Cowboys thought they were ready to take next postseason step. Turns out, Dallas wasn’t
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SANTA CLARA, Calif. — A season that began with promise and steadily built on the idea that these Cowboys could be different ended like so many before it.
Another year will pass without the Cowboys making an appearance in the NFC Championship Game. Dallas is now at 27 years and counting after its 19-12 loss to San Francisco Sunday evening.
The divisional round is a ceiling this team can’t crack. The Cowboys have lost seven consecutive games since its last victory during the 1995 season.
“I thought we were suited to come in here and win this thing,” a dejected Jerry Jones said outside his team’s locker room afterward. “Frankly, I wouldn’t say surprised. I’d say just real disappointed.
“We came up short. We’re sick. Sick.
“Sick.”
A touchstone to the Cowboys season has been the practice of kintsugi.
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the area with powdered gold or silver. The idea is to call attention to the flaw rather than hide it, to accept the imperfection and work to enhance it.
Don’t ignore the mistakes and disappointments in your journey. Acknowledge them and become stronger. That has been head coach Mike McCarthy’s message.
It resonated with the players. They spoke in the days leading up to this game of the shared experience of what they haven’t accomplished as a group. Their loss to San Francisco in last year’s playoffs was referred to as a sacred wound.
More wounds were inflicted at Levi’s Stadium.
The Cowboys had more turnovers and penalties than were prudent. Tony Pollard was forced to leave the game on a cart. The running back suffered a high ankle sprain and a fractured fibula, a person with knowledge of the injury said.
Pollard left the locker room on crutches. Inside, safety Jayron Kearse was sitting at his locker, fighting back tears.
“Lost the game to go to the NFC Championship,” Kearse said. “We didn’t reach our goals.
“I knew we had the team to do it.”
The postseason rivalry between the Cowboys and 49ers is one of the most storied in NFL history, producing iconic moments and determining the league’s balance of power in the 1990s.
There was The Catch, the leaping grab made by San Francisco’s Dwight Clark behind corner Everson Walls in the back of the end zone to give the 49ers the victory in the 1981 NFC Championship Game.
It was 30 years ago — the last playoff road victory the franchise enjoyed before getting the best of Tom Brady in Tampa Bay in last week’s wild-card round — that the Cowboys upset San Francisco in the NFC Championship Game, sparking then head coach Jimmy Johnson to trumpet, “How ‘bout them Cowboys.”
The win was the springboard to the Cowboys’ first Super Bowl title under Johnson and marked the start of three consecutive seasons the teams would meet in the NFC title game. The next year, two days before the game, Johnson called into a radio talk show to guarantee victory, barking, “put it in three-inch headlines.”
Dallas won that game as well on its way to three Super Bowl trophies in four seasons and its anointment as the Team of the Decade.
The postseason meetings laid dormant until the two teams met in the Wild Card round last year with the Niners victory at AT&T Stadium. That loss drove the Cowboys during the offseason. It wasn’t enough to push the team past San Francisco, but progress was made.
The Cowboys posted a 24-10 record over the last two regular seasons. Only Kansas City picked up more victories in that span.
This is the first time Dallas has made back-to-back postseason appearances in 15 years and the first time in 23 years it has done so with the same head coach.
“Factually, we’ve taken one step closer to our goal,” McCarthy said. “I think we’re a better team than we were last year.
“I’m extremely disappointed. This has been an incredible journey with this group of men. We just came up short to a very good football team.”
One of the reasons Jones and others felt confident going into this game was Dak Prescott. The quarterback entered these playoffs with a 1-3 record. But his brilliant game against the Buccaneers led some to believe he had begun to alter his narrative and put himself on a more positive postseason trajectory.
He hasn’t.
Prescott threw two interceptions in the first half that led to six of San Francisco’s nine points. He finished with a quarterback rating of 63.6 and wasn’t nearly as decisive or effective as he was against Tampa Bay.
It’s the third time Prescott has lost a game in the divisional round. What must happen for this team to advance?
“I’ve got to play better than I did tonight,” said Prescott, who completed 23-of-37 passes for 206 yards. “Simple as that.
“Yeah, simple as that.”
The man who went into this round as the most experienced quarterback left in these playoffs is gone.
And so is Dallas.
“I thought this team, with Dak at quarterback, I thought we had a chance to get to and compete at the top level in this tournament,” Jones said. “I really did.”
Prescott vowed that the Cowboys will return to the divisional round. He said there’s no doubt in his mind they’ll be in this position again.
The question is when — or if — they’ll be able to break through.
“I had a different ending to this thing,” Jones said.
It turned out to be the ending this franchise has become all too accustomed to experiencing.
Catch David Moore and Robert Wilonsky as they co-host Intentional Grounding on The Ticket (KTCK-AM 1310 and 96.7 FM) every Wednesday at 7 p.m. during the Cowboys season.
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