The Dallas Cowboys play the San Francisco 49ers in Week 5 in the best game on the NFL slate this weekend. Ahead of this NFC clash, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones praised the defeated NFC West squad but also issued a warning that the Road to the Super Bowl goes through Dallas.
“[The 49ers] are, right now, probably the most likely team to go win the Super Bowl,” Jones said Tuesday on the Shan & RJ show on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas (h/t ESPN). “But in order for them to get there, they have to go by us, hopefully, two times if that's the way it falls in the playoffs, and we're in the playoffs, of course.”
Right now, a Cowboys-49ers rematch after Week 5 already seems probable as the 4-0 49ers and 3-1 Cowboys look like the class of the NFC along with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Jerry Jones should be careful what he wishes for, though. The Cowboys got the 49ers in the playoffs last season, as the two teams faced off in the Divisional Round. San Francisco won that game 19-12 and moved on to the NFC Championship Game, where Kyle Shanahan’s team lost to the Eagles.
Dallas-San Francisco games deciding the NFC Super Bowl participant is nothing new. From the 1988 to 1995 NFL season, either the Cowboys or 49ers won six of those eight Super Bowls. However, recent Super Bowl history hasn’t been as kind to these perennial NFC powers.
Since the two franchises won back-to-back Big Games in 1994 and 1995, the 49ers have made and lost two Super Bowls while the Cowboys haven’t even returned to the NFC Championship.