The Dallas Cowboys remain alone with a horrible playoff history in the NFL.
You see, the New England Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday night. This is relevant to the Cowboys, a version of them, because New England was the No. 2 seed on the AFC side of the playoff picture.
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The Chicago Bears are the second seed in the NFC and got the win earlier in the weekend on Saturday night. Chicago defeated the Green Bay Packers and solidified Dallas’ pick of them as a result of trading Micah Parsons at No. 20 overall, which was objectively a good thing, but the advancement of both No. 2 seeds is bad news for the Cowboys from two years ago.
We have to go back even further to understand the point at hand. The NFL expanded the playoff field to include 3 wild card teams per conference ahead of the 2020 season, meaning we just wrapped up year six of life as we currently know it.
There are 12 teams that have been the No. 2 seed since then, and thus 12 teams have hosted the No. 7 seed in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs. As a result of Chicago and New England’s wins, those No. 2 seeds are now 11-1 in those specific games… with the only loss being the 2023 Dallas Cowboys.
In many ways, it has felt like the Cowboys are still trying to recover from that loss, and another year has gone by to prove just how terrible it was.
Sigh.