The Cowboys and Redskins: A Historic Look at The NFL's Greatest Rivalry

The Question : What is the greatest rivalry in NFL History?

Possible Answers : Bears/Packers, Chiefs/Raiders, Giants/Eagles, Steelers/Browns, Dolphins/Jets, Packers/Vikings, Broncos/Raiders, Patriots/Colts

These rivalries all celebrate hate, love, and the love of hate.  They each deserve their rightful, hard earned, and lofty place in NFL history.

But, drifting on the horizon somewhere above these great, traditional adversaries, a rivalry exists that operates on another superior plane of disdain.  Yes friend, the Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys arguably represent the greatest rivalry in the storied history of the NFL.

How it Began 

It was the late 1950’s and the Dallas franchise was not even officially a living, breathing entity; indeed, the NFL had not yet felt the pangs of the Cowboy’s birth when the bad feelings between the two cities were initially stirred up.

With the NFL looking to Texas for possible expansion, Redskins’ owner George Preston Marshall openly opposed the awarding of a franchise to the city of Dallas and maneuvered to thwart the efforts at every opportunity (his aim apparently was to have the Redskins remain the southernmost member of the NFL). 

In response to Marshall’s resistance, potential owners of the proposed Dallas Club, Clint Murchison, Jr. and Bedford Wynne developed a sinister plan to help Marshall change his mind and relent to Dallas being awarded a NFL franchise. 

These men of football history covertly purchased the rights to the beloved Washington fight song “Hail to the Redskins” and subsequently strong armed the Redskin owner into submission with threats of a flat refusal to allow the song to be played at games unless he cooperated with the admission of the new franchise in Dallas.

The Early Years

The Cowboys and the Redskins series began during the 1960 season. The first ever meeting between the two gridiron foes was in Washington and resulted in a 26-14 Redskin victory.  From 1961 through the 1966 season, the teams would meet twice annually as members of the NFL’s Eastern Conference.

Beginning in 1967, after the first NFL divisions were formed, the teams would face each other as divisional opponents twice per regular season as members of the Eastern Conferences’ Capitol Division allowing the hatred and bad feelings to properly fester.

Merger & Realignment Threatens the Rivalry

When the NFL/AFL merger finally became a reality for the 1970 season, the 13 teams now representing the newly formed National and American Football Conferences required sorting into new divisional formats. 

The AFC (consisting of the 9 AFL franchises participating in the merger along with NFL teams the Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers) reportedly shuffled into new divisions with relative ease. 

The NFC was a different story altogether as the owners were at odds and scuffled over the divisional placement of each team. Purportedly, the conflict was finally resolved when five different alignment options were recorded on slips of paper and placed in a hat. 

Allegedly, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle’s secretary then ceremoniously plucked the official alignment plan for the NFC from the fedora.  Of the five options only one had the Cowboys aligned divisionally with the Redskins in the newly formed NFC East. Quite remarkably the full continuation of this heated rivalry had only a 20% chance of survival in the modern NFL. 

Fortuitously, the scrap of paper dictating that the Dallas franchise become a part of the NFC East was the one ultimately pulled forth from the hat.  This simple act signaled yet another moment in history where a reasonably unremarkable undertaking had extraordinary reverberations that reached hitherto unknown boundaries.  One is left mulling over the appropriateness of the erection of a memorial to the valiant office staff member who that day unknowingly fostered the continuation of one of the great rivalries in all of sport.  

Beyond this risky rolling of the dice by league management, the rivalry has flourished and the divisional alignment of the Redskins and Cowboys has been protected throughout league expansion and repositioning, most notably the 2002 NFL realignment.

The 2002 reformatting of the league threatened this and other historically crucial, core rivalries by dodgy new agers who envisioned a geographically sensible format that realized that Dallas was not an Eastern city. 

Thankfully, cooler, more sensible heads prevailed at this critical juncture and the rivalry was again safeguarded for the enjoyment and delight of future generations.

The Greatest Rivalry Produces the Greatest Results

Overall, Dallas leads the series 59-37-2 while Washington has been victorious in both of the only two instances that the two teams have met in the postseason (the 1972 and 1982 NFC Championship games).  The teams, collectively, have appeared in 13 Super Bowls and have won eight Super Bowl titles.  This phenomenal statistic represents the most prolific Super Bowl performance record by any two teams from the same division. 

The history of this great rivalry will no doubt surge ever forward to enthrall sports enthusiasts who appreciate superior competition intertwined with a boundless level of repulsion for one’s opponent.