ARLINGTON Byron Maxwell Color Rush Jersey , Texas (AP) — The young Dallas defense stuffed the NFL’s No. 1 rushing offense in a wild-card win over the Seattle Seahawks.Now it’s time for the Cowboys to take on either the league’s all-time leader in yards passing in Drew Brees of New Orleans, or this year’s fifth-best passing offense in Jared Goff and the Los Angeles Rams. The divisional round game will be next weekend.A group now led by playmaking linebackers Leighton Vander Esch and Jaylon Smith, rather than 2016 All-Pro Sean Lee, has been up to the challenge all season. And that included a 13-10 win over Brees that ended the Saints’ 10-game winning streak.“We’ve got to take the same mindset next week … and not get too far ahead of ourselves,” Vander Esch said. “We can be confident, but there’s a difference between being confident and being overly, maybe I should say cocky, if you want to use that word. We do a pretty good job of bringing ourselves back down.”In a 24-22 win that ended what the Elias Sports Bureau said was the Seahawks’ record streak of nine straight victories in playoff openers, the Cowboys held Seattle nearly 100 yards below its league-leading average of 160 yards Saturday night.Chris Carson, who had his first career 100-yard game in a Week 3 win over Dallas that turned Seattle’s season, was limited to a season-low 20 yards on 13 carries. The Seahawks finished with 73 yards rushing, and quarterback Russell Wilson’s legs weren’t the factor they often are.“We take great pride in stopping the run, too,” coach Jason Garrett said. “It’s about discipline. It’s about winning your gap. It’s about setting the edge. It’s about tackling. But it’s also about physical and mental toughness. That’s a really important part of our football team.”The Cowboys believe that applies to defending the pass as well. Although they sacked Brees just twice, there were five quarterback hits in one of his worst games of the season. Dallas has been a top-10 defense most of the season.“The confidence is there, but it’s all about being patient and executing,” said defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence Sebastian Janikowski Color Rush Jersey , who led the team in sacks for the second straight year with 10½ and made his second consecutive Pro Bowl. “It doesn’t matter about your confidence.”AHEAD OF SCHEDULEThe Seahawks won six of their last seven in the regular season to reach the playoffs a year after missing for the only time in Wilson’s seven seasons. They overhauled the defense and lost one of the mainstays they decided to keep in disgruntled safety Earl Thomas, who broke his leg in Week 4. And they found Wilson a running game without a big name such as Marshawn Lynch.“Nobody thought we were going to be here, so we’re miles ahead of where expectations were,” said coach Pete Carroll, who got a three-year extension through 2021 late in the regular season. “This doesn’t mean anything to me because that’s not my expectations.”COURTING A COACHDallas passing game coordinator and defensive backs coach Kris Richard, who took over play-calling duties from defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli this season, is expected to have a busy Sunday.Owner and general manager Jerry Jones said Miami owner Stephen Ross was one of his guests during the game, and that Ross would interview Richard for the team’s vacant head coaching position before the former Seattle defensive coordinator starts preparations for the divisional round. The Jets are also expected to interview Richard, who was fired by the Seahawks after last season and hired by Dallas.“There are no secrets in the NFL when it comes to people that can help you win football games,” Jones said. “And he’s a winner.”LAST KICK?Sebastian Janikowski didn’t play after injuring his hamstring while missing a 57-yard field goal try on the final play of the first half. The 40-year-old isn’t under contract for next season, and Carroll figured he simply hurt himself trying to kick the ball as hard as he could.The question is whether Seattle, or any other team, will want to take the risk after the Seahawks were left with no good options for an onside kick down two points with 1:18 left. Michael Dickson’s drop-kick went too far and was an easy game-sealing catch for Dallas receiver Cole Beasley. Plus, it was the second time in the last three weeks of the season that Seattle had an injury issue with Janikowski.LEANING ON ELLIOTTNFL rushing champion Ezekiel Elliott was the only skill position player to sit out Dallas’ 36-35 win over the New York Giants in the regular-season finale with the Cowboys already locked in as the NFC’s fourth seed. He was busy again in his return, with 26 carries for 137 yards and four catches for 32 yards. It was his fourth game of at least 30 touches this season. Expect a heavy load again in a week. “I’m glad I took the week off,” he said. “We have bigger things.” The players kneel. The president tweets.And the great divide over protests during the national anthem at NFL games grows even wider.So far the players — at least a handful of them — aren’t backing down. A few took a knee in the first weekend of exhibition games, at least two raised a fist during the anthem Dontae Johnson Color Rush Jersey , and several stayed in the locker room as their way of making a statement.The NFL reacted by doing nothing, at least publicly. The league’s hastily adopted new policy on protests during the anthem is on hold while it holds talks with the players’ union on an issue that figures to grow more contentious with every game.That didn’t stop President Donald Trump from weighing in on Twitter, calling for any player who doesn’t stand during the national anthem to be suspended without pay.For Trump, it’s an issue that resonates with his base. For the protesting players, it’s an issue of social injustice that needs to be raised.The divide is not only splitting the country, but splintering the NFL.“I think there are a lot of people that are supportive of the players and then there are a couple of people that have been very vocal against it,” said Duane Brown, one of three Seahawks who protested. “Those people have power. We’ll see what happens.”What has happened so far is that the protests that began with Colin Kaepernick taking a knee before a 49ers game two seasons ago show no signs of disappearing entirely. If anything, the first preseason games show that while most teams fell in line with the desires of their management, there are some players who aren’t going to back down.And that could cause major problems not only for protesting players but a league trying to keep its dominant place in American sports.“The NFL is caught, they can’t really win either way,” said Eric Schiffer, the CEO of Reputation Management Consultants, a Los Angeles-based brand and crisis management firm. “They’ve now come to the conclusion they were alienating conservatives and attempted to mitigate it. But they have only so much they are able to do without alienating the core of their product, which is the players.”The fact the protests have been turned into something they were never intended to be is a big reason why a resolution will be so difficult. Kaepernick began kneeling during the anthem to protest social injustice against minorities, but Trump and others have portrayed it instead as a protest against the anthem itself and the country it stands for.Still, an NFL spokesman said the league and the players’ union are involved in “constructive” talks to resolve the issue. But they’re in a battle with time D.J. Fluker Color Rush Jersey , with the start of the regular season just a few weeks away.They might want to start with one of the few good suggestions offered publicly so far. It came from Kenny Stills, the Miami wide receiver who took a knee during the national anthem in the Dolphins first preseason game.Give Kaepernick and former teammate Eric Reid jobs, Stills said, and let players know you’re serious.“You can’t say as a league you support the players and their protests and then blackball the players who initially started the protests,” Stills said. “To come to the drawing board and talk about solutions, we need to start there as a league, and then we can start drawing up other solutions to some of these other problems.”Employing Kaepernick and Reid shouldn’t be that much of a problem. Both are NFL players at the highest level, and both seem to have been blackballed from the league — at least unofficially — because of their protests.Offer them up to every team in the league. Waive any salary cap to do it, and there should be some takers.If no team bites, assign them through a lottery.After that, it gets easier. Offer players something in exchange for not protesting during the anthem — perhaps a 30-second commercial spot to highlight social injustice at halftime of every nationally televised game.The guess is players would respond favorably, partly because they have little alternative. By now they surely understand that their original cause has been hijacked and that they — along with the NFL — are in no-win situations.Their points can still be made, and perhaps find a more receptive audience.And, just maybe, the tweets will stop.