Cowboys NFL Championships (Pre-Super Bowl Era)

Cowboys NFL Championships (Pre-Super Bowl Era)

The Dallas Cowboys are among the most iconic franchises in American football history, and their early competitive record in the NFL Championship Game laid the foundation for what became one of the sport's great dynasties. Before the Super Bowl era began following the 1966 season, the NFL Championship Game was the league's ultimate prize. The Cowboys appeared in that game twice, in January 1967 and January 1968, losing both times to the Green Bay Packers. They did not win a pre-Super Bowl NFL championship. All five of the Cowboys' league titles came as Super Bowl victories, in Super Bowl VI (1972), Super Bowl XII (1978), Super Bowl XXVII (1993), Super Bowl XXVIII (1994), and Super Bowl XXX (1996). Their two Championship Game appearances in the 1960s, however, were not incidental. They showed a team built for the long run, one that hadn't yet broken through but was clearly arriving.

History

The Dallas Cowboys entered the NFL as an expansion franchise in 1960, and the early years were difficult. Tom Landry was hired that same year as head coach, a position he would hold for 29 seasons. Landry brought a systematic, intellectually disciplined approach to the game that was unusual for the era. His "flex defense," which positioned linemen slightly off the line of scrimmage to read plays rather than react to them, became one of the defining schemes in NFL history. He also helped pioneer the use of computers and film analysis in player evaluation and game preparation, practices that are now universal but were radical at the time.

The Cowboys' first NFL Championship Game appearance came on January 1, 1967, when they traveled to Dallas's Cotton Bowl to host the Green Bay Packers. The final score was 34-27 in favor of Green Bay. Quarterback Don Meredith led the Cowboys offense, while receiver Bob Hayes, nicknamed "the World's Fastest Human" after winning gold at the 1964 Olympics, was already redefining how defenses handled speed at the position. The Packers, under Vince Lombardi, were in the middle of one of the great dynasties in league history, and Dallas made them work for it.

The rematch came the following season. On December 31, 1967, the Cowboys and Packers met again at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in what has become one of the most discussed games in NFL history. The temperature at kickoff was minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit, with a wind chill estimated at minus 48. The game has been called the "Ice Bowl" ever since. Green Bay won 21-17 on a quarterback sneak by Bart Starr with 13 seconds remaining, handing Dallas its second consecutive championship loss. Defensive tackle Bob Lilly, who would later be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, was among the Cowboys' standouts in that game. Chuck Howley played at a high level on the defensive side of the ball throughout this entire championship era.

It's worth stating clearly what the record shows. The NFL Championship Game as a standalone event ended after the 1967 season, replaced by conference championship games feeding into the Super Bowl. The Cowboys did not appear in a 1971 NFL Championship Game against the Miami Dolphins. That game did not happen. By January 1972, Dallas was playing in Super Bowl VI, which they won 24-3 over Miami, a fact that has sometimes been confused with an earlier championship meeting. The Cowboys' pre-Super Bowl era is defined entirely by those two Championship Game losses to Green Bay in January 1967 and January 1968.

The general manager throughout this period was Tex Schramm, whose influence on the franchise rivaled Landry's in many respects. Schramm pushed for the Cowboys' expansion bid, negotiated the team into its television contracts, and developed the scouting infrastructure that would allow Dallas to consistently draft and develop talent. He was the architect of the Cowboys' personnel philosophy during the entire pre-Super Bowl era. Together, Landry and Schramm built something that just needed time. The Super Bowl wins would come.

Geography

Dallas sits in the north-central part of Texas, roughly equidistant from the Gulf Coast and the Oklahoma state line, at the center of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. During the Cowboys' early years, the team played at the Cotton Bowl, located in Fair Park on the eastern side of Dallas. The Cotton Bowl had been a fixture of Texas football since the 1930s, hosting the annual Cotton Bowl Classic college game as well as State Fair of Texas events, and it gave the Cowboys an immediate connection to the region's existing football culture.

