ARLINGTON, Texas -- Welcome to AT&T Stadium, where the Dallas Cowboys host the Detroit Lions Sunday in the wild-card round of the NFL playoffs.
After winning the NFC East with a 12-4 record, their best since a 13-3 finish in 2007, the Cowboys are looking to carry over that regular-season success to the playoffs. They are 1-0 in the playoffs at AT&T Stadium, beating the Philadelphia Eagles 34-14 in the 2009 season.
The Cowboys and Lions have met in the postseason twice, with both teams winning their home games. Dallas beat the Lions 5-0 in the divisional round of the 1970 playoffs on their way to an appearance in Super Bowl V. The Lions pinned a 38-6 loss on the Cowboys in the 1991 divisional round at the Silverdome.
Eyes on the interior: Zack Martin became the first Cowboys rookie to earn All-Pro honors since 1969 and the first offensive lineman league-wide to be so honored since 1947. Sunday, Martin will be under the microscope even more when he goes against Ndamukong Suh.
“I think we’ll still kind of stay under the offensive line,” Martin said, “We’re just going to try to keep doing what we’ve done since Day 1.”
The Cowboys weren’t afraid to run at J.J. Watt or throw at Richard Sherman earlier this season. They won’t be afraid to go at Suh either.
“We’ve got to play against who they put out there,” Cowboys passing game coordinator Scott Linehan said. “They’ve got great players on defense. If you’re concerned on one guy, the other guys are going to come up and bite you. They’ve got great depth to their defense.”
The other guy: Since Calvin Johnson caught 14 passes for 329 yards against the Cowboys in last year’s regular-season meeting, most of the focus has been on how the Cowboys will look to stop him Sunday.
Most of the talk about Lions receiver Golden Tate this week has been about his cheap shot on Cowboys linebacker Sean Lee from two years ago when Tate played for the Seattle Seahawks.
But Tate finished sixth in the NFL this season with 99 catches. He also had 1,331 yards and four touchdowns and had a stretch of five 100-yard games over the course of six weeks, but he has not reached triple digits in the last seven games.
“Really good football player,” Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett said. “We watched him coming out of school, he was such an impact player at Notre Dame, and they just found so many different ways to get him the ball and he was always the guy that made the difference in the game. I think you saw a lot of that in Seattle when he had opportunities, and you’ve seen some of that in Detroit. Obviously Calvin Johnson is a great player on the other side who makes a huge impact on the game, but they’ve gotten the ball to Golden a lot and he’s done a lot of great things with it, particularly after the catch.”
The ref: Pete Morelli will be the referee for Sunday’s game against the Lions. It is the second Cowboys game his crew has called this season. They worked the Week 5 overtime win against the Houston Texans, calling seven penalties for 56 yards on the Cowboys. Morelli worked the Cowboys’ loss in the divisional round of the 2007 playoffs to the New York Giants. Last week, Morelli’s crew worked the San Diego Chargers-Kansas City Chiefs game. Here is a breakdown from that game.