The Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys are meeting for an eighth playoff contest, and this one features two rookies and a surgeon.
We’ve seen this before. Hell, we’ve heard this song sung from this exact matchup. In the 1990s, it was Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers playing the Troy Aikman-led Dallas Cowboys. At the time, Favre was a young gunslinger on an upstart team, while Aikman and his Cowboys were already Super Bowl champions.
The two teams met in the NFC Divisional playoffs in 1993 and 1994, then again in the 1995 NFC Championship Game. Dallas won all three times, with each game at Texas Stadium. Before Favre could win it all, he needed to lose. He needed to lose often.
On Sunday, the Cowboys and Packers will meet again. Once more, the game will be in Texas. This time it will be a young Dallas team going against a veteran Green Bay squad, with the right to go to the conference championship game on the line.
Dak Prescott was not supposed to be in this position. The draft class was predicted as weak in 2016, especially in quarterbacks. Jared Goff, Carson Wentz and Paxton Lynch were the consensus top three, with all expected to sit at least one season. Then there was Christian Hackenberg, selected two rounds before Prescott, who fell to the Cowboys in the fourth round.
The Mississippi State product was slated to be Tony Romo’s backup until August, when Romo broke a vertebrae in his back. Since then, Prescott has talent the lead for America’s Team, leading it to a 13-3 record and the NFC’s top seed. For Prescott, the league has largely proven to be child’s play for the 23-year-old, throwing for 3,667 yards and 23 touchdowns against four interceptions.
Enter Ezekiel Elliott. Expected to make an impact immediately, Elliott responded with one of the greatest rookie campaigns of all-time from a running back. Behind the best offensive line in football, Elliott rushed for 1,631 yards on 5.1 yards per carry, totaling 16 touchdowns. He ended the season as a First-Team All-Pro and a Pro Bowler.
With Elliott and Prescott, Dallas has the backbone of a generational team. The Cowboys, for all of their lore and prestige, have not been to a Super Bowl since 1995. This represents their best chance since then. If Dallas can get there, it would be something unprecedented. No rookie quarterback has ever taken his team so far, and yet Prescott is only two wins away. He’ll have plenty of help from Elliott along the path.
Rodgers is no rookie. In his 12th year out of the University of California, the future Hall of Famer has posted eye-popping numbers. Despite sitting for the majority of his first three seasons, Rodgers has won an MVP award and a Super Bowl. He has thrown for 36,821 yards and 297 touchdowns against 72 interceptions. That ratio is, by far, the greatest of all-time.
This year, Green Bay started 4-6, including a loss at Lambeau Field to these Cowboys. Since Week 11, Rodgers has been playing at a video game level. The numbers reflect such, throwing for 22 touchdowns and zero interceptions, including Green Bay’s 38-13 demolition of the New York Giants in the Wild Card round.
For Rodgers, this may end up being his Tour de Force. With another title, he would move into elite company. Of all the quarterbacks who won at least a pair of Super Bowls, only Jim Plunkett is not in the Hall of Fame (Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger are getting there). While Rodgers will be fitted for a gold jacket either way, more jewelry moves him up in the eyes of history, fair or not.
At 33 years old, there’s no telling how many chances Rodgers has left. He looks at the peak of his powers, but they can evaporate quickly. If the past taught us anything about quarterbacks, it is that talent can vanish, and when it does, it’s swift. With time a fickle friend, Rodgers has an opportunity in front of him to take Titletown and give it’s name a fresh coat of gloss.
Sunday will come, and more than 100,000 fans will fill Jerry World. It will be the biggest game the storied Cowboys have played in Dallas since Aikman and Favre dueled back in 1995. It seems like yesterday, and it seems like forever ago.
For Rodgers, he must know that juxtaposition well. His career seems to have no bounds, and yet the road signs are pointing him down a path that certainly runs out of trail. He’s a young man by most any standard, but in football years, he is far closer to the end than the beginning.
Prescott and Elliott have no such feeling. The duo has the world at their fingertips, two of most recognizable names in sport. Their potential seems limitless, their time without end. The dreams now are of a dynasty in Dallas, but just ask men like Dan Marino how other rumored dynasties worked out. For these rookies, the opportunity is here, now.
Sunday will come, and urgency will strike within Rodgers. Will Prescott, Elliott and the Cowboys feel the same?