Just a few short weeks ago we were all saying "The NFC's wide open this year." While I agree, the Cowboys are most certainly going to have to exorcise a few demons in the post season.
Tampa Bay — Certainly not a team many fear these days, especially if you happen to check out the score against SF, but they've presented matchup problems for our offense the past few seasons, and of course Tom has never lost to the Cowboys in his 21+ year career. That's one monkey they need to get off their back. Dallas will either reverse history here or it'll be the same 'ol.
San Francisco — We all know what they did to us last year in the playoffs. Very tough, physical up front, both with their OL and defensive front 7. You can downplay Mr. Irrelevant all you want at QB, but we saw how Dallas made a pedestrian QB look today. Granted, one would hope our defense would play more inspired in a playoff game, but what I worry about is a sputtering Dallas offense leaving the defense on the field for quite some time, along with turnovers leaving SF with a short field. Like last year's game, you worry about a slow, painful death against a team like San Fran. Another demon to exorcise.
Philadelphia — I can definitely see Dallas beating Philly here in a few weeks in Big D. But, that may not be enough to win the division. Having Dallas play Philly for a third time would ultimately be a good thing though, because it probably means they would have had to get past Tampa Bay and/or San Francisco first.
Dallas can beat all 3 of these teams, no doubt. But they can lose to all 3 as well, as they have the last time they played each of them . The question in the NFC playoffs however is can Dallas go 3-0, assuming they're the WC, and can they do so against these 3 teams? At this point I'm in a I'll believe it when I see it mindset, and that has nothing to do with the way they squeaked by Houston today, nor how I think they beat Philly in a couple of weeks.
It'll be a tall order folks. The "wide open" path through the NFC playoffs appears a little more narrow these days if your a Cowboys fan, no?
