The Dallas Cowboys are underdogs heading into their divisional round playoff matchup against the San Francisco 49ers, but one Dallas player says he's fine with that. Cowboys star linebacker Micah Parsons is not letting the fact that oddsmakers favor his opponent impact his outlook.
The 49ers are currently 4-point favorites and Parsons says he likes when the odds are against them.
"When you're already at the bottom, you can only go up. I really like being the underdog," the 23-year-old said. "Honestly, I think you should feed into it, you should love that stuff. When no one believes in you, that's the best feeling; not when everyone believes in you and the Kool-Aid is up and everyone is smiling like, 'They can't lose. They're too good.' I don't want that feeling because then it's like, damn, what if I don't win?
Last season, the 49ers upset the Cowboys 23-17 in the wild card round in Dallas. Parsons and Co. are looking for a much different outcome this year. Parsons said the Cowboys were hoping for a rematch of last year's playoff game and for the chance to get some revenge.
"Most definitely, I [wanted the rematch]," Prescott said, via the Cowboys official website. "I think this whole team did. Obviously, using that loss last year as a motivation and just kind of the focal point of the resiliency that we carried into the offseason, [that we] carried into this year. Yeah, we get a chance to go back and at their place, do something that we want to do."
Parsons reflected on what went wrong in the wild card game that ended their playoff hopes last year, saying their own mishaps were the reasons for the loss.
"I really think we beat ourselves last year with the penalties, the offsides, things like that," Parsons said. "If you just play your game -- the biggest misconception is that you have to go out there and be different, that you have to go out there and try to out-physical a team, that you want to play their game.
And his approach this year? "Why play their game? Play your game. Let's play Dallas football. That's all we got to do," he explains.
The Cowboys defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in convincing fashion to advance to the divisional round. Last week's win marked their first road playoff game since the 1992 season.
