Dallas Cowboys’ first playoff road win in 30 years has Jerry Jones Super Bowl dreaming
After winning their first road playoff game in 30 years with the dominating 31-14 NFC wild card triumph over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Dallas Cowboys earned a divisional round trip against the San Francisco 49ers.
That is the only given.
But owner Jerry Jones believes they gained much more in confidence and hunger that is could be the impetus for a trip to the Super Bowl for the first time the Cowboys won the last of their three Super Bowl titles of the 1990s in 1995, a run that not coincidentally was sparked by the last road playoff win 1992 at the 49ers.
The Cowboys had eight straight road playoff losses since and just four playoff wins since their last title.
Jones compared the Cowboys to a hunting dog and believes the taste of success they got against Tampa Bay has given way to an unyielding and unquenchable thirst for championship glory.
“It’s like a hunting dog,” Jones said following the 31-14 win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “We have tasted what you need to realize it’s there and it will cause you to grow . . . I saw that happen to our championship teams and I saw us take guys that certainly had the goods but they not necessarily had the experience of having it happen to them. But our teams of the ‘90s did come on and get better and better and grow.”
Now the task won’t be easy as the Cowboys will likely have to be road warriors the rest of the way.
If they get through the 49ers, they will probably play at the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship game.
Jones likes the Cowboys chances a lot better now than he did before facing Buccaneers just because of what they overcame to win the game — not having won a road playoff games since 1992, never beating Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady and not necessarily playing their best football heading into the playoffs.
All those boxes were resoundingly checked with their best performance of the season, led by quarterback Dak Prescott’s finest performance of his career.
“Can it be done? We’ll find out,” Jones said. “But this team has a talent level and now has the intangible experiences that getting knocked down, getting up — all of those things we hear about, all of those things that represent football, all of that stuff, this team has had some of that. Everybody on this team knew that when they came to Tampa that the world thought that Tom [Brady] would be sitting out there snatching it out, if not the last minute then maybe even earlier. And we’re getting to go home and get to go home again in San Francisco. We’ve got more mustard than when we got here.”
The Cowboys must go the long way to the Super Bowl against some tough but albeit familiar opponents with bitter memories to feed off for motivation.
Tampa Bay had beaten the Cowboys in the past two season openers and Brady had a 7-0 record in the series, including 5-0 in New England and 2-0 in Tampa Bay.
Now they face a 49ers team, which knocked them out of the playoff last year, serving as the motivation for all their offseason workouts.
And if they get past the 49ers, the Cowboys likely get the Eagles, their NFC East rivals and division champions who they split with during the regular season.
All the focus now is on the 49ers and painful memories of last year.
“For me and this team, that’s a scar,” Prescott said. “That one hurts and it will hurt for the rest of my career and it will be a source of motivation throughout my career. Just to be able to get those guys again . . . (defensive end) DeMarcus Lawrence said it last week in the leadership meeting that this thing is set up for us, playing teams that have beaten us, teams that we’re familiar with. So it’s important for us to capitalize on this preparation, take it one day at a time and make sure we’re ready to go just as we were for (Tampa Bay).”
