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The 49ers Will Play the Dallas Cowboys in the Divisional Round of the Playoffs

The 49ers are better than the Cowboys on paper, but the Cowboys are battle-tested.

Grant Cohn

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The Dallas Cowboys just blew out the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31-14, which means the 49ers will play the Cowboys at home this Sunday at 3:30 Pacific Time.

INSTANT ANALYSIS: I thought the Buccaneers might actually upset the Cowboys, but it turns out Tampa Bay is just an 8-10 team with a 45-year-old quarterback that needs to retire.

Dallas looked terrific, though, particularly their quarterback, Dak Prescott, who played like prime Steve Young, although he had all night to throw because the Buccaneers have no pass rush. The Cowboys also showed they have a good offensive line, a good running back in Tony Pollard, which means they have a good play-action passing game, although their left tackle Jason Peters left the game with an injury. Good luck blocking Nick Bosa.

The Cowboys also have a good tight end in Dalton Schultz and an elite wide receiver in CeeDee Lamb. They're an explosive offense, but most importantly they didn't turn the ball over against Tampa Bay. It's hard to beat the 49ers if you turn the ball over.

On defense, the Cowboys looked terrific as well. They have a deep pass rush that features one of the best edge rushers in the NFL -- Micah Parsons -- although he doesn't match up well against Trent Williams. They also have a secondary that intercepts passes and a run defense that performed surprisingly well against the Buccaneers -- the return of linebacker Leighton Vander-Esch certainly helped. Although to be fair, the Buccaneers never made a concerted effort to run the ball, and the 49ers absolutely will.

The 49ers are better than the Cowboys on paper, but the Cowboys are battle-tested because they play in the NFC East, which means they've played four games against the Giants and Eagles, while the 49ers play in the NFC West, and the best teams they've beaten are the Chargers and the Dolphins, both of whom were eliminated this weekend.

Don't get me wrong, the 49ers should beat the Cowboys. But the game could be closer than you expect. I can't wait.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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