The Dallas Cowboys are moving on in the NFL playoffs.
It remains to be seen if they’ll bring their kicker with them.
The Cowboys won at Tampa Bay on Monday night, but Brett Maher had a nightmare of a game, missing four consecutive extra-point attempt in the 31-14 victory.
Before Maher’s meltdown, no kicker had ever missed three PATs in a postseason game.
Whereas Maher’s future with the Cowboys is uncertain, so is the playing future of Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady. The 45-year-old superstar, who has seven Super Bowl rings, retired after the 2021 season but returned after 40 days. It would not be a surprise if Monday night were the last game of his career.
The Cowboys advance to the divisional round, where they will play at San Francisco. Dallas has not won a divisional game since the 1995 season, which ended with the Cowboys beating the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl.
In other divisional matchups:
Jacksonville returns to Kansas City, where it lost in Week 10.
The New York Giants face Philadelphia for a third time, having been swept by the Eagles in the regular season.
Cincinnati plays at Buffalo in a rematch of a game earlier this month that was suspended after Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered heart failure.
The only “new” matchup is Cowboys at 49ers.
This after every game in the wild-card round was a rematch from the regular season.
But as Giants coach Brian Daboll pointed out Monday, whereas there are elements to be learned from those prior meetings, those games have no bearing now moving forward.
New York Giants coach Brian Daboll celebrates after an NFC wild-card playoff win over the Minnesota Vikings on Saturday.
(Abbie Parr / Associated Press)
“Every game’s a new game,” he told reporters. “Obviously, you have matchups that you’ve went against here over the last two times you played them. One week really has nothing to do with the next week, or one game has nothing with the next game, other than you take things from it, you learned from it, you try to grow from it.
“But it’s going to be how we execute on Saturday and how we prepare throughout the week. That’s our process — it’ll always be — and that’s what it’ll be this week.”
Both of those Giants-Eagles games happened in the final five weeks of the season, during that span the Giants have gone L, W, L, W, L, W.
The Eagles, who are favored by a touchdown, have history on their side. This the 25th time in NFL history that a team has swept a division rival then met that opponent again in the postseason. In 15 of the previous 24 games, the team that went 2-0 during the regular season won the third game.
The Giants have not won at Lincoln Financial Field in nine seasons. In 10 career games against the Giants, Eagles running back Boston Scott has 10 touchdowns.
Meanwhile, Jacksonville made a turnaround after dropping to 3-7 with a 27-17 loss at Kansas City. The Jaguars have gone 7-1 since, including Saturday night’s against-all-odds comeback against the Chargers, who had built a 27-0 lead in the second quarter before ultimately losing, 31-30.
In that loss to the Chiefs, the Jaguars missed two field goals and had a touchdown pass wiped out by a penalty.
Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence scores on a two-point conversion attempt during a 31-30 victory over the Chargers on Saturday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Against the Chargers, the Jaguars saw four Trevor Lawrence passes picked off in the first half and suddenly found themselves in a deep hole.
“We just have to execute better,” coach Doug Pederson told reporters. “We’ve got to take care of the football. We can’t do what we did the other night and expect to win, not against this team. We’ll take a look at it and make some adjustments for the week.”
Pederson will match wits with one of his mentors, Chiefs coach Andy Reid. Both men were head coaches in Philadelphia, with Pederson leading the Eagles to their only Lombardi Trophy five years ago.
The four remaining quarterbacks in the AFC represent the next generation of NFL superstars: Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, Jacksonville’s Lawrence, Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow and Buffalo’s Josh Allen.
The Buffalo-Cincinnati game Jan. 2 was suspended in the first quarter with the Bengals leading, 7-3.
This time, after a bruising wild-card game against Baltimore, the Bengals could be down as many as three starting offensive linemen. That’s worrisome against a Buffalo defense that collected four sacks in a postseason opener against Miami, a performance that also included 11 quarterback hits and seven tackles for loss.
If the AFC Championship game were to wind up Kansas City versus Buffalo, that game would be played in Atlanta. A neutral site was selected because the Bills might have been the No. 1 seed — instead of Kansas City — had their game against Cincinnati been played to completion.
