If you weren’t born before the 1980s, you might think the Dallas Cowboys and Minnesota Vikings’ histories are pretty similar.
Since 1995 the Cowboys have reached the playoffs 11 times and failed to clear the divisional round 11 times. Four of those seasons featured 12 wins or more. They have some pretty memorable losses in the postseason along the way, including Tony Romo’s blundered hold and Dez Bryant’s non-catch.
Since 1995, the Vikings have three 12-plus win seasons and four trips to the NFC Championship. Two of those championship weekend appearances ended in heartbreak fashion. The others were stunning blowouts.
In the years since Dallas won the Super Bowl, the Vikings have 231 wins and Dallas has 226. The two teams have played three times since Kirk Cousins arrived in Minnesota and the score is 75-72.
Along the way they have each sported remarkable star power and set expectations at reaching the Super Bowl. Whether it’s Terrell Owens or Randy Moss, Deion Sanders or Adrian Peterson, Tony Romo or Brett Favre — there has always been an abundance of celebrity when these franchises match up and there’s always been something in the way of those players taking them to The Big Game.
The celebrity story is no different on Sunday when the Vikings and Cowboys take the big 3:25 kickoff stage. You have two of the highest paid quarterbacks, two elite receivers, two monster pass rushers, one veteran and one young playmaking corner, two of the NFL’s best offensive linemen and so on. Add them together and there will be 21 players on the field who have made at least one Pro Bowl.
The expectations are the same, too. With the NFC sporting only a handful of teams that could reach their final goal, the Cowboys and Vikings are both looking at this year as an open door to make a deep playoff run and exorcise January demons.
Both squads are facing pressure to shed the ghosts of the past. Last year the Cowboys ranked as the No. 1 offense in points and yardage and no-showed in the first round of the playoffs against the San Francisco 49ers. Worse, they melted in the final moments, running the clock out on themselves after a bizarre play call asked QB Dak Prescott to run a QB draw with no timeouts.
Those things stick with you. Ask the Vikings, who missed the postseason the following season after playoff meltdowns in 2000, 2009, 2015 and 2017.
Despite their successful 2021 regular season, there were still questions about head coach Mike McCarthy’s job status. While Jerry Jones gave the stamp of approval to McCarthy before the season, you can bet that another disappearing act might cause the enigmatic Cowboys owner to react.
The Cowboys’ cap situation cries out that they are in a winning window. This season Prescott’s contract carries a manageable $19 million cap hit. Next year it goes up to $49 million. No amount of cap conversions is going to make that thing easy to work around. They are benefitting from star players on rookie contracts. CeeDee Lamb, Micah Parsons and Trevon Diggs total are making around $9 million on the cap. Lamb enters extension land next offseason and the other two will become incredibly expensive in the subsequent years.
That doesn’t mean that Dallas needs to win in 2022 or they’ll never see the light of day again. They’ll still have lots of star talent following this season and will likely get out from under their albatross contract for Ezekiel Elliott and add another receiver for Prescott. But the game of whack-a-mole to fill rosters around an expensive QB doesn’t get easier from here. And the NFC will probably never be more wide open than it is right now.
The Vikings have similar pressure. A Justin Jefferson extension is looming. Za’Darius Smith, Patrick Peterson and Danielle Hunter won’t be this cheap again in the future. If Kirk Cousins finishes the season with 13 or more wins, he’s going to seek more than a one-year prove-it deal.
Beyond projections for the future, the iron appears hot for the striking in Minnesota. The stars have aligned for the Vikings to get their best shot by a mile to go deep in the postseason with Cousins. They are running away with the NFC North, challenging the Eagles for the No. 1 overall seed and bonding together like no team in the Twin Cities has since the 2017 version.
Management has already justified its decision to keep the core together this offseason and add veterans like Smith and Jordan Hicks rather than handing the keys to the youth. They released nearly the entire 2021 draft class and have not made a concerted effort to play developmental players. They sacrificed future draft capital to acquire Pro Bowl tight end TJ Hockenson in an effort to give Cousins another weapon (which has instantly paid dividends, by the way).
In a similar vein, the Cowboys are openly trying to recruit receiver Odell Beckham Jr.
There’s short-term stakes for these teams too. The Cowboys are coming off a miserable loss to the Packers in which they blew a two-score lead and suddenly some of the team’s weaknesses i.e. the lack of a second receiver and poor run defense are in the spotlight. Coming up short would mean taking L’s on the road against Philly, Green Bay and Minnesota and they wouldn’t gain any ground in the conference’s only competitive division. Dallas is still within striking distance of Philly with a win but a loss would mean the NFC East race is nearly over.
The Vikings could lose several games in a row and still sit pretty in their division but each week has become a referendum on who they are. Can they handle the spotlight that has been thrust upon them? Can they match up with an elite defense?
There isn’t much more in terms of drama that anyone could ask from Vikings-Cowboys this Sunday. Of course, this is a stepping stone for the winner. Both teams are ultimately looking to put recent history to rest when it matters most in the postseason.
