TAMPA, Fla. — The Cowboys, one of the NFL’s most maligned teams, exorcised some demons on Monday night when they overcame Tom Brady and the Buccaneers, 31-14, in the NFC wild-card round at Raymond James Stadium.
The 13-5 Cowboys advanced to the divisional round to play the 49ers Sunday in Santa Clara., Calif.
The Cowboys, who’ve been criticized for their poor postseason performances, for their head coach, Mike McCarthy, who always seems to be on the hot seat and for their quarterback, Dak Prescott, who led the NFL in interceptions and had won just one of four postseason games before Monday night.
Prescott was brilliant in the victory, completing 25 of 33 passes for 305 yards, four TDs and no INTs. He, too, rushed for a TD in the game.
The Cowboys, too, overcame the curse of Brady, who entered the game 7-0 against them in his career, including 2-0 with Tampa Bay, which had defeated Dallas 19-3 in the season opener in September.
Dallas also ended an eight-game losing streak on the road in playoff games that dated back to 1992.
Now, the Cowboys will chase their first NFC Championship game appearance since the 1995 season, when they won their last Super Bowl. They can do that with a win over the 49ers.
“We didn’t earn it, they did,’’ Brady said after the game.
“It feels real good,’’ Cowboys 80-year-old owner Jerry Jones said. “I’m real proud of this [coaching] staff. I’m real proud of the players. I appreciate everybody that’s interested in the Cowboys — whether it be a positive interest or whether they want to see us get our ass kicked — and there are a bunch of those.
“But on the other hand, I like to think that we can put something together that can go win [the Super Bowl]. That’s [been] very evasive for us. We’ve got a team here tonight that has enough skill in my opinion to go win it. I think we gained on it tonight.
“Can it be done? We’ll find out, but this team has a talent level and now the intangible experiences that getting knocked down.’’
The game turned on the second play of the second quarter when Brady threw a careless INT to Dallas safety Jayron Kearse in the back of the end zone on a second-and-goal play from the Dallas 5-yard line.
It was Brady’s first red-zone INT as a Buccaneer. He had thrown 410 passes and 86 TDs since the last time he turned the ball over in the red zone — as a Patriot in 2019.
The turnover completely changed the complexion of the game as the Cowboys turned it into a 12-0 lead after marching 80 yards on 15 plays and scoring on a nifty rushing TD by Prescott, who sold a play-action fake to Tony Pollard, rolling to his left and walking into the end zone.
The only thing that kept the offensively-anemic Buccaneers in the game — at least on the scoreboard — was Dallas kicker Brett Maher, who missed an NFL-record four extra points on the Cowboys’ first four TDs.
Brady and the Bucs offense were unable to answer the Prescott TD, punted and then watched Dallas take an 18-0 lead on a Prescott scoring pass to tight end Dalton Schultz with 27 seconds remaining in the half.
That capped a 95-yard Dallas drive and effectively ended the competitive portion of the night.
