49ers must capitalize on this glaring Cowboys weakness

The San Francisco 49ers will look to do what the Tampa Bay Buccaneers couldn’t and capitalize on a significant Dallas Cowboys weakness.

By dominating Monday night’s Wild Card game against the No. 4 seed Tampa Bay Buccaneers and winning 31-14, the No. 5 seed Dallas Cowboys clinched a spot in the Divisional Round of the NFC playoffs for the first time since the 2018 season.

Because the Cowboys don’t have the lowest seed among the four remaining NFC teams, they are not slated to take on the No. 1 seed Philadelphia Eagles in the Divisional Round.

Instead, they are set to travel to Santa Clara to take on the No. 2 seed San Francisco 49ers after the 49ers knocked off the No. 7 seed Seattle Seahawks by a score of 41-23.

Prior to their win on Monday night, the Cowboys hadn’t won a road playoff game since the 1992 NFC Championship Game, when they defeated the 49ers at Candlestick Park.

Now the Cowboys will have to beat the 49ers on the road again this coming Sunday, and they will have to do it on a grass surface at Levi’s Stadium.

Despite finishing the regular season 12-5, the Cowboys went just 1-4 in games contested on grass fields, losing to the Eagles, the Green Bay Packers, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and the Washington Commanders. They only beat the Tennessee Titans, who were starting a quarterback they had just signed at the time.

The Cowboys play their home games on turf at AT&T Stadium and finished the season 8-1 there, and they also won all three of their road games played on turf against the New York Giants, the Los Angeles Rams, and the Minnesota Vikings.

The 49ers finished the regular season 11-3 on grass, though that doesn’t necessarily indicate that they perform better on grass than they do on turf, considering their overall record was 13-4.

On the other hand, the Cowboys performed far worse on grass than they did on turf, and this is something that should give the 49ers at least a slight advantage.

Tampa Bay, of course, wasn’t able to capitalize on that weakness, getting blown out by a score of 31-14 at the hands of Mike McCarthy’s team at Raymond James Stadium. Can San Francisco avoid a similar fate?

The Cowboys haven’t been to the NFC Championship Game since the 1995 season, when they defeated the Green Bay Packers en route to their fifth and most recent Super Bowl win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. The 49ers were there just last year, losing to the eventual Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams.

The most recent meeting between the 49ers and Cowboys took place during last year’s postseason when San Francisco beat Dallas in Arlington by a score of 23-17 in the Wild Card round.