboys football as we sit here on Monday. It is fair to wonder if the events of Sunday will be enough to get a coach and possibly his entire staff dismissed on the basis of one playoff disappointment too many over the last four years.

Mike McCarthy has won a ton of games and there has been some remarkable progress from the regime that came before. But he wasn’t hired for modest measures. He was hired to deliver playoff success to a franchise that is starved for it.

It has been too long since a trophy has been held by a Cowboys coach – 10,214 days to be exact – and January 28, 1996 will remain that designated day of remembrance of Cowboys glory for at least another trip around the sun.

The growing issue of discontent is that now the QBs that are dismissing Dallas from the last few playoff years were actually born after that day of Super Bowl 30. Last year it was a QB born in 1999 (Brock Purdy) and this year one from 1998 (Jordan Love), respectively. When babies who were born after that last day of glory occurred are now snuffing out mid-level dreams of just making a final four in the NFL playoffs, well, you can understand everyone losing their patience and sense of humor.

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It’s difficult to explain what happened on Sunday and how Dallas could be so ill-equipped to deal with it all. But, let’s try just a bit here.

First, we start with the defense since they took the field to begin the wildcard game in the last time the Cowboys were on equal-footing in this contest.

We prepared for this game knowing that Dan Quinn was probably closing out his tenure this month as the defensive coordinator of the Cowboys. The prevailing theory is that he would soon be hired elsewhere to be a head coach again in the NFL and Seattle seemed to make a the most sense. The alternate idea out there is that he could succeed Mike McCarthy as head coach here if the Cowboys fall short of their post-season aspirations because Dallas would not want him to get away.

This is a crazy league and Seattle may have already made up their minds, but to concede six touchdowns on Green Bay’s first seven drives on Sunday, to a QB who is making the first playoff start has to take the shine off that hire at a level that only Tom Brady’s 28-3 rally in Super Bowl 51 can compete with.

The Packers and Love did exactly what we predicted they would try to do (hey, only most of our predictions were wrong!) and Dallas unfortunately had no answers for Green Bay, similar to losses against San Francisco or Buffalo — they had no ability to slow anything down.

If DQ had read our preview of the Packers offensive attack, perhaps they might have been slightly more prepared? Here is a brief clip:

Jordan Love is going to get all of the talk and frankly, I get it. He is the potential future of that franchise…. But, you must know this. Green Bay’s entire play on Sunday is going to be to get into 12 personnel and run Aaron Jones repeatedly to test the Cowboys defensive run defense. Then, they will be pairing that with play-action passing and try to stay ahead of the chains. So, if you are wondering, yes, this comes down to the familiar test for this defense. Can the Cowboys stop the run? Because if they cannot, the passing game will get going in a hurry.

Green Bay definitely got into 12 personnel and they did so starting with the first play. They used that grouping on 26 of 54 plays on Sunday and absolutely leaned on it over and over. Despite hurting their yards per play by taking a knee to end the game, they still rolled up 224 yards on 26 snaps. That yards per play of 8.6 for an entire game out of a package that I could see coming from my kitchen table is remarkable.

Green Bay had 18 carries for 95 yards (5.3 per) and eight play-action passes behind it for 129 yards (16.1 per) is all you need to know about the damage.

Green Bay saw the soft underbelly of the Cowboys defense in both stopping the run and standing up to bigger groupings. So, they put their two rookie tight ends out there and showed wide zone, over and over again with Aaron Jones. The linebackers were outclassed as they showed on several occasions this year and the pass rush was nullified. The moment that too much was dedicated to Jones, Jordan Love had the ability to carve behind it to wide open players down the field.

Not only was the Packers game plan unstoppable for Quinn and his guys. It was painfully predictable for those who have watched these teams this year. And yet, they seemed to have no plan on how to deal with it.

If this is the guy that people want to replace McCarthy, I don’t think it makes much sense. Quinn has been a positive piece to this puzzle, but to see how they were dismantled over and over, with very similar scripts because they lived in an undersized defense that could not deal with teams running on them is so disappointing.

