Stop me if you've heard this before, but the Dallas Cowboys embarrassed themselves on their way out of the playoffs.
Honestly, why even bother going through the gruesome details at this point? Just copy-paste every season-ending Cowboys recap from the past two decades. The game was over before it even got started.
Green Bay won the toss, took the ball and marched right down the field for seven. A couple punts later, the Packers got away with a hold on a Jaire Alexander interception, scored again three plays later and the rout was on.
Final score: Green Bay a bazillion — Dallas way, inconsequentially less.
Dak Prescott played like the Playoff Dak we're accustomed to. He and CeeDee Lamb never got on the same page after being nigh unstoppable for two months. Prescott short-armed throws, played out of rhythm and forced things all game, including a pick-six that made it 27-0 with Dallas driving before the half.
"Dallas driving" is about the nicest thing you can say about the Cowboys' first half. Their best play of the half was probably a missed extra point by the Packers.
Dallas did get a gifted touchdown to end the half thanks to an uncalled one on the Cowboys. That cut the lead to 27-7, with Dallas getting the second-half kickoff and a chance to get the lead down to 13.
So how did the Cowboys respond? With a slow, methodical, 12-play, 60-yard, establish-the-run-type drive that stalled in the red zone as Mike McCarthy settled for a field goal to cut the three-score game all the way down to… still three scores.
Five plays later, the Packers scored again easily and went up 34-10.
Prescott was baffled by Green Bay's zone all night, and the Cowboys never really adjusted. Lamb never got going after playing like the Offensive Player of the Year the final two-thirds of the season. The Cowboys never really went hurry up to get into any rhythm.
It's honestly unclear if Mike McCarthy did anything at all.
McCarthy got outsmarted by Packers defensive coordinator Joe Barry. Just let that sink in for a second.
Green Bay's No. 27-ranked DVOA defense — seventh worst against both the run and the pass all year, so vanilla that it was shredded for 30-plus points by the likes of Baker Mayfield and Bryce Young within just the last month — completely stymied and shut down the vaunted Dallas attack.
Barry, for my money the single worst coordinator in football, led his defense to a near shutout of the mighty Cowboys on the road at the half.
As embarrassing as the Cowboys' offensive effort was, the defense was somehow a million times worse. Before effectively kneeling the game out for three final possessions, the Packers offense compiled 412 yards on 47 plays, a whopping 8.8 yards per play against a defense most picked as best in the NFL heading into the season.
Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn looked like he spent all week interviewing for head coaching jobs he's not going to get instead of preparing for the task at hand. His big move was going away from the man-to-man that had been successful all season to a zone Green Bay ate for lunch.
Jordan Love, it must be said, was absolutely spectacular in his playoff debut. He shredded Dallas for 272 yards and three scores on 13 yards per attempt, and Matt LaFleur was in his bag. Love made a few special throws, but on other plays, he was throwing to guys open by 10 yards. It's like Green Bay's receivers were invisible out there.
In the end, Dallas added a few thoroughly meaningless scores late to make it a two-score game at 48-32, but the damage was done.
It's one of the single most humiliating losses in Dallas Cowboys franchise history.
Before Sunday, 7-seeds had never won a game in NFL history. Then a 7-seed went up 27-0 on the road in a quarterback's playoff debut before the half.
If a Cowboys loss to the Packers to end the season feels familiar, it should. This is the third time in the last decade Dallas's season has ended this way — 2015, 2017 and now 2024.
The Cowboys drop to 3-10-1 against the spread over the past two decades of playoff football. That includes 0-4 as favorites of four or more with three outright losses, all of them at home.
Do you remember the last time Dallas won a postseason game after the Wild Card Round? I'll give you a hint: it was against the Pittsburgh Steelers, who you might recall are in the opposite conference.
Yes, the last Cowboys playoff win past the opening round happened all the way back in 1996.
That was Super Bowl XXX. In a few weeks, the Cowboys will watch Super Bowl LVI from their couches.
