January 15, 2024
Wm. Glasheen/USA Today Sports
Dallas Cowboys fans looked on in despair as the Packers crushed them in the Wild Card Round.
The old adage goes that a Philadelphian has two favorite football teams: the Eagles and whoever is playing the Cowboys. Birds fans saw one of their squads pick up a win this weekend, as the Packers dismantled Dallas in the Wild Card Round. To be determined what happens with the Eagles in Tampa on Monday night, but, in a worst-case scenario, the Eagles' season will have lasted at least one day longer than the Cowboys'.
For the 28th consecutive season, the Cowboys failed to even reach the NFC Championship Game. To shed light on that postseason futility, here are a few choice stats, notes and figures about Dallas' January woes...
• The Houston Texans had their inaugural season in 2002 and have, for the most part, been an irrelevant team in the larger football world. Compare the ESPN coverage between the Texans and the Cowboys for the past two decades. Even with that, the Texans have more playoff wins (five) since their inception than the Cowboys do (four).
America's Team? They're not even Texas' Team.
• The Cowboys began playing at AT&T Stadium in 2009. Since the venue opened, the Packers have more playoff wins there (three) than Dallas does (two). Green Bay won Super XLV there over the Steelers in the 2010 season. The Packers defeated the Cowboys in the 2016 playoffs and, obviously, his postseason there, too.
Dallas head coach, as of this writing because he will assuredly be fired this week, Mike McCarthy has more playoff wins as the Packers' head coach at that stadium than he does as the Cowboys'. McCarthy was with Green Bay during that Super Bowl and in the 2016 season. McCarthy is 0-1 at home in the playoffs with Dallas and just 1-3 overall.
• The NFL moved to a 14-playoff format during the 2021 season. The Cowboys have the dishonorable distinction of being the first team to lose to a 7-seed.
• Tony Romo's career postseason record? 2-4. Dak Prescott's career postseason record? 2-5. Congrats, Cowboys fans. Prescott is the reincarnation of the ultimate "good regular season QB who will never win anything in the playoffs." Jalen Hurts, entering just his third postseason as the Eagles' full-time starting quarterback, already has two.
• Since 1996, the Eagles have more playoff wins (16) than Dallas has playoff appearances total (13). The Eagles had as many playoff wins last January (two) as Dallas does since 2015.
• The No. 1 movie at the box office during Dallas' most recent NFC Championship Game appearance? The Terry Gilliam-directed "12 Monkeys," which coincidentally has a Philadelphia setting. The No. 1 song on the charts? "One Sweet Day" by Mariah Carey and Boys II Men, who, of course, are a Philadelphia-born group.
• The last time the Cowboys made the NFC Championship Game, I was 20 months old.
Follow Shamus & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @shamus_clancy | @thePhillyVoice
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports
Add Shamus' RSS feed to your feed reader