Even more disappointing is that it never seemed that they were prepared to adjust. They kept the roster the same and kept hoping their younger, smaller linebackers could improve.

They did not.

Green Bay took the game to Dallas in the first half and Jordan Love was seldom touched. He had to make some drive-saving throws and he did so with confidence against a pass rush that loved its chances to defeat an offensive front that is largely anonymous. Dallas lives off getting pressure on a QB and on Sunday they had the least amount of pressure they had all season. Just four times were they credited with putting Love in a bind.

You will not want to know what happened in those four occasions, but I feel you must:

He was 4-for-4 for 114 yards and a perfect passer rating of 158.3 to the tune of 28.5 yards per attempt.

Dallas couldn’t get pressure, but when they did Love delivered. Green Bay ran all day and then passed because of it. In other words, it was the San Francisco game all over again. Buffalo never had to try, but these three games expose the Dan Quinn defense badly.

At halftime, Aaron Jones had 12 carries for 30 yards with two short touchdowns. Why am I pointing this out? Because his second half featured 9 carries for 88 yards and the Cowboys spine had been busted.

By the end of the third quarter, not only had the defense looked unable to stand up to the runs, but they looked like they stopped fighting. “Quit” is a term we should avoid using normally, but I am not sure how you watch that third quarter without the word entering your thoughts on some of his runs.

The defense had given up the ghost.

No sacks, no turnovers, no run defense, and, then because of that, no pass defense, either. No stops and no chance. An average of 40.3 points per game against.

I think we can safely say that even if DQ stays, some serious overhauling of this defense is needed. The idea that Micah Parsons and the pass rush is good enough to beat teams that have an offensive plan is proving to be fiction.

That meant quite simply that this game would rest in the offense’s ability to keep up in a track meet. If your offense is what it claims to be, this game could and should still be won because your offense is elite and their defense is about to fire its own defensive coordinator for allowing more career days in the last month than it can stand. In particular Baker Mayfield and Bryce Young both had the best days of their professional lives, let alone being beaten by Tommy DeVito in what would be his finest hour.

Down 7-0, It would be up to Dak Prescott and his men to rescue this from the dangerous fire they were starting to enter. There would be four real drive opportunities for the offense to stay composed and to punch back as the game was still resting in the balance.

The first drive would end when Dak and CeeDee Lamb failed to hook up on a third and 8 when the ball went off of Lamb’s finger tips.

This was the first of many early game indicators that those two would pick this playoff moment to revert back to years past where they didn’t quite seem on the same page. As they say, pressure can cause pipes to burst.

The second drive was still at 7-0, but a third-and-5 pass to Brandin Cooks was intercepted by Jaire Alexander. Alexander definitely was playing the smallish Cooks physically and Cooks did not look terribly confident in his route. Prescott is counting on him to win his route and when he doesn’t, he is exposed. Alexander picks it off inside the red zone and a short field will quickly make it 14-0. Now, the nervous vibes are growing and the stadium is quieting.

The third drive of the Cowboys day was a promising one that very much could steady the ship.

Instead, on 3rd and 5, Prescott tries to do too much. He seems to exit a pocket that is not quite calling for that and escapes to his right. The issue there is he has nothing open to throw to and instead takes a killer sack when Keisean Nixon fires in for the splash play.

You cannot take your team out of field goal or fourth-down range, but the big loss ordered a punt. When this happens, the Cowboys desperately need the defense to take advantage of the field position (GB takes over at its own 7) and get a stop to get the ball back at midfield or so.

Instead, Jordan Love makes two ridiculous throws that includes a back-foot dart to the end zone on third-and-7 to rookie fifth-round pick Dontayvion Wicks for a touchdown against Stephon Gilmore and a Cover 0 blitz that stunned the stadium and put Green Bay up 20-0.

Even more depressing on that play was that rookie Jayden Reed was also open behind his man (Jourdan Lewis) if Love chose elsewhere on the play. Dallas was a mess.

