After a few weeks of wondering whether the Cowboys would draw the Cardinals or the Rams in the NFC Wild Card round, it turned out to be an entirely different NFC West opponent.
Following Dallas’ victory over the Eagles on Sunday night, and losses by the Cardinals to the Seahawks, and the Rams to the 49ers, the Cowboys clinched the #3 seed and a date with the #6 seed San Francisco 49ers. Kickoff is scheduled for 3:30 PM on Sunday at AT&T Stadium.
Dallas opened as a 3-point favorite against the 49ers, but given that the game is at home, oddsmakers seem to view this one as a pretty evenly matched game.
But why is there so much talk about how even these teams are? Dallas clearly has the better quarterback, they finished two games ahead of the 49ers in win-loss record, and San Francisco was out of the playoff standings as recently as the start of week 12.
While those are all important points, it misses the complete picture of this 49ers team and the challenges that they present.
Today we’re going to take a look at two questions: in what ways do the 49ers challenge the Cowboys, and in what ways, do the Cowboys challenge the 49ers?
HOW THE 49ERS CHALLENGE THE COWBOYS
The main concern for the Cowboys in this football game isn’t an individual player, or a certain position group, or anything like that. The biggest concern for the Cowboys is a team-wide trait that the 49ers possess: physicality.
While the Cowboys have struggled at various parts of the season with chunk plays, or beating two-high safety looks, or running the ball, or whatever it may be, they’ve generally had an answer for all of it at some point, the issue has just been consistency. Physical, blue-collar football is one area of concern that the Cowboys really have yet to prove they have an answer for.
Let’s think back over the 17-game season: what three games were the most physical for this football team? The answer is probably Week 9 against Denver, Week 11 on the road against Kansas City, and Week 17 at home against Arizona. They lost all three games, and a big theme coming out of those games was how much they struggled with physicality.
Don’t take my word for it. Just let the Cowboys tell you:
Dallas is a finesse football team on both sides of the ball, and that’s absolutely fine. It got you to 12-5 this season. Nothing wrong with being a finesse football team.
But it does mean that there are certain teams that can inherently give you problems because of their style of play, and San Francisco just happens to be one of those teams. The 49ers play physical football on both sides of the ball.
San Francisco finished 2021 5th in the NFL in rushing attempts, 7th in rushing yards, and 5th in rushing touchdowns.
And the 49ers don’t just run the football. They run it creatively. To give you an idea of how Kyle Shanahan likes to call his offense, the 49ers ran the ball 499 times in 2021, and a staggering 28.7% of those carries were by players other than running backs. Shanahan wants to get the ball in the hands of his playmakers like Deebo Samuel and George Kittle, even if it means using unconventional means to do so.
Part of their success running the ball is play design, but they also have a bruising offensive line that’s one of the best in the NFL, particularly in the running game.
Trent Williams is probably the best tackle in football, and he’s certainly the best run-blocking tackle. The Niners lost right tackle Mike McGlinchey for the season back in November, but 10-year journeyman utility offensive lineman Tom Compton has been fantastic in McGlinchey’s spot. In fact, over the last two months of the season, Williams and Compton were probably the best pair of run-blocking tackles in football.
With veterans C Alex Mack, OG Laken Tomlinson, and OG Daniel Brunskill, San Francisco’s interior offensive line has played in a combined 355 career games. Mack played all but six snaps this season, Brunskill all but five, and Tomlinson played all 1,091.
This is a physically-imposing, tough, experienced offensive line that hasn’t had to deal with nearly the same continuity issues that the Cowboys have been plagued with.
But that physical blocking in the run game goes beyond the offensive line. FB Kyle Juszczyk, TE George Kittle, and WR Brandon Aiyuk are all very physical blockers.
And while the 49ers haven’t put up gaudy raw statistics in the passing game this season, the top-tier running game has helped contribute to an extremely efficient passing game. San Francisco averages 7.7 net yards per pass attempt, which is the best in the NFL by 0.3 yards, which doesn’t sound like much, but is an incredibly significant gap when broken down by a per play basis.
The physicality in the run game isn’t just on the offensive side of the ball. San Francisco is extremely adept at stopping their opponents’ running game as well, which is already something Dallas has struggled to get going at times this year.
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San Francisco has three very physical, very talented linebackers in Fred Warner, Azeez Al-Shaair, and Dre Greenlaw. Greenlaw has been hurt for most of the season, but is getting healthy at the right time. He played just his third game of the season on Sunday, but finished with 12 tackles and a QB hit against the Rams.
We point to all of this without even mentioning the obvious yet: Nick Bosa and that 49ers pass rush are very good. Bosa finished third in the NFL in QB hits this season, and he’s the marquee name, but you shouldn’t sleep on the others in the group.
San Francisco lost two of their top trench players to injury on defense, with Javon Kinlaw and Dee Ford both getting shut down for the season, but they still have one of the game’s best defensive lineman in Arik Armstead, and reclamation projects Arden Key and Samson Ebukam have been positive success stories for the 49ers.
San Francisco can make things difficult on Dallas with Deebo Samuel, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Kyle Shanahan uses Trey Lance a few times in this game to take advantage of some of Dallas’ trouble defending mobile quarterbacks. But at the end of the day the biggest thing the Cowboys need to prepare for and respond to is the physical nature with which San Francisco plays the game.
HOW THE COWBOYS CHALLENGE THE 49ERS
I saved this for last so we can end on a high note, and everyone can feel better about this match-up.
Dallas is simply the more explosive team on both sides of the ball. San Francisco not only has to play well, but they have to essentially hope for a little help from the Cowboys and that they come out flat.
We talked about how Dallas is a finesse team, and that can be a problem against a blue-collar opponent, but it’s a double-edged sword. The Cowboys’ ability to score points and take the ball away can overwhelm even the best teams in the league if they get going.
Dak Prescott has had some issues with two-high looks in the second half of the year, but he’s started to correct those issues and find his rhythm. Prescott is completing 70% of his passes in his last three games, averaging over 8 yards per attempt, and has thrown 12 touchdown to 0 interceptions. His 133.1 passer rating in that time is the best in the NFC.
Just as Prescott is figuring things out, he’s getting his offensive line back. The projected starting offensive line coming out of training camp – Tyron Smith, Connor Williams, Tyler Biadasz, Zack Martin, and La’el Collins – started just one game together in the regular season. But barring any injuries or COVID issues during the week, that group should start the game together against San Francisco.
Ezekiel Elliott finally looks healthy, and Tony Pollard got some rest in the final week to heal his foot injury. Even with the problems on the offensive line, and the durability issues that Elliott and Pollard dealt with during the year, the duo still combined for 2,345 yards from scrimmage in 2021.
And while the receiving corps recently lost Michael Gallup for the season to a torn ACL, Amari Cooper and CeeDee Lamb still make one of the best receiving duos in the NFL. Even in Gallup’s absences this season they’ve gotten admirable play from Cedrick Wilson, and even Malik Turner. Dalton Schultz has continued to grow into one of the better tight ends in the NFL, and Blake Jarwin is now healthy and ready to contribute again.
No matter the physicality and talent on the 49ers defense, they’re going to have an extremely difficult time accounting for all of those weapons on the field. They’re going to have to hope for the Cowboys to shoot themselves in the foot in some instances.
That finesse on the other side of the ball is a threat to the 49ers as well.
The Cowboys have a healthy pass rush unit, and I’m told that Dan Quinn has barely reached into his bag of tricks to generate pass rush with this group. The Cowboys will show pressures and blitz concepts that we haven’t seen much of in the regular season, if at all. Micah Parsons, Randy Gregory, and DeMarcus Lawrence free you up to experiment with a lot of complex and athletic concepts with your pass rush.
If you generate pass rush, you’ll also generate turnovers. The Cowboys led the NFL this season in interceptions and takeaways, and 49ers QB Jimmy Garoppolo has a tendency to make some turnover-worthy throws.
In fact, of the 25 NFL quarterbacks who attempted at least 400 passes this season, Garoppolo had the sixth-highest interception percentage at 2.72. Only Matthew Stafford of the Rams has a higher percentage among playoff quarterbacks.
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The key for Dallas on defense is to make sure they don’t forget who they are. You made your name as an aggressive defense that makes plays behind the line of scrimmage, and takes the ball away at an extremely high rate. Don’t psych yourself out and play it conservative now.
Playoff home teams are 221-20 (90.9%) all-time when they when the turnover differential. They are 68-27 (71.6%) when the turnover margin is tied, and they are 63-127 (33.2%) when they lose the turnover margin.
IN CONCLUSION
The Cowboys are a more talented team than the 49ers. They are a more explosive team on both sides of the ball. They will win this game as long as it doesn’t turn into a physical, blue-collar brawl of a football game.