For those counting at home, that's XXVI years since Dallas won a postseason game in the Divisional Round or later.
Still, this somehow felt even worse than usual. At least the last five Cowboys playoff losses were by one score. This was a 16-point loss that felt more like 50.
"Yeahhh, here we go," was the cry from Prescott at the snap, an hour after the game was already over.
Yeah, here we go indeed. Right out of the playoffs.
Needless to say, Mike McCarthy is cooked.
Cooked like a Christmas lamb. Stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey, the kind the Cowboys eat every year in a big win over the Commanders or Giants before falling apart a month later in the playoffs.
It's a wonder McCarthy even made it to the locker room before Jerry Jones could fire him. McCarthy is good as gone. Someone has to be the scapegoat, after all.
Last year was apparently Kellen Moore. A few years ago it was Jason Garrett. It's been Prescott, Tony Romo, Dez Bryant. Sometimes it's the refs. There's never a scapegoat on the other team — that would imply the opponent actually needing one, when they're already on the plane heading to the next playoff game.
And so the internet turned its attention mid-game to the only solution possible, the Cowboys-iest solution imaginable, the only man who could finally stop three decades of Dallas bleeding.
It's Bill Belichick time.
It's the clear and obvious solution.
Belichick is out in New England. McCarthy will soon be out in Dallas.
Belichick is the GOAT, a legend, the all-time great coach chasing the all-time coaching record.
Jones can open up the check book and pay any amount Belichick wants. Blank check. Sign here.
Never has a Cowboys solution felt easier or more obvious.
There's just one tiny, little problem.
It's not Belichick time in Dallas. It was never Belichick time in Dallas. It will never be Belichick time in Dallas.
Just imagine how disastrous this would be.
Bill Belichick leading the most valuable sports franchise in the world, the veritable center of the sporting universe, answering to the media after every game, every practice, every rumor, every tweet.
Belichick after the latest big game Prescott clunker, wondering if he should pick up the phone to coax Tom Brady out of retirement to don that Dallas star for just a few games.
Belichick coaching like it's still 1987 six games a year against Nick Sirianni and Brian Daboll and whatever bright young candidate Washington brings in. Establishing the run and settling for field goals and refusing to go pass-heavy or add motion to the offense or admit that the game has advanced several decades.
Remember, the Patriots went 29-38 the last four years under Belichick once Brady left, effectively averaging a 7-10 season.
Imagine the Cowboys putting in another 7-10 season with a turgid, outdated offense as fans scream to the high heavens while Belichick slowly trudges toward the inevitable all-time coaching wins record.
It's just all so wonderfully, beautifully stupid I could almost cry.
But we haven't even gotten to the stupidest part: Bill Belichick and Jerry Jones.
My god, Bill Belichick and Jerry Jones.
Just imagine. Imagine these two lasting even a season together.
Here's a coach who famously wants control over every part of every operation of a football program from offense to defense to special teams, to practices, media, pretty much everything but how much the balls should be inflated.
That man — that control freak — is going to partner with Jerry Jones, the meddling-est meddler who ever meddled.
You know how a tiger never changes its stripes? How you can't teach an old dog new tricks?
Bill Belichick is 71. Jerry Jones is 81.
You're going to turn your franchise over to a couple guys that should be playing shuffleboard at the retirement home?!
If Dallas fans want to see what it looks like to turn everything over to a couple of outdated, past-prime, 70- and 80-ish-year-old has-beens, they can just tune in to election coverage this fall and see how that's going.
Belichick to the Cowboys would be an unmitigated disaster.
We're talking Chernobyl, Hindenburg level disaster.
We're talking Dallas Cowboys hosting another playoff game as home favorites level disaster.
Yeahhh, here we go…
Right out of the playoffs and right into an interminable six months of Dallas Cowboys offseason turmoil and drama, just like every other January for the last three decades.
Let's just hope Belichick isn't the main character this season.