But, again, this is why a franchise QB and a veteran coach are so vital. Because you will hit a crisis – and down 20-0 at home in the 2nd Quarter is exactly that – and still remain composed, calm, and understanding that with 33 minutes of football to play.

All you need is a halftime double-up and this thing is 20-14 in the third quarter — it should not be time to panic.

Then the fourth drive happened.

We might look back at this play as the snap that changed the trajectory of this entire franchise. If Mike McCarthy is fired this week, this will be the proper B-Roll behind the narration on the newscast to show the “candlestick in the library” crime scene.

The Cowboys hit Lamb for 8 yards into the 2:00 warning as they face a second-and-2 from the Green Bay 40-yard line. The job here is simple. Take the final minutes of the half and go get a touchdown. 20-7 at the half is not ideal, but it is also not the death of a season.

You get the ball to start the second half. This is still OK.

McCarthy and Prescott chat about what the plan will be and Prescott runs back on the field for a down and distance that is nearly a gimme. Lamb would motion over to the left and stop between Cooks (inside) and Ferguson (outside) to form trips-left like he had several previous times.

The Packers then move Nixon to Lamb and Cooks is not the responsibility of the safety Darnell Savage as Green Bay was showing split-safety but this motion moved them into Cover 3. But, Green Bay has played off tendencies and the Cowboys run this all year to find an easy completion to Lamb with this motion. Savage is supposed to be on Cooks, but he will switch to Lamb and Cooks will not be covered until the weakside LB Quay Walker gets there, but it is a lengthy distance.

As you know by now, Savage guessed right and took the pass back 64 yards for a touchdown as Prescott did the one thing he absolutely could not do there.

Especially on second and 2. He had avoided back breaking mistakes for most of 2023, but when the pressure escalated, he got careless.

When veteran QBs get careless, it makes you question everything.

The game and season were over as the entire stadium stared in complete disbelief.

Down 27-0, everything else appeared academic. It would get worse with some give-up and a wide-open Luke Musgrave touchdown fooled the defense again to put Green Bay up 41-16 in the third quarter. A fourth-down TD would even make it 48-16 with over 10 minutes to play.

It is being argued it is the worst playoff loss ever in Cowboys history. It is probably hyperbole, but when you factor in the opponent, the stakes, and the ramifications, maybe it is.

This was a game that simply could not be lost. If it was, there would need to be a good explanation. But, you cannot explain giving up 48 points to the youngest team in modern NFL history to make the playoffs. You can also not explain that Green Bay has won more playoff games at AT&T Stadium since it opened in 2009 than Dallas has.

Hiring their coach was supposed to be an answer to this drought and instead, it feels like he has all the playoff magic of Jason Garrett.

I try to write this newsletter from a position of optimism, because I am optimistic about sports. I enjoy it and it makes me happy. I look on the bright side because that is what the “toy department of life” should be in my view.

Sometimes optimism needs reality. And the reality today is that Dallas so underperformed that it has been outlasted in the 2023 playoffs by both the Houston Texans, the spiraling Philadelphia Eagles, and even Brett Maher (by a few hours).

I don’t know how you run this back again and not do something drastic. Now, I have said this many times and Jerry disagreed. The 2012 and 2013 seasons come quickly to mind as moments that felt this gutting but Jerry stayed the course at QB and coach.

As you know, I have defended Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Prescott. In both cases, I think their levels of quality are well above average and that is a threshold worth recognizing in a league this tough. But, we sit here today and ponder that they may not be the answers to the question of “who can bring this franchise back?”

I often say, “give me a way to defend you,” to those I believe in. But, on this day, they did not. There is no defending that performance, nor is there any defending the status of the head coach of this team. I do believe he has made progress and improved things, but if he is fired for the events of Sunday, it would be difficult to claim he was done wrong.

The paychecks are huge in this league and the ramifications are severe. This week calls for some fairly severe ramifications in my opinion.

Dallas seldom has let down their faithful this badly. If Jerry Jones decides to move swiftly for an alternate solution, for once I cannot blame him for losing his temper.

The outcome seems to beg for it.