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The offensive line has become dominant, quarterback Tony Romo has been supremely efficient, wide receiver Dez Bryant has become unstoppable, running back DeMarco Murray set a new team record while leading the league in rushing, and Rod Marinelli's opportunistic defense has exceeded expectations.
But the line was good in 2013, as were Romo and Bryant. And the defense gave up a lot of yards last season, but it did have a solid 28 takeaways, which was just three short of its total from 2014.
The major difference this year—the primary explanation for why this team broke from three consecutive 8-8 seasons with a 12-4 campaign—is that sudden balance on offense.
The Cowboys were one of just three NFL teams to run more often than they passed in 2014. Each of those three teams (Dallas, the Seattle Seahawks and the Houston Texans) as well as the fourth team on the list (the Cincinnati Bengals) had winning records.
Meanwhile, the five least-balanced teams in football (Oakland, Chicago, Atlanta, Jacksonville and New Orleans) all missed the playoffs with losing records.
No coincidence there.
The Cowboys emphasized the running game from start to finish in 2014, which explains why Murray had 392 rushing attempts (the seventh-highest total in NFL history) while Romo threw only 435 passes (by far the lowest full-season total of his career).
Romo is still this team's MVP, but in a lot of their wins, he was a cog. With Pro Bowlers Tyron Smith, Travis Frederick, Zack Martin, Murray and Bryant surrounding him, he didn't have to be a superhero.
That's about to change.
Because not only does a modern-day Super Bowl run require excellent quarterback play with very few exceptions, but the reality is the Cowboys' running game might not be there to provide a cushion for Romo as Dallas tries to navigate its first playoff endeavor in half a decade.
Potential mid- or late-January opponents Seattle, Arizona and Carolina are tough up front, and even the Packers have become strong against the run. The Seahawks' run defense ranks third in the NFL, while Green Bay and the Panthers both ranked in the top 10 with sub-3.8 defensive yards-per-rush averages during the second half of the season.
But none of those defenses hold a run-stuffing candle to the Detroit Lions, who surrendered a league-low 3.2 yards per carry during the regular season.
And Detroit actually got better against the run as the season wore on, giving up just 3.1 yards per attempt during the second half of the season.
Pro Football Focus (subscription required) ranked them second in run defense, behind only the New York Jets, but Football Outsiders, using their DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average) formula, ranked them first by a wide margin.
The criminally underrated DeAndre Levy might be the best run-stopping 4-3 outside linebacker in the conference. PFF describes a "stop" as a play which constitutes a loss for the offense. And according to that source, Levy was responsible for a stop on 14.1 percent of his snaps in run defense, which was the second-highest rate in the NFL.
But Levy might not even be the best run defender on his own team, because Detroit also has four-time Pro Bowler Ndamukong Suh and the talented Ziggy Ansah up front as well as stud safeties Glover Quin and James Ihedigbo. Quin is a Pro Bowler, while Ihedigbo was named an alternate last week.
UPDATE: Suh has been suspended for the Dallas game, according to Adam Schefter and Chris Mortensen of ESPN.
All four of those guys are coming off superb seasons. Suh is the headliner, but Quin finished the season as PFF's third-highest-rated safety while only three qualified safeties had a better run-stop rate within eight yards of the line of scrimmage than Ihedigbo.
The good news for the Cowboys is Packers running back Eddie Lacy was able to rush for 100 yards against Detroit in Week 17. The bad news is Lacy averaged only 3.9 yards per carry on 26 attempts, and that was by far the best a back has fared against the Lions D in 2014.
Only one back (LeGarrette Blount of the Patriots) has averaged more than five yards per carry on at least 10 attempts against the Lions this season. They simply force offenses to become one-dimensional, which is why they rank in the top three in terms of yards and points allowed and eighth when it comes to takeaways.
Murray could be an exception. He had a ridiculous 12 100-yard performances this season and led the NFL in rushing by a margin of almost 500 yards. But we probably shouldn't be expecting him to carry the Cowboys on his shoulders.
No, it's about the quarterback now. It always is in the playoffs.
Nine of the last 11 Super Bowl champions were led by superstar quarterbacks in the Hall of Fame conversation (Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers), and the other two (Joe Flacco and Russell Wilson) had a combined 14 touchdown passes and zero interceptions in seven playoff games on their teams' respective Super Bowl runs.
Romo was the league's highest-rated passer during the regular season and is now the second-highest-rated passer in league history. He's an MVP candidate coming off a career year. But none of that'll matter if he can't carry the Cowboys regardless of what they get from the running game and the defense.
Historically, in the playoffs, he's come up short. He screwed up a hold to botch his first playoff game against Seattle in 2006, he completed only 18 of 36 passes in an upset divisional playoff loss to the Giants in 2007 and he had a rating of just 66.1 in a blowout Divisional Round loss to the Vikings in 2009.
The Cowboys are just 1-3 with Romo under center in the postseason, but a lot has happened since '06, '07 and '09. In order to prove that both he and his constantly disappointing team have finally changed, Romo will have to be a difference-maker Sunday against Detroit.
Anything short of that, and the Cowboys will likely enter 2015 still searching for only their second playoff victory since 1997.
Brad Gagnon has covered the NFC East for Bleacher Report since 2012.
Follow @Brad_Gagnon
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