For those of us who are old enough to remember, former Washington Redskins’ coach, George Allen, made a real rivalry out of the Washington and Cowboys head-to-head games way back in the early 1970s. What they called “Dallas Week” was a real rivalry. The media in D.C. helped to amplify the drama around the rivalry, and players would do a lot of trash talking. The Redskins were winning Super Bowls, and the rivalry was fun.
The fun of “Dallas Week” lost its luster in the late 1990s. It all but faded into the 2000s as the previous Washington ownership made Washington irrelevant. The history is there, and the Commanders are relevant again — even though there isn’t a player on this current team that was alive to see a football game played under Allen.
Current owner, Josh Harris, of the Washington football team, now the Commanders, grew up in Montgomery County, Maryland, in the D.C. suburbs as a Redskins’ fan. He remembers well those rivalry games between Washington and Dallas. Now, the Commanders are surging while the Cowboys are in a freefall this season. The Commanders must win this game on Sunday in Landover, Maryland while the team from Dallas should be playing for draft position. The Commanders are already 10½ point favorites for the game on Sunday.
Some say the rivalry between the Redskins and the Cowboys could be traced back to the late 1950s when Texas oil tycoon Clinton Murchison Jr. wanted to bring an NFL team to Dallas. The Redskins were the “southern” team. Murchison had a deal with George Preston Marshall, the owner of Washington’s team at the time, to purchase the new franchise, which led to the creation of the Cowboys. The NFL placed the Cowboys in the same East division as the Redskins which made little sense as the teams are separated by 1,200 miles. Even after divisions were realigned, the Cowboys remained in the NFC East with Washington, NY Giants, and Philadelphia.
The rivalry was good theater. It was fun. Allen once reportedly offered to fight Cowboys coach Tom Landry at midfield. Then there were threats from Redskins’ big defensive tackle Diron Talbert, the tall and loud Texan, who hated the Cowboys on a personal and business level. Allen even refused to call his defensive end, Dallas Hickman, by his first name. There was the time that Redskins’ linebacker LaVar Arrington sacked Cowboys’ QB Troy Aikman‘s in 2000, and that would be the final play of Aikman’s career after the hit would result in Aikman’s tenth and final concussion of his career.
Local media people thought that Talbert was acting as Allen’s mouthpiece to flame the rivalry, so that the coach to get his players to bait the Cowboys, particularly QB Roger Staubach. But Talbert told the media he had his own agenda for hating the Cowboys. Allen had his reasons in his psychological preparation for Washington “Dallas Week” and the fans celebrated their disdain for Dallas the entire week.
The rivalry games were physical. There were many injuries back in the day in those rivalry games. The trash talking between players off the field would turn into some cheap shots on the field. Allen would get the adrenaline flowing. Now, there is a lot of crossover with head coach Dan Quinn coming to Washington from Dallas. Obviously he knows them well. He motivates his team in a different way with preparation and the importance of the need to win this game.
“I think it’s awesome, number one because here’s two iconic franchises getting to go battle for it in the division. We’re fortunate that we get to do it this game here at home, and that’s a big deal when you’re in the division of getting to play in at home and your crowd behind you and ripping for every chance that you can be loud and make a difference. And so, creating home field advantage is a really cool thing.”
— Quinn said to the media this week
“And to get a chance to have my first Dallas game here and have the crowd behind us and digging in, that’s a really cool thing. We can’t wait.”
The teams have eight Super Bowl wins between them. The Cowboys last won in 1996, and the Redskins in 1992. So neither team has hoisted the Lombardi Trophy in a year shy of 30 years. Hopefