The Dallas Cowboys are unique in NFL playoff history.
You see, the New England Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday night. This is relevant to the Cowboys (a version of the Cowboys), as New England is the No. 2 seed on the AFC side of the playoffs.
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The Chicago Bears are the second seed in the NFC and came away with a win early in the weekend on Saturday night. Chicago beat the Green Bay Packers and solidified the draft pick Dallas acquired thanks to the trade for Micah Parsons at No. 20, which is objectively a good thing, but the two No. 2 seeds moving up were bad news for the Cowboys from two years ago.
We have to go back even further to understand the point here. Prior to the 2020 season, the NFL expanded its playoff field to include 3 wild-card teams in each conference, meaning we just completed the sixth year of what we currently know.
Since then, 12 teams have been No. 2 seeds, so 12 teams have hosted No. 7 seeds in the wild-card round of the playoffs. Thanks to wins over Chicago and New England, the No. 2 seed is now 11-1 in those specific games…with the only loss coming to the 2023 Dallas Cowboys.
In many ways, the Cowboys are still trying to recover from this loss, and another year later proves just how horrific that loss was.
sigh.