The Cowboys moved to Texas Stadium in Irving in 1971, a suburb directly west of Dallas and east of Fort Worth. Texas Stadium was notable for the open hole in its roof, which Landry reportedly said allowed God to watch his team play. That quote was apocryphal, but it stuck. The move to Irving reflected the broader suburbanization of the Dallas-Fort Worth region, where population growth was pushing outward from the city core in ways that made a suburban stadium commercially practical. The metroplex's highway infrastructure, much of it built or expanded during the 1960s, made the new stadium accessible to fans across a wide geographic area.

Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport opened in 1974, somewhat after the Championship Game era, but the region's air connectivity was already growing during the 1960s through Love Field. That connectivity helped the Cowboys in recruiting players and attracting media attention. Texas weather also played a practical role. Winters in Dallas are mild compared to the northern cities where many rivals were based, which meant the Cowboys trained outdoors year-round without the disruptions that cold-weather teams faced.

Culture

The Cowboys' appearance in two NFL Championship Games in consecutive seasons, 1966 and 1967, arrived at a moment when professional football was overtaking baseball as America's most-watched sport. Television was accelerating that shift, and the Cowboys were a franchise built for broadcast. Their blue and silver uniforms photographed well. Their games were competitive. And their losses to Green Bay, particularly the Ice Bowl, generated national conversation in a way that a blowout never could have.

Don Meredith became a cultural figure during this period. His personality on the field translated easily to the camera, and he later became a prominent presence on ABC's Monday Night Football after his playing career ended. Bob Hayes changed the sport at the position level, his pure speed forcing defensive coordinators to develop zone coverage schemes that simply hadn't existed before. The Cowboys weren't just winning or losing games. They were producing players and moments that reshaped how the game was played and watched.

Dallas itself was undergoing significant transformation during this period. The city was processing the trauma of the Kennedy assassination in November 1963, and civic identity was a sensitive subject. The Cowboys offered something forward-looking. Their games drew residents from across the political and demographic range of North Texas, and the team's success, even in defeat, gave the city something to talk about that wasn't grief. That's not a small thing.

The team's community engagement during the 1960s was modest by modern standards but genuine in intent. Landry in particular was active in charitable and religious organizations throughout the Dallas area, and his public profile gave the franchise a respectable civic face. The Cowboys' presence helped establish the expectation, now standard in professional sports, that a team has obligations to the city beyond winning games.

Economy

The Cowboys' Championship Game appearances in 1967 and 1968 generated real economic activity in Dallas, though the scale was different from what a modern NFL franchise produces. Home games at the Cotton Bowl drew crowds in the range of 75,000 fans, filling hotels, restaurants, and parking lots across Fair Park and the surrounding neighborhoods. Local businesses built seasonal patterns around the football calendar in ways that hadn't existed before the team's arrival in 1960.

The broader economic argument for the Cowboys during this period rests on what the franchise did for Dallas's visibility. Cities with successful professional sports teams attracted conventions, corporate relocations, and media coverage in ways that were difficult to quantify but real in effect. Dallas was growing rapidly during the 1960s regardless, but the Cowboys contributed to a civic narrative of ambition and forward momentum that aided economic recruitment. Not every business decision was influenced by football, but the franchise was part of how Dallas presented itself to the country.

Texas Stadium's construction in Irving, completed in 1971 just after the Championship Game era, produced a direct economic impact through construction employment and the development of ancillary businesses in the surrounding area. Hotels, restaurants, and retail followed the stadium. Irving grew from a small suburb into a significant commercial center partly on the strength of the Cowboys' presence. The modern AT&T Stadium in Arlington, which opened in 2009, extended that pattern into the mid-metroplex.

Sponsorship revenue during the 1960s was modest compared to what NFL franchises generate today, but Tex Schramm was aggressive in pursuing local and regional corporate partnerships. He understood that the Cowboys' value as a media property was growing, and he worked to make sure the franchise captured that value commercially. Those early sponsorship structures became templates for later deals as the league's television contracts expanded dramatically through the 1970s and beyond.

