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The Green Bay Packers will continue to ride their white-hot quarterback, Aaron Rodgers into a Divisional Round playoff match=up against the NFC’s #1 seed, Dallas Cowboys this Sunday. It's really a tale of two wildly different seasons here.
Dallas Cowboys
The Cowboys have been very good all season, their 13-3 record is even a bit of an understatement when you forgive their week 17 loss in a game that had no meaning to them. The Cowboys were mostly untouchable, outside of the two losses to their division rival, the New York Giants. Behind an elite offensive line and star rookie running-back, Ezekiel Elliott,and their excellent running game compliments an efficient passing game and a serviceable team defense to form one of the more balanced and complete teams in the league today!
Green Bay Packers
The Packers lean nearly exclusively on their passing game, and on the greatness of the one and only, Aaron Rodgers. Two months prior to this day, they were sitting on a 4-6 record, the Packers were a disappointment and a mess. Following through on though Mike McCarthy’s now famous suggestion that the team could go on to "run the table", Rodgers and the Packers somehow rattled off 6 consecutive victories to win the division and take the #4 seed in this year's playoffs!
Players To Watch
You have to start with Rodgers,Aaron Rodgers is one of the most rare players in sport who at any moment can take a team by the throat and single-handedly make great things happen. They say an athlete's prime is between 27-30 years of age, and for an NFL quarterback you can probably push that back a few years. Which makes the 33-year-old Rodgers a dialed in quarterback near the height of his powers, and a beautiful thing to watch.
Dak Prescott, originally thought to be filling in part-time for an injured Tony Romo, has surpassed all expectations and is generally considered the spark that turned the Cowboys into an elite Super Bowl contender. He'll likely be outdone by his own teammate, Ezekiel Elliott for Rookie Of The Year honors, but having a 23:4 touchdown/interception ratio is massively efficient by any standard, and essentially unheard of for a rookie passer. Can the youngster stay sharp, or will the big stage get the best of him?
Ezekiel Elliott is the other half of Dallas's rookie uprising. Averaging over 5 yards per attempt, 1631 rushing yards total, and 15 rushing touchdowns over 15 games, Elliot has busted onto the short-list of the league's most elite rushers. He'll garner MVP attention for some, and more importantly he comes in fresh, following a day of rest in Dallas's week 17 match-up and last week's playoff bye.
It hardly seems to matter who Aaron Rodgers is throwing to when he's at his best, but every inch can matter in a playoff battle like this, and the Pack is happy to have a healthy Randall Cobb back in their lineup. With leading wide receiver Jordy Nelson ruled out due to a rib injury, Cobb (fresh off of a 3 touchdown performance last week) becomes a critical part of Green Bay’s passing attack.
Dez Bryant seems to never have quite materialized into the truly elite tier of wide receiver that many hoped for. But, he's a force all the same, and it would be fair to speculate that he still has a very bitter taste in his mouth from the 'non catch' ruling against the Packers in this round of the playoffs in 2014.
New Stories Will Be Written, and New Playoff Moments Will Be Born
For Rodgers, it's an opportunity to define a legacy. To bring a team out of the doldrums (an otherwise unimpressive team who depends entirely on his abilities -- even calling his shot before they'd run the table), and to win a championship that would live forever in football lore. His second Super Bowl title would have him within shouting distance of Tom Brady's 4, and on a crash course to be remembered as one of the greatest to play the game.
For their part, it's not very fair that Dak Prescott or Ezekiel Elliott should have to assume the burden of everything that's gone wrong in Dallas over the last two decades, but, it's what they're faced with. A loss is another season up in flames, and for Prescott perhaps even questions about whether he should have been starting the game. A win is a giant step towards a new beginning for an iconic franchise, and for a passionate base of fans.
It's easy to imagine that we know what these star athletes are feeling, that they interpret pressure in whatever way that we believe they do.
The great Robert Horry once told me (when I had the pleasure of spotting him on the Las Vegas strip and bothering him with an unsolicited question) that a big shot "is just like any other shot, to him, and that in the moment, you're not even thinking about it".
But, that's easy to say for a role player, whose life and legacy doesn't hinge too much on the outcome.
For the young Dak Prescott, I imagine it's been a long two weeks of anticipation, and we the viewers will see what he shows up with at AT&T Stadium on Sunday.
Presenter | GFX: @theprophet0.
Writer: @full-measure.
Game Information
Divisional Round
Sunday, January 15th
1:40 PM PST - 3:40 PM CST - 4:40 PM EST - 9:40 PM UTC
AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas
HOW TO PLAY
• To enter the FREE PLAY, comment below the image of your chosen outcome with the spread (difference in score). Example if you think Team A will win by 10 points you will comment under the image of Team A with “Win by 10” or just “10”.
• Entry cut-off time is the earlier of the post payout or the start of the event.
• Once the post has paid out and the results are known; the presenter will attend to the payouts manually until such time as we have developed an app to handle this automatically.
• Half of the SP pool will be split between the winners who correctly guessed the outcome (exactly), and the balance of the SP to those with the closest match. (Up to 20 winners in total; however in the event of an overflow due to a tie, entries will be chosen at random, starting at least correct entries)
• More than one entry per account/per person will be disqualified. Repeat offense could result in blacklisting for future games.
STAKE POOL
• All liquid rewards will be distributed to Writers (40%) and Presenters (60%)
• 100% of the Steem Power (SP) pool will distributed to winners equally, no rewards will be retained by the 
• To facilitate the distribution of time-locked SP, we will use available liquid Steem to initiate the SP distribution and “top-up” via power-down.
Disclaimer: This is a beta experimental game type, subject to amendment as necessary