Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Essentially...what's the best '80s Cowboy squad? The former had much lower expectations. It was 'Year One' after Roger. Presumably, it was a 'rebuilding' year a la '74. Yet they at least split during the regular season with the very team who would beat them in the NFCC, they beat SD convincing-enough, beat the Raiders at Oakland! Last but not least, they beat very top-seed Falcons at Fulton in divisional round albeit 'miracle' play.

'81...sweep Eagles albeit the Birds pretty much falling flat after that 6-0 start. Beat Bills and Miami. Destroy a respectable Bucs, 38-0, in divisional. Yes, get swept by the very team who'd top them in NFCC but come much closer to winning that very semifinal than they did the year before; and SF were quite better than the Eagles.

Safe to say that Dallas, with another year under Danny White's belt, were better in '81. Yet still can't help but to admire that 1980 body-of-work; especially for a team that was supposed to 'rebuild'.

I'm a bit torn. Thoughts?

'80 keeps popping up with me.

'81 was definitely the better team and if the ball bounced differently a couple times they would have gone to the Super Bowl instead of the '9ers. Everson Walls really was helping out the secondary by the end of the season that helped make them a lot better defensively come playoff time.


I'd say the '82 Cowboys may have even been better than the '80 Cowboys also. They were actually on route to getting home field advantage in the playoffs until they lost a couple close games at the end of the season. I kind of have a feeling Dallas may have been able to beat the Redskins again had Landry not taken the ball out of Dorsett's hands in that first drive and they were able to go in for that first score and grab the momentum again.

I'd say if the '81 Cowboys and the '82 Cowboys played that '80 Falcons team I'd say they both beat Atlanta by 10 to 14 points. Don't think the Atlanta passing game would have been able to torch the '81 or '82 Dallas defenses like they did the '80 Dallas defense.

'83 seemed to be turning into the best post Staubach team of all until Dallas suddenly got old at the end of the season, lol.

Funny thing about following football (sports-in-general) for the very first time autumn '80 is that my first impression of Ken Stabler (and Dave Casper) was as a Houston Oiler. For the longest time, perhaps even now, when his name pops up I think of him over-center in that MNF game vs NE while hearing that "Houston Oilers Number One" song.

Another example is actually seeing Danny White as the 'face' of Dallas's knack for comeback victories. 'Duel in Dixie' and their back-to-back wins in '81 over Miami and then at Philly among examples that cemented such a rep with me. Begs to question that, as great as Captain Comeback was, how much of these 'comeback'-victories was simply a product of the overall system under Landry instead of mainly the QB?

Dallas wasn't far at all from getting homefield in '81. Had they won that '12th-man' game at Pontiac, and all plays out as did going into finale, perhaps they have something to play for at the Meadowlands instead of being 'locked' into 2nd-seed no matter what. SF were the best in '81 but a Cowboys/Bengals SB would have been a much better game. Still don't know for sure who would have won. Big D certainly would have had the big-game experience so I'd imagine Vegas installing them as favorites if however not by much. Minus-4 would be my guess.

lastcat3 wrote:I'd say the '82 Cowboys may have even been better than the '80 Cowboys also. They were actually on route to getting home field advantage in the playoffs until they lost a couple close games at the end of the season. I kind of have a feeling Dallas may have been able to beat the Redskins again had Landry not taken the ball out of Dorsett's hands in that first drive and they were able to go in for that first score and grab the momentum again.

That was Landry, though. He lived by the cute and died by the cute.

Jay Z wrote:

lastcat3 wrote:I'd say the '82 Cowboys may have even been better than the '80 Cowboys also. They were actually on route to getting home field advantage in the playoffs until they lost a couple close games at the end of the season. I kind of have a feeling Dallas may have been able to beat the Redskins again had Landry not taken the ball out of Dorsett's hands in that first drive and they were able to go in for that first score and grab the momentum again.

That was Landry, though. He lived by the cute and died by the cute.

Look at the opening drive in SBXIII. Dorsett was tearing it up vs the Steel Curtain, and then a trick-play is called/turnover. Not saying that Dallas would have won anyway, but getting away from #33 didn't help.

I think Landry liked to show off his complex offensive systems and he couldn't really do that by running the ball.

I remember one of the 1970's Cowboy players noting part of the reason they usually played pretty well on Thanksgiving Day was there was little time to put in complicated game plans.