Attractions

The Cotton Bowl stadium in Fair Park remains standing and still hosts the annual Cotton Bowl Classic college bowl game as well as other events. Fans interested in the Cowboys' Championship Game era can visit the facility where the 1967 NFL Championship Game was played, though the stadium has been significantly renovated since then. Fair Park itself is a National Historic Landmark, containing the largest collection of 1930s Art Deco exposition architecture in the United States, and the grounds host the State Fair of Texas each fall.

Texas Stadium in Irving was demolished in 2010 following a controlled implosion that drew considerable local media coverage. The site has since been redeveloped. The current home of the Cowboys is AT&T Stadium in Arlington, which opened in 2009 and regularly hosts major events beyond NFL games, including concerts, college football playoffs, and boxing matches. The stadium's size, seating capacity, and technology make it one of the most visited sports venues in the country.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, holds the formal institutional record of the Cowboys' Championship Game era. Multiple players from the 1966-1967 Cowboys teams are enshrined there, including Bob Lilly, Bob Hayes, Chuck Howley, Mel Renfro, and Roger Staubach, though Staubach arrived slightly later in the franchise's timeline. The Hall maintains game film, statistics, and artifacts from the Championship Game era that are accessible to researchers.

The Cowboys' official headquarters and training facility is located in Frisco, Texas, north of Dallas, having moved from Irving in 2016. The facility, called The Star, includes a public entertainment district with Cowboys-themed retail, dining, and exhibits. It's open to the public and serves as the closest thing the franchise has to an official museum.

Getting There

Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport is the primary entry point for visitors traveling from outside the region, served by most major domestic carriers and numerous international routes. From DFW, the Trinity Railway Express commuter rail line connects to downtown Dallas and downtown Fort Worth, with connections to the broader DART light rail network. Travel time from DFW to downtown Dallas by rail is roughly 45 to 60 minutes depending on connections.

Most visitors to Cowboys-related sites travel by car. The region's highway system is extensive, and major sites including Fair Park (Cotton Bowl), The Star in Frisco, and AT&T Stadium in Arlington are all accessible via interstate or state highway with adequate parking. Ride-share services operate throughout the metroplex. DART light rail serves Fair Park directly with a station on the Green Line, making the Cotton Bowl one of the more transit-accessible historic sports sites in the area.

AT&T Stadium in Arlington sits between Dallas and Fort Worth and is not directly served by rail, though there are plans for transit expansion in the Arlington area. Visitors to the stadium on game days typically drive or use shuttle services operating from designated park-and-ride locations.

Neighborhoods

Fair Park, the neighborhood surrounding the Cotton Bowl, sits in East Dallas and has experienced economic challenges over the decades since the Cowboys played there in the 1960s. The neighborhood is primarily residential and lower-income, a pattern that reflects broader demographic shifts in the eastern portions of Dallas. The stadium itself remains an anchor for the area, drawing crowds during the State Fair and bowl season, but the surrounding commercial infrastructure isn't what it was during the Cowboys' Cotton Bowl years.

Irving, where Texas Stadium operated from 1971 until its demolition in 2010, developed substantially around the stadium's presence. The Las Colinas area of Irving in particular grew into a major corporate and residential district, with several Fortune 500 companies establishing regional offices there. The connection between that growth and the Cowboys' presence is indirect but real: the stadium gave Irving a national identity that helped attract investment. Irving's population grew from roughly 97,000 in 1970 to over 240,000 by 2020.

Frisco, the current home of the Cowboys' headquarters, represents the team's most recent neighborhood relationship. The city's population grew from about 33,000 in 2000 to over 200,000 by 2020, one of the fastest growth rates of any city in the United States during that period. The Star development has become a commercial focal point for Frisco's downtown area, anchoring a broader retail and dining corridor. The Cowboys' move to Frisco continued a pattern visible throughout the franchise's history: the team locates where the metroplex is growing, and the surrounding community develops partly in response.