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Dallas Cowboys vs. Pittsburgh Steelers Rivalry History, Explained
One of the NFL's oldest rivalries is rekindled on Sunday Night Football this week.
Only one team can claim to be the Dallas Cowboys' literal oldest rival, and that's the Pittsburgh Steelers. The first game the Cowboys ever played in the NFL –– in the days before the NFL and AFL had merged, before the Super Bowl was the biggest game of the year –– was against the team from Pittsburgh, and they've been duking it out ever since.
This weekend, the Cowboys and the Steelers will add another game to their storied, 64-year-old rivalry as they head to Sunday Night Football on NBC and Peacock for a cross-conference showdown. So, let's take a look back at one of the league's great rivalries, and what it's meant over the years.
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The History of the Dallas Cowboys vs. Pittsburgh Steelers Rivalry
The Cowboys and the Steelers faced each other for the first time on September 24, 1960, at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas. But it wasn't just the first time these teams played each other. It was the first time the Cowboys played anyone, marking their inaugural game as an NFL franchise. And they did okay their first time out, losing by a touchdown as the Steelers triumphed 35-28. It was the first loss in a completely winless (though they did land one tie) inaugural season for the Cowboys. At the time, it really didn't feel like the beginning of something special.
The two teams went on to play each other at least once a year (often twice) throughout the 1960s, and over time, the Cowboys got better. While the Steelers took charge at the beginning of the decade, eventually, Cowboys head coach Tom Landry got some talent behind him, and by the end of the '60s the Cowboys led the series 9-7. Then came the '70s.
After the AFL-NFL merger, the Cowboys and the Steelers were put in opposing conferences, which meant they didn't play as many games against one another, but also meant they could face each other in the biggest game of the year, the Super Bowl. Throughout the 1970s, the Steelers and Cowboys emerged as dominant forces in their respective conferences, with the Cowboys notching five Super Bowl appearances from 1970-1979 to the Steelers' three in the same time period. But despite few appearances in the Big Game, the Steelers arguably won the decade, winning all three of their Super Bowls, including two against Dallas, while the Cowboys won twice, and never against the Steelers.
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Because they were in different conferences, Steelers vs. Cowboys matchups grew rarer in the '70s, and allowed the Steelers to take an 11-10 lead in the overall history of the rivalry. In the 1980s, they played even fewer times, meeting just three times over the course of the decade as both teams entered a period of relative decline. By the 1990s, though, both teams were back with a vengeance.
The Steelers and the Cowboys met four times in the 1990s, including a rekindling of their old Super Bowl rivalry in Super Bowl XXX. On January 28, 1996, nearly two decades after they last met in a Super Bowl, the Cowboys finally beat the Steelers in the Big Game, marking the end of a run that saw the Cowboys take three NFL titles in four years. The Steelers finally returned to the big game with a championship win in 2006, but the Cowboys haven't been back since.
The Cowboys-Steelers Rivalry Today
Since that fateful Super Bowl meeting in 1996, the Steelers and the Cowboys have played each other just six times, winning three games each, but the rivalry remains a staple of NFL history. There was a time when these two franchises were the teams to beat in their respective conferences, with both squads rising to power in the '70s, rising again in the '90s, and continuing to stand as playoff contenders throughout much of the new millennium. It might not be the matchup that it once was, but longtime fans still hold out hope that these two will one day meet on the NFL's biggest stage again.
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Going into this weekend's Sunday Night Football game, the Cowboys lead the matchup 17 games to 16, giving the Steelers a chance to tie it all up. But of course, if you ask a Pittsburgh fan, they'll tell you that they've won more games against the Cowboys when it really counted, so they own the rivalry.
Two Different Cheer Squads
Interestingly, another facet of the Dallas vs. Pittsburgh fandom is the way in which both clubs get support from the sidelines and the stands. Both teams have massive fan bases, of course, but while the Dallas Cowboys have the famed Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders on their sideline for every game, the Steelers have long since retired their cheer squad, the "Steelerettes." Instead, they have the Terrible Towel, a bright yellow piece of fabric owned by pretty much every Steelers fan in living memory, proudly waved at every game. The Towel is such a part of Steelers fandom that even when the team is playing an away game, those bright yellow avatars of team love are a dominant force in the bleachers. Seeing thousands of those things whipping around at once is unlike anything else in the NFL, and that makes the Terrible Towel just as important to the matchup as the teams themselves.
Check out the Dallas Cowboys vs. Pittsburgh Steelers game at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock on Sunday Night Football!
