DEEP AND PHYSICAL BALL
Sloppy Cowboys don’t have an answer for dominating 49ers in playoff loss
“Go Niners!”
It’s a greeting John Lynch hears from strangers when he’s out in San Diego.
The Niners are still going — to Green Bay — thanks to a deep, well-coached team assembled by Kyle Shanahan and GM Lynch that rose up Sunday in Texas.
Overcoming injuries to stars Nick Bosa and Fred Warner in the second and fourth quarters, respectively, the 49ers beat the favored Dallas Cowboys, 23-17, in an NFC wild-card game they never trailed.
They’ll face the top-seeded Packers on Saturday, reprising a playoff match they won two winters ago in Santa Clara en route to the Super Bowl.
The Niners outmuscled and outclassed a Cowboys team whose shoddy, dysfunctional performance — 14 penalties and other breakdowns — should give Dallas owner Jerry Jones reason to ask hard questions of coach Mike McCarthy and staff that Jones seems unable to ask of himself.
The final score sold short the 49ers’ dominance of a matchup that got the featured time slot in the Super Bowl tournament’s first round, while surfacing NinersCowboys playoff matchups of decades ago.
Led by their two fronts, the visitors mauled the Cowboys (12-6) on the ground (169 yards on 4.9 per carry), took away the run (77 yards on 3.7) and tilted the passing games in their favor.
San Francisco (11-7) took leads of 10-0, 16-7 and 23-7 before surviving a fake punt in the fourth quarter that led to three points and Jimmy Garoppolo’s errant pass that set up a short-field touchdown drive.
They had outgained Dallas by nearly double — 6.4 to 3.3 in yards per play — through three quarters. “We moved the ball,” All-Pro left tackle Trent Williams said after the first playoff victory of his 12-year career. “We didn’t get touchdowns, we got field goals. And that’s why the game was close at the end.”
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