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5 key things to watch in the Lions-Cowboys Wild Card game

(Mike Carter-USA TODAY Sports)

(Mike Carter-USA TODAY Sports)

(6) Detroit Lions at (3) Dallas Cowboys
Sunday January 4, 4:40 p.m. ET, FOX

(Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports)

(Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports)

1) Lions QB Matthew Stafford is currently 0-17 on the road when facing a team with a winning record.

There’s a first time for everything, right Lions fans? For as much grief as Tony Romo has gotten for his big game failures over the years, Detroit’s former top overall pick has gone 0-16 in regular season road games against teams over .500 and lost his only career playoff game in New Orleans in 2011. Obviously Stafford’s teammates have as much to do with this trend during his six NFL seasons as he does, but it’s certainly not a statistic that inspires any sort of big game confidence.

(Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports)

(Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports)

2) Can Tony Romo and the Cowboys offense keep rolling into January?

As For The Win‘s Mike Foss pointed out Sunday afternoon, Romo has had the best December of his career, aided by the tremendous play of Dallas’ young offensive line and the NFL’s leading rusher DeMarco Murray. The veteran quarterback is playing like a new man, throwing 12 touchdowns and just one interception in his last four games. The young line will face a disruptive challenge from Ndamukong Suh and the Lions’ front four, who allowed the NFL’s lowest running yards per game this season. That may force Dallas to rely on Romo to carry more of the offense’s weight yet again.

(Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports)

(Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports)

3) The coach who oversaw Detroit’s worst season ever is now running the Cowboys defense.

Fired by the Lions as head coach in 2008 after they became the league’s first winless team since the NFL expanded to a 16-game schedule, Cowboys first-year defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli has transformed a unit that ranked last in the league in 2013 into one that finished the regular season solidly in the middle of the NFL. And he managed to do it despite losing Pro Bowl defensive end Demarcus Ware in the offseason and watching linebacker Sean Lee get shelved for the season with an injury. It’s not the only Cowboys-Lions coaching connection. Dallas offensive playcaller Scott Linehan served as Detroit’s offensive coordinator for five years before losing his job when Jim Schwartz was fired as the Lions head coach after the 2013 season.

(Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports)

(Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports)

4) The Dallas secondary will need to cover Calvin Johnson a little better this year.

Megatron victimized the Cowboys secondary in their 2013 regular season matchup, grabbing 14 passes for 329 yards and a touchdown in Detroit’s 31-30 win in Week 8. That performance was good enough for the second highest single game receiving yards in NFL history. Prior to that game, Dez Bryant had told the media that he could do anything Johnson could do on the field. While Bryant’s 2014 performance has certainly made that appear to be the case this season, maybe he shouldn’t give Johnson any extra motivation this time around.

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5) These teams rarely play each other in the postseason.

Emmitt Smith and Barry Sanders were both on the field the last time the Cowboys and Lions met in the playoffs. Detroit crushed Dallas 38-6 in a 1991 NFC divisional playoff game, although neither future Hall of Famer rushed for over 100 yards in that contest. The only other playoff battle happened in 1970, as the Cowboys beat the Lions 5-0 thanks to a first quarter field goal and fourth quarter safety. While both teams are always guaranteed top billing every Thanksgiving, it’s rare for them to both be good in the same season and even rarer for them to face each other in the playoffs.

 

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