How Bryant McKinnie handled Cowboys' DeMarcus Ware

No pregame matchup was more analyzed than the one between Dallas linebacker DeMarcus Ware and Minnesota left tackle Bryant McKinnie. Conventional wisdom among the league’s talking heads was that McKinnie had no answer for the 6-foot-4, 260-pound rush specialist.

But Ware finished with one sack, getting to Brett Favre for a nine-yard loss when he broke around the left end unblocked.

Afterward, McKinnie admitted he was tired of hearing about Ware.

“You know I was. Even when you tried to avoid the news, somebody would call you, or it would be on Twitter,” he said. “You’re trying to avoid it, but people are still trying to bring it to your attention. It just made me focus and buckle down even more.

“I watched them when they played Philly those two times, and I saw some of the stuff he likes to do. I just studied and tried to execute the plan I had.”

It worked. Ware finished with a solid eight tackles, but he didn’t supply the consistent pressure that was expected to give Favre fits.

“(The media), the guys on ESPN, the announcers, they basically just had us counted out, that we couldn’t keep up with Dallas’ front seven, and I just felt like they didn’t even give us a chance,” McKinnie said. “People kind of took it personally a little, just to prove that we were capable of doing it. They said we weren’t playing at the same level we were at at midseason.”

McKinnie was modest in his postgame assessment, but many of his teammates allowed themselves to gloat after hammering a team many experts had picked to win.

“It’s the playoffs. You’ve got to show up, and we showed up,” guard Anthony Herrera said. “All week long the talk was about how Dallas was going to get to Favre with the pass rush and the Vikings better look out. Well, we did what we were supposed to do. And we’re moving on.”

Even normally stoic coach Brad Childress acknowledged feeling slighted, saying the Cowboys were “about to bombard the State of Minnesota and run through us like Sherman through the South. That was the aura that was left after last weekend’s (wild-card) games.

“All of us kind of felt that quite palpably. All of it, and then we’d had about enough of it by Tuesday.”

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(dallasnews.com)