Cowboys, Lions met for ugliest playoff game in NFL history in 1970

The Cowboys, despite their 10-5 record and guaranteed spot in the upcoming playoffs, have been playing some downright ugly ball over the past two weeks. And now the suddenly-relevant Detroit Lions come to town for a late-December visit.

For old-school fans, that confluence of scene-setting factors might bring back memories of one of the strangest games in NFL history.

While this week’s primetime matchup between the two clubs will almost certainly outpace this one in terms of excitement and scoring, Cowboys fans wouldn’t hate it if the end result (and the after-effects) followed the same basic script.

Read on to learn how a run-of-the-mill field goal, a timely sack, and a lucky tip-drill interception created the ugliest postseason win ever… and kickstarted a beautiful legacy of unparalleled success for the Cowboys.

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The Dawn of Doomsday

The year was 1970. The Cowboys were experimenting with both Roger Staubach and Craig Morton at quarterback after Don Meredith’s retirement. Calvin Hill, Walt Garrison, and rookie Duane Thomas were the team’s three-headed monster out of the backfield. “Doomsday” was becoming a leaguewide force, with Bob Lilly, Jethro Pugh, Chuck Howley, Lee Roy Jordan, and Mel Renfro anchoring the Dallas defense. The team was featured on ABC’s new Monday Night Football venture for the very first time.

But sitting at 5-4 after getting blown out 38-0 in that mid-November night game, things were looking precarious for Tom Landry’s crew. “You can’t get any lower than that,” Landry would recall months later. “The players decided if we were ever going to do anything, now was the time.”

The Cowboys went on to win their last five games of the season to finish 10-4 and, thanks to a season-finale loss by the Giants, NFC East champs. The defense carried the team down that home stretch, not allowing an offensive touchdown in their final 16 quarters. The Cowboys won those four contests by a combined score of 108-15 and looked forward to a home date in the divisional round of the playoffs.

A surging pride of Lions

The 1970 Lions got off to a hot start, winning their first three games by a combined 106-17 total. Head coach Joe Schmidt was also trying two quarterbacks throughout the season; Greg Landry and Bill Munson would end the year with nearly identical stats. Names like Lem Barney, Dick LeBeau, and Alex Karras led a stout Detroit defense that ended up allowing the second-fewest points in football, behind only the feared “Purple People Eaters” of Minnesota.

The Lions had cooled midseason- including a stunning loss to New Orleans on a then-league-record 63-yard-field goal by Tom Dempsey- but had also run the table over their final five games to end with a 10-4 mark. It was their best finish in eight seasons, and although they didn’t win the NFC Central title, they qualified as the conference’s first-ever wild-card team.

And they would head to Dallas as three-point favorites to beat the Cowboys.

Dec. 26, 1970: Defenses rule the day

The game was played the day after Christmas at the Cotton Bowl, and it was the first NFL playoff match to be played on Astroturf. Over 69,000 fans braved temperatures that were hovering in the mid-30s; if they were hoping for a barrage of offensive fireworks to heat things up that North Texas afternoon, they were sorely disappointed.

The quarterbacks were terrible on both sides. Detroit’s Landry and Munson both played, combining to go 7-of-20 for just 92 passing yards. Morton, who got the nod over Staubach (Tom Landry didn’t fully trust him yet to run the plays he called), was somehow worse: 4-for-18 for 38 yards. The Lions couldn’t get much going on the ground either, with just 76 rushing yards divided among five players. Thomas had a big day for Dallas, however, rushing for 135 yards on 30 carries. Garrison added another 72 yards.

But overall, offensive inefficiency kept both teams out of the end zone through three quarters of play. The Cowboys held a slim 3-0 lead, a 29-yard first-quarter field goal by the Cowboys’ Mike Clark being the difference.

That is, until Pugh and fellow Cowboys defensive lineman George Andrie collapsed the pocket around Landry in his own end zone, with Larry Cole finishing the quarterback off for a fourth-quarter safety.

The Lions were still just one play away from mounting a comeback, though, and they nearly did it. A deep Munson pass was tipped by wide receiver Earl McCollouch and hauled in by Renfro, ending the threat. McCullouch didn’t even chase after the Dallas defensive back after the interception, instead taking off his helmet and slamming it to the ground in disgust as the play continued.

“[The Lions] were marching down the field,” Renfro would remember years later, “and everybody was thinking we are going to lose the big one again. Fortunately, inside the 20-yard line, I was able to get the interception. It was a great relief.”

Final score: Dallas 5, Detroit 0. It remains the lowest-scoring playoff game in NFL history. And while some may call it the ugliest, Coach Landry had a very different reaction after it went final.

“This is the greatest win we’ve ever had with the Dallas Cowboys,” Landry said on live TV. “I don’t think there’s any question about it.”

Springboard to success

Landry believed the gritty win over Detroit would help his team move past five straight years of postseason disappointment that included being sent home by the Colts, Packers, Browns, and Rams.

“I think we’re over it. I think too much has been made of it,” he said after the Detroit win. “Everybody talked about it so much that we got psyched out ourselves. That is all behind us now.”

The legendary coach turned out to be right. Dallas would go on to beat San Francisco 17-10 in the NFC Championship and earn a trip to Super Bowl V. Though they lost that game by three points to the Colts in a mistake-filled affair, Howley would end up being named Super Bowl MVP and the Cowboys would return to the title game the next year to throttle the Dolphins.

Dallas would ultimately appear in a total of five Super Bowls before the decade was out, a beautiful stretch of success no team would match until the Patriots of the 2010s.

And it all began with the ugliest playoff win in franchise history.

Story originally appeared on Cowboys Wire