Dallas beat Tampa Bay on Monday night, so this is another road game on a short week, which will challenge them. 'The 49ers beat the Cowboys at their place in last year's playoffs, so this will be a chance for the Cowboys to even things up. To read his divisional round column, click here. John Breech loves underdogs this week, and he's taking the Cowboys to advance to the NFC Championship game. 'And you know what, I'll even say this things ends with a game-winning field goal from the guy ( Brett Maher) who can't make an extra point.'

Only four rookie quarterbacks - Shaun King, Ben Roethlisberger, Joe Flacco, Mark Sanchez - have ever made it to a conference title game and I don't think Purdy is going to be the fifth. 'Last year, the 49ers were the underdog and I picked them to upset the Cowboys. Purdy has looked great, but he faced five teams in the regular season that finished with a combined record of 35-49-1. Also, since Brock Purdy took over the starting job, the 49ers haven't really been tested because they haven't really faced any good teams. The 49ers had the easiest strength of schedule in the NFL this year and half their wins came in a bad division (Including the playoffs, they went 7-0 against NFC West teams and 7-4 against everyone else).

'The 49ers have been one of the best teams in the NFL this year, but I'm still not sure how they're going to look against a good team. In that game, the Falcons head coach was Quinn while the offensive coordinator was Shanahan, so I guess we're going to finally find out who we should blame for Atlanta's collapse. I'm sure everyone remembers the Falcons' epic collapse in Super Bowl LI. I swear, any time those two guys are on the same field together, something crazy happens. 'The most fascinating coaching matchup in this game definitely involves Kyle Shanahan's offense going up against Dan Quinn's defense.

'Although this game could turn into a shootout, it also could turn into a defensive struggle and that's because both of these teams rank in the top five for fewest points allowed during the 2022 season. Since Week 7, these have been the TWO HIGHEST SCORING teams in the NFL and that mainly has to do with the fact that both teams had something big happen that week: The 49ers traded for Christian McCaffrey while Dak Prescott returned from his injury.

'The crazy thing about this game is that there's definitely a chance that it could turn into an offensive shootout.

Point spread on nfl playoff games