We will find out who the Philadelphia Eagles will face in the NFC Championship game next week when the divisional round of the NFL 2022 Playoffs concludes with a clash between the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday evening.
Both these teams looked very assured in coming through their wildcard clashes last week and are among the bigger teams in the league. They will both have their eyes on the Super Bowl now not just a date with Philadelphia.
San Francisco 49ers
When the playoffs began the team who looked the best suited to the challenges in front of them were the San Francisco 49ers. There was a question mark over their quarterback in his first postseason game but any of those doubts were well and truly put to bed in the win over the Seattle Seahawks last week. The rest of it all looked in excellent shape when you consider generally teams with a good running game and a top defence go best at this time of year.
With Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel around there are claims that the 49ers’ running game is the best in the competition. The one thing which isn’t in dispute is that San Francisco have the best defence in the game right now so if Brock Purdy plays a clean game then the 49ers are entitled to be very hard to beat, which is incredible really when you consider the injury issues they have had with their quarterbacks this season.
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Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys went into the final week of the season with the chance of getting the number one seed in the NFC, as did the San Francisco 49ers, so that suggests there is little between these two. Given that the Cowboys were in the tougher division there is an argument to be made that perhaps they are the better of the two teams, although that is countered by their poor recent record when we get to this stage of a season.
The Cowboys defence might not live with the 49ers one statistically but it certainly isn’t far behind and if the likes of Micah Parsons and Trevon Diggs have says out then they could mess the home side up enough. Dallas will head to San Francisco with a double ground option and plenty of decent receivers so they can go toe-to-toe with the home side as long as they can avoid Nick Bosa wrecking the game from their point of view.
Betting
This should be a cracking contest between two brilliant all-round good sides. I give the edge to the San Francisco 49ers with home advantage and the fact their wildcard match was over 48 hours before the Dallas Cowboys in action in that round but I would be surprised if there is much in this match. I don’t really want to call the spread or the points so I will head to the player props for a bet on this match.
The player in question is the San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey who has a rushing yards line of just 66.5 yards and while he is heavily involved in the receiving game, I would imagine that there is going to be a lot of running the ball from the home side, as much to take the pressure off Brock Purdy as keeping the Dallas offense off the field. Dallas didn’t really do a brilliant job of stopping an average Tampa Bay run game last week while McCaffrey cut loose putting up 119 yards on the ground against Seattle. He might not rush for that many here but I do think he can sail over 66.5 yards.
Tips
Back C.McCaffrey – Over 66.5 rushing yards for a 3/10 stake at 1.90 with Coral
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