Ethermac Exchange-Packers vs. Cowboys playoff preview: Mike McCarthy squares off against former team

No team has been more dominant at home this season than the Dallas Cowboys,Ethermac Exchange winning all of their eight games at AT&T Stadium to extend a streak that now goes back 16 games. Only two this year were one-possession games, and the Cowboys scored at least 30 points in all but one. 

Dallas now has a chance to carry over that success with at least one home playoff game for the NFC East champions and No. 2 seed behind the San Francisco 49ers. 

Head coach Mike McCarthy actually already has a postseason victory inside the building. However, it came for the team trying to end the Cowboys' season next weekend.

The Green Bay Packers punched their postseason ticket with a victory over the Chicago Bears on Sunday and earned the conference’s No. 7 seed. McCarthy won Super Bowl 45 as head coach of the Packers, where he coached from 2006 until his firing after Week 13 of the 2018 season. 

Jerry Jones hired McCarthy in 2020 and the Cowboys have gone 12-5 in each of the last three seasons. This year marked the second division title – and home playoff game – of the McCarthy Era. 

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As part of one of the youngest teams in the league, few current Packers players called McCarthy “coach.” Running back Aaron Jones is one. Left tackle David Bakhtriari is the longest-tenured Packer, but he is out for the season with a knee ailment and hasn’t played since Week 1. 

McCarthy himself isn't buying into any narratives about the matchup.

"The drama of it, I’m sure (the media) will love," he said Sunday. "But I will not participate in it. It’s playoff time. It doesn’t matter who play, to be honest with you."

Cowboys vs. Packers playoff history 

The teams played in one of the NFL’s most historic games, the 1967 championship game, a 34-27 Packers victory dubbed “The Ice Bowl” for the sub-zero temperatures of the day. 

Since then, they have met in the postseason seven more times. The winner of this weekend’s game will break the 4-4 deadlock. Dallas won four in a row and ended the Packers season in three consecutive years from 1994-96 before Green Bay took the last two. The most recent was a 34-31 victory engineered by McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers that led to a game-winning Mason Crosby kick as time expired in the 2016 divisional round; Dallas had entered as the NFC’s No. 1 seed. 

Mike McCarthy’s history in Green Bay 

McCarthy went 125-77-2 with the Packers and 10-8 in the playoffs. Green Bay hired Matt LaFleur to replace McCarthy, and the Packers had three straight 13-win seasons with little playoff success before a 8-9 campaign in 2022. This marks the franchise's fourth time in five years advancing to the postseason under LaFleur. It's the first with Rodgers' replacement, Jordan Love, as quarterback.