The Cowboys come in as the hottest team in the entire NFC. They have won four straight games and are off their first playoff win since 1996. They have covered game during this stretch while outscoring foes 99-31 with two shutouts to end the regular season.

Quarterback Tony Romo has been outstanding, reversing a trend that had seen him play very poorly down the stretch in previous years. In fact, after suffering back-to-back losses to the Giants and Chargers to start December, Romo’s career record post-Thanksgiving stood at 5-12 straight up. However, as just mentioned, he has been sensational down the stretch. He’s averaged 300+ yards passing the last seven weeks, while throwing 13 TD passes against only two interceptions. He completed better than 62% of his passes in every game during that span.

He’ll be opposed by his childhood idol and the most battle-tested of the eight remaining playoff quarterbacks, Brett Favre, who had maybe his finest year ever with a career-best 107.2 passer rating. This is Favre’s 23rd career playoff start, 20 more than Romo. At home, his TD-INT ratio was 21-2! This mirrored the overall team performance at the Metrodome this season where they won all eight games (5-2-1 ATS) while averaging 32.7 points per game and outscoring foes by better than 17 PPG.

The Vikings did not finish particularly well though, losing three of their final five games SU and ATS. However, they won their two home games during that stretch by a combined 77-17 margin.

RB Adrian Peterson had a rather pedestrian year averaging 4.4 yards per carry. That said, he did rush 1389 yards and scored 18 touchdowns. Dallas boasts the fourth best rush defense in the league and has held opponents to just 54.8 yards per game on the ground the last five weeks. The Cowboys employ a 3-4 defense, which is worth noting since the Vikings were 5-2 straight up against teams using the 3-4 during the regular season.

Minnesota’s own defense was pretty good and led by Jared Allen was much more effective at home. Their 15.5 points against average at home was a full four points lower than their season average. The key will be getting pressure on Romo. A problem could be an injury to LB E.J. Henderson. Without him, the Vikings do not have a linebacker that can stay with Cowboys TE Jason Witten, who has 94 catches for more than 1,000 yards.

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