Dallas Cowboys: It Was 23 Years Ago Today

Dallas Cowboys fans awoke on February 1st, 1993 and realized the 52-17 shellacking of the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVII the night before was no dream.

As the countdown continues to Super Bowl 50, I felt compelled to take a trip down memory lane. Last week saw a commemoration of the Dallas Cowboys winning Super Bowls XXVIII and XXX . It felt fitting to take a look back at the one that started it all: a bold, brash, statement-making dismantling of a battle-hardened Buffalo Bills team appearing in their third consecutive NFL championship game.

The Cowboys’ ascent to the summit was fast. Three seasons prior, they were the laughingstock of the league in posting a 1-15 record. Doubt surrounded head coach Jimmy Johnson and a number one draft pick, quarterback Troy Aikman. But the 1-15 debacle was followed by an almost break-even 7-9 season in 1990-91. They topped that with an 11-5 mark in the 91-92 season. The arrow was pointing up.

Under the guidance of Johnson and his keen eye for evaluating talent, the 1992 regular season was highly anticipated. The Cowboys had been built through a near constant stream of trades and subsequent draft picks. The Triplets were already in place. The San Francisco 49ers had inexplicably let all-world outside linebacker Charles Haley go. The Cowboys signed him with the thought that he was the missing piece to the championship puzzle.

They proceeded to post a scorched earth 13-3 regular season that featured a punishing offense and a lightning-fast, sideline-to-sideline defense. They then trounced the Philadelphia Eagles, 34-10, in the NFC divisional round, which set up a clash against the 49ers the following week . Many pundits at the time felt the Cowboys were still a year away and had picked San Francisco to prevail.

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What followed was a classic for the ages. A back-and-forth affair in the mud at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park resulted in a 30-20 win for the Cowboys and their first trip to the Super Bowl in fourteen years. In overwhelming the 49ers during the second half, the Cowboys had served notice. A wise man once said, “To be the man, you gotta beat the man.” The upstarts from Dallas had done just that.

To be completely honest, that game felt like the Super Bowl to me. After the flirtations with greatness in early 80’s gave way to the slide into futility in the latter portion of the decade, having the Cowboys back near the pinnacle was nothing less than a miracle. A win against the Bills in the Super Bowl would be great, sure, but just being there was cause for celebration. Plus, the way the Cowboys were built at the time, it was a dead certainty they’d contend for the foreseeable future.

In retrospect, I don’t know what I was worried about. Two weeks later at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, the Cowboys put on a clinic in systematic destruction. Despite the special teams wobble that resulted in an early 7-0 Bills’ lead, the Cowboys settled down and laid waste to the star-crossed bunch from Buffalo. A game tying strike from Aikman to tight end Jay Novacek was followed by a defensive score when Haley sacked Bills’ quarterback Jim Kelly near the goal line. The 14-7 lead set the rout in motion.

No where was this more apparent than when linebacker Ken Norton stonewalled Buffalo running back Kenneth Davis on third-and-one in a crucial second quarter goal line stand. The Bills–perhaps foolishly–went for it on fourth, only to be intercepted in the end zone. Two touchdown passes from Aikman to wideout Michael Irvin cemented a 28-10 halftime lead.

From then, the Bills were buried under a growing avalanche of turnovers and Cowboy touchdowns. In fact, the Cowboys would’ve scored the most points in Super Bowl history had it not been for Leon Lett’s gaffe late in the game. But any true fan will tell you that this meant nothing. The outcome had already been secured, and the party was well underway.

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The 52-17 final was the coronation of an NFL dynasty and the calling card of what was arguably the best team in NFL history. If you’re old enough to remember this game, the good times were just beginning, and the party would never end.