Road playoff wins measure greatness

ArtClink said:
The defense is the root cause of why we can’t advance to the NFC Championship game. Name a playoff loss in last 30 years and I’ll show you why the defense cost us those games including the Dez catch w 4:58 left in game. Jerry can’t build a championship defense and that’s not Romo or Daks fault.
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Don’t forget about the playoff game where the defense held SF to 19 points and Dak led the team to a whopping 12 points. Dak and Romo were contributors in these losses.
 
Bobhaze said:
In their storied 66 year history, the Dallas Cowboys have won 36 playoff games, ranked 4th all time after the pats, niners, and packers. For nearly 2 and a half decades, the Cowboys had the most playoff wins.

In this great team timeline there have been a ton of really good teams. And certainly a few elite, great teams. If you want to measure the great teams, they are usually marked by their ability to win playoff games on the road. Something the Cowboys were certainly known for at one time - winning tough playoff games on the road.

To illustrate this point, in its history the Cowboys have won 10 ROAD playoff games. If you look at when they happened, you can see how difficult it is to win playoff games on the road.

COWBOYS ROAD PLAYOFF WINS
  • 1970-82: 7 Road playoff wins (all under Tom Landry and 2 were NFC championship games!)
  • 1991-95: 2 Road playoff wins (both under Jimmy Johnson; 1 was the 92 NFC championship game)
  • 2022: 1 Road playoff win (under Mike McCarthy)
We all know all about the infamous 30 year drought without even one conference championship game appearance. Within this same era - in fact over the last 33 years, the Cowboys have won ONE road playoff game, the 2022 wild card win at Tampa to end Tom Brady’s career.

The reason this is so telling is unless you are the top seed in your conference (which we have only done 6 times in our entire history) you are going to have to win road playoff games!

The ability to win games on the road measures good teams. The ability to win playoff games on the road measures great teams.
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Yep, and that win over Tampa Bay, weren’t they around .500 for the regular season?
Hardly a tough team to beat.
 
fivetwos said:
I could be wrong but I think they’ve only won multiple road playoff games once in their history, even before Jerry stole the fun. In fairness, a good part of that was having home field in certain seasons.
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That's nuts if it's true. That would probably be the '75 season. It's crazy because just from memory the stinking Jets did it at least 3 times.
 
Flamma said:
That's nuts if it's true. That would probably be the '75 season. It's crazy because just from memory the stinking Jets did it at least 3 times.
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I’m pretty sure thats accurate, but again part of it was that many season in which they were good, they didn’t get a chance because of having home field. I wouldn’t consider the SB a road game,

For me the more stunning one was that Troy Aikman never won an NFL game when Emmitt Smith didn’t play. Not one.
 
fivetwos said:
I’m pretty sure thats accurate, but again part of it was that many season in which they were good, they didn’t get a chance because of having home field. I wouldn’t consider the SB a road game,

For me the more stunning one was that Troy Aikman never won an NFL game when Emmitt Smith didn’t play. Not one.
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I'm guessing mainly because of the gameplan itself. They ran a power run offense. From '92 through '95 they ran all plays under center. He didn't have a Dan Marino spread offense. If he didn't have a threat in the backfield, it was much more difficult to move the ball through the air than say for Dan Fouts, Marino, or even Jim Kelly.
 
Flamma said:
I'm guessing mainly because of the gameplan itself. They ran a power run offense. From '92 through '95 they ran all plays under center. He didn't have a Dan Marino spread offense. If he didn't have a threat in the backfield, it was much more difficult to move the ball through the air than say for Dan Fouts, Marino, or even Jim Kelly.
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Sounds right.

Troy’s number is absurd, something like 0-12, but in fairness it a bit misleading since about eight of those losses were in his rookie year before Emmitt got here (remember Troy missed significant time that year with a finger injury).

Supporting your point, I’d guess that Emmitt’s WL record without Troy is pretty ugly, as he hung around a little longer for the teeth of when Jerry first took over football ops.
 
ArtClink said:
In certain playoff losses, yes Romo & Dak were part of the reason, but the elephant in the room is the defense.
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Absolutely. Dak didn't do enough against SF, especially in the '22 playoffs. But that's one of the few examples where the defense held up their end but the offense didn't.

And it's no surprise really. I will die on the hill that SF was the best team in the NFL in 2022 year. Their defense was outstanding and they just had a way of grinding teams down over the course of a game.

It got real easy for SF's defense once Pollard went down.

That's going to happen from time to time. But we need more strong defensive consistency to have deep post season runs, or we need to not run into elite QBs or Elite Defenses.
 
Bobhaze said:
I understand your points here.

But when you realize the Cowboys have had home field advantage throughout the playoffs only 6 times in their history, you have to be able to win a road playoff game to win championships.

Of the 8 Cowboys teams that have made the SB, only 4 of those teams had home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Those teams were 1971, ‘77, ‘93 and ‘95 and they all won the SB. The ‘70, ‘75 , ‘78 and ‘92 teams all had to win road playoff games to get to the SB. The ‘92 team won SB 27.
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The 92, 93, and 95 teams played a total of one road playoff game.

Winning a single game at Candlestick doesn't make that stretch any better than if they beat the 9ers at home.
 
LouBrown said:
The 92, 93, and 95 teams played a total of one road playoff game.

Winning a single game at Candlestick doesn't make that stretch any better than if they beat the 9ers at home.
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The 1970-78 teams played in 5 SBs. In those nine seasons, they won 6 road playoff wins.

All I’m saying here is IF you can’t ever win on the road in the playoffs, your only hope is to be the #1 seed. And we’ve proven that doesn’t guarantee success either. Being good on the road usually indicates you have a great defense.
 
Bobhaze said:
The 1970-78 teams played in 5 SBs. In those nine seasons, they won 6 road playoff wins.

All I’m saying here is IF you can’t ever win on the road in the playoffs, your only hope is to be the #1 seed. And we’ve proven that doesn’t guarantee success either. Being good on the road usually indicates you have a great defense.
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The 72 team played 0 road playoff games.
The 78 team played 0 road playoff games.
The 92 team played 1 road playoff game.
The 93 team played 0 road playoff games.
The 95 team played 0 road playoff games.

Yea, you want to be good on the road, but it's not a measure of anything.
 
LouBrown said:
The 72 team played 0 road playoff games.
The 78 team played 0 road playoff games.
The 92 team played 1 road playoff game.
The 93 team played 0 road playoff games.
The 95 team played 0 road playoff games.

Yea, you want to be good on the road, but it's not a measure of anything.
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Scratch that, this is wrong.
 
LouBrown said:
Scratch that, this is wrong.
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I responded and deleted it since I was wrong about you not being wrong or whatever. The team from the 71 season that beat Miami did win a road playoff game. Before my time. I do believe home field was alternated back then, not necessarily earned, which is mind blowing to me. Wasn’t all that long ago. Then you have the confusion of the SB being played in a different year than the season itself.

Overall, I’d say the point is the way to a championship is to get the one seed and not play road games. It does make sense that the best teams didnt have to play on the road, so it’s a small sample size.
 
To think the only win we have lately is over the Bucs who didn't even deserve to be in the playoffs. Their OL was held together by tape and glue and the defense had basically camp bodies by the end of the year but it was sure nice to watch the cowboys play lights out
 
Redline360 said:
To think the only win we have lately is over the Bucs who didn't even deserve to be in the playoffs. Their OL was held together by tape and glue and the defense had basically camp bodies by the end of the year but it was sure nice to watch the cowboys play lights out
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Watching Tom Brady lose always warms the cockles of my heart
 
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