The championship-or-bust Dallas Cowboys entered the NFC wild-card round with the league's top-ranked offense in both average points and yards, but it sure didn't look like the San Francisco 49ers' defense feared those numbers. Their underdog unit stepped up and delivered under the bright lights.
With cohesion on defense and effective pressure in the trenches, the 49ers pulled off the weekend's lone upset, beating the hometown Cowboys, 23-17, in a survive-and-advance playoff bout on Sunday afternoon at AT&T Stadium. A franchise-record in points was all for naught, as Dallas became the second 500-point offense in NFL history to suffer elimination in the wild-card round.
"The thing [the 49ers] are doing is really interesting -- they're getting pressure without blitzing," NFL analytics expert Cynthia Frelund told After Hours with Amy Lawrence on Monday. "They can only bring four rushers, which means they can drop back in coverage. Then what's happening is, they're getting a significant pressure, resulting in a throwaway, sack, something where you're not advancing the ball enough to stay ahead of the downs and distances.
"You can beat them. That's how the Rams came out in Week 18 and started off really strong, because they were challenging them to rush the ball, beat them in coverage. But, unfortunately, that defense adapted and Sean McVay didn't. In this game, they didn't have to adapt. Once San Francisco gets out to a lead against any team, it's going to be hard to beat them... They're taking high risks, and in this game, it totally paid off."
The Cowboys' blowout win over the Philadelphia Eagles' reserves in Week 18 was considered a tune-up game, but that offensive explosion didn't translate against the 49ers. Dak Prescott threw for just 254 yards with one touchdown and one pick, and the team's ground attack was limited to 77 yards on 21 total carries. San Francisco's pressure also forced five sacks, and held Dallas to a measly 4.4 yards per play.
Although their offense was inadequate, the Cowboys were well in range for a game-tying Hail Mary touchdown pass during the final seconds of the fourth quarter. But, that chance never came. With 14 ticks left and no timeouts, they oddly ran a quarterback draw for a 17-yard gain, and before Prescott was able to kill the clock with a spike at the 24-yard line, time expired. A heartbreaking finish that Dallas deserved, considering the confounding playcall.
San Francisco, which won its first road playoff game since 2013, will face the top-seeded Green Bay Packers in an NFC divisional round clash next Saturday at 8:15 p.m. ET. According to FiveThirtyEight's projections, the 49ers currently have a 25-percent chance to reach the conference title game.
The entire conversation between Frelund and Lawrence can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow After Hours With Amy Lawrence on Twitter @ALawRadio and @AfterHoursCBS, and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.