ARLINGTON, Texas — Aaron Jones grew up idolizing Emmitt Smith and the Dallas Cowboys.
The 29-year-old Green Bay Packers running back found a new, and most painful, way to torment the team the Pro Football Hall of Famer starred for during its 1990s heyday on his way to becoming the NFL’s all-time leading rusher
Jones ran for three touchdowns, Jordan Love threw three touchdown passes in his postseason debut and Darnell Savage returned an interception 64 yards for a score as the Packers handed the Cowboys their first home loss since the 2022 season opener, a 48-32 stunner Sunday in the wild-card round of the NFC playoffs.
“This was my dad’s team,” Jones, who has 488 yards in four career games against the Cowboys, said of his late father. “You always want to be like your father, so that’s how it became my team. Dallas is a special place to me, so it’s a full-circle moment. It feels like home.”
Even against a team that had won 16 consecutive home games.
Green Bay, which went 9-8 during the regular season and got into the NFC field as the lowest seed at No. 7, will visit the top-seeded San Francisco 49ers in the divisional round next weekend.
Dak Prescott threw two interceptions before three mostly empty touchdown passes in another playoff flop for him and the Cowboys, who were seeded second after going 12-5 and winning the NFC East Division.
The first home loss for Dallas since the Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat them 16 months ago — Tom Brady, the quarterback for the visitors that day, has now been retired for nearly a year — was also the most points the franchise has allowed in a postseason game. The previous high was 38.
The Cowboys, who haven’t reached a conference championship game since winning the most recent of their five Super Bowl titles 28 years ago, didn’t trail by more than eight points at AT&T Stadium this season before falling behind 27-0 in the first half Sunday.
The loss will raise questions about the future of Dallas coach Mike McCarthy after the Cowboys lost their playoff opener at home for the second time in three postseasons under the former Green Bay coach. Dallas also became the first team to win at least 12 games in three consecutive playoff seasons without making a conference title game.
The Cowboys surged to a division title with back-to-back wins the past two weeks as the Philadelphia Eagles faltered down the stretch, and Dallas had a chance to be home at least twice this postseason. Instead, the Cowboys head into a suddenly uncertain offseason.
“Just shocked, honestly,” Prescott said. “From the beginning of the game, we got beat. There’s no which way around it. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. Shock.”
Romeo Doubs had a career-high 151 receiving yards a week after being hospitalized with a chest injury as the Packers rolled after finishing the regular season by winning six of their last eight games.
“We came in here with a mindset of we’re going to dominate,” Love said. “A lot of people were counting us out, and we didn’t care about that.”
The Packers have never lost in six trips to AT&T Stadium, including a Super Bowl victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers to cap the 2010 season. They now have two playoff victories over the Cowboys after Aaron Rodgers, traded to the New York Jets last April, quarterbacked Green Bay to a 34-31 divisional-round win when Dallas was the NFC’s top seed in 2016, Prescott’s rookie year.
Those Packers let a 21-3 lead slip away. These Packers, with the four-time NFL MVP’s successor taking the snaps, left little doubt with a 48-16 fourth-quarter lead before two late touchdowns for Dallas.
“We knew it would take time,” Jones said. “You would hear me during the season and other players (say), ‘We were right there, we’re right there, we’re right there.’ We’ve been able to get over that hump.”
Facing the NFL’s fifth-best defense from the recently completed regular season, Green Bay matched its Super Bowl-winning team from the 2010 season for the most points in a playoff game. That was also on the road, a 48-21 victory against the top-seeded Atlanta Falcons in the divisional round.
Doubs, who returned to the Green Bay sideline after his hospital trip before the end of last week’s 17-9 home victory over the Chicago Bears that secured a playoff spot, had 102 yards at halftime. It was 7 more yards than the second-year pro’s previous best.
First-half throws of 22, 26 and 39 yards helped get Love going, and the fourth-year pro finished 16-of-21 passing for 272 yards as the Packers scored touchdowns on six of their first seven possessions in their highest-scoring game since 2014.
One of them was set up by Prescott’s first interception at the Dallas 19-yard line, with the pick made by Jaire Alexander after he was questionable coming in when he sprained an ankle during the week.
A 46-yard catch by Doubs early in the second half helped finish off the Cowboys after they had scored 10 points on either side of the break. Doubs, Luke Musgrave and Dontayvion Wicks had touchdown catches for Green bay.
Jones rushed for 118 yards, putting him over the century mark in all four career games against the Cowboys with nine touchdowns.
“That was fun,” said Green Bay coach Matt LaFleur, who took over in 2019 after McCarthy was fired during the 2018 season. “To put on a performance like that, couldn’t be happier for them.”
The crowd under the retractable roof on a frigid day had already been stone-cold silenced when Prescott tried to throw a slant to top receiver CeeDee Lamb.
Savage, who went without an interception in the regular season for the first time in his five-year NFL career, stepped in front and ran untouched for a 27-0 lead with 1:50 left before halftime.
“They were mad at me cause I wasn’t celebrating afterward,” Savage said. “I was like, ‘We’ve got to keep playing.’ But it was definitely a momentum swing in the game, I think.”
Prescott finished 41-of-60 for 403 yards, with all three of his touchdown passes to tight end Jake Ferguson.