5 ways 49ers slow down Cowboys vaunted offense in Wild Card round

The 49ers defense faces a daunting task by slowing down Dak Prescott and an elite Cowboys offense during the Wild Card round, but it can be done.

While the first half of the San Francisco 49ers‘ Week 18 win over the Los Angeles Rams wasn’t pretty, as head coach Kyle Shanahan’s squad quickly got out to a 17-0 deficit before turning things around and winning in overtime, the second half of that game proved enough how the Niners can slow down and frustrate an elite offense.

Good timing and a good takeaway for defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans.

Ryans and Co. will now be tasked with an even tougher challenge in Round 1 of the playoffs, facing off against a Dallas Cowboys team that ranked No. 1 in the league during the regular season, both in points scored (530) and yards gained (6,919).

Perhaps those figures can be a bit misleading, as many of Dallas’ wins have come against inferior competition. Yet one shouldn’t look too much into those stats and come away with the conclusion San Francisco doesn’t have a challenge on its hands.

It does.

Still, the 49ers do have means by which they can slow down quarterback Dak Prescott and a top-performing Cowboys offense on Sunday during this high-profile Wild Card matchup.

No. 5: 49ers must hold Cowboys to less than 100 yards rushing

A team-wide 100-yard rushing plateau can sometimes be misleading, as it’s easy to churn up net rushing yards when a team is in the lead and looking to grind down the clock. Playing catch-up, usually in losing situations, the run game is often neglected.

At any rate, one point of note here is Dallas has gone 1-5 in games this season where it failed to rush for 100 yards as a team.

While running back Ezekiel Elliott isn’t quite the dominant player he once was at his peak, he’s still averaging 4.2 yards per carry and hit that 1,000-yard mark for the fourth time in his career. No. 2 running back David Pollard is a quality rotational piece with 719 rush yards and an average of 5.5 yards per carry.

If there’s good news for the Niners, though, they’ve only allowed an opposing team to rush for over 100 yards just once (Week 13 against the Seattle Seahawks) over their last nine games.

Repeating that trend again might be the critical element Ryans and the defense need on Sunday.