The 2020 season has been a hard one for both the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers pretty much from the get-go. Season-ending injury after season-ending injury began to pile up early on for both of these organizations and continued to worsen as the season progressed. Any thoughts of making a Super Bowl run was pretty much put to bed early on because of that.
Now in Week 15, these two teams will face off against one another with what seems like half of their rosters on injured reserve. These injury riddled teams have oddly enough had to overcome almost the same obstacles this season to get to this point, but luckily the end is finally in sight with just a few games remaining in the regular season.
In a game that was supposed to feature a lot of young talented players is now filled full of backups and whatever could be dragged off the street to plug holes in the roster. What's surprising though is the fact that as far as injuries go, Dallas' and San Francisco's nearly mirror one another. They both find themselves depleted at almost exactly the same ways.
At QB Dak Prescott only played in five games, while Jimmy Garoppolo has played in six. At TE Blake Jarwin unfortunately was lost in the season opener, while George Kittle has only appeared in six. That's not even mentioning all of the draft capital and money both teams have lost for the season in the trenches on both the offensive and defensive lines. It's no wonder they've both struggled to win games this year.
Not so surprisingly, but both of these organizations have arguably been the two most injury plagued teams in the NFL this year. Again, it seems like both franchises have close to half the roster on injured reserve and that's really not much of an exaggeration. That's how hard they've both been bit by the injury bug in 2020.
Despite all of the injuries though, this Week 15 matchup looks to be surprisingly evenly matched. Neither team seems to have the clear advantage over the other. However, with home-field advantage and some talented offensive weapons the Dallas Cowboys might have a slight edge. It might be a small advantage, but if you squint hard enough it's there.
Having said that though, I wouldn't count out the 49ers getting the better of the Cowboys Sunday. They run the ball pretty well offensively and that's something Dallas' defense hasn't been able to stop all season. If that happens once again I could easily see San Francisco coming out on the winning end of the stick.
The only thing we really know is this is shaping up to be a pretty sloppy and meaningless game. After all, that's one of the reasons why it was flexed out of prime time in the first place. I don't know about you, but I'm just hoping for a somewhat competitive game that's worth watching. In the end I think that's all we can really hope for.
