No matter how many games they win or how good they look, NFL fans and analysts alike will always doubt Mike McCarthy and the Dallas Cowboys. To be fair, the franchise has a long history of underperforming when it matters the most.
The Cowboys got the job done and beat the mediocre Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium, as expected. Now, they’ll be underdogs when they travel to Santa Clara for their toughest matchup yet.
McCarthy’s team will visit the San Francisco 49ers in a short week after playing on Monday night. But despite the fact thatoddsmakers, pundits, and fans predict their season will be over in the Divisional Round, Micah Parsons isn’t so sure.
NFL News: Micah Parsons Says Cowboys Love The Underdog Role
“I really think we beat ourselves last year with the penalties, the offsides, things like that,” Parsons told the Cowboys website. “If you just play your game — the biggest misconception is that you have to go out there and be different, that you have to go out there and try to out-physical a team, that you want to play their game. Why play their game? Play your game. Let’s play Dallas football. That’s all we got to do.”
“It’s like [in that Muhammed Ali documentary], we hear what everybody’s saying, we hear it: ‘No way the Cowboys going to win, no way.’ Honestly, I think you should feed into it, you should love that stuff,” Parsons added.“When no one believes in you, that’s the best feeling; not when everyone believes in you and the Kool-Aid is up and everyone is smiling like, ‘They can’t lose. They’re too good.’ I don’t want that feeling because then it’s like, damn, what if I don’t win? When you’re already at the bottom, you can only go up. I really like being the underdog.”
The Niners ended the Cowboys’ season last year, so this means way more for this core of players. They’ve been quite solid for most of the season, but solid might not get the job done against the team’s most stacked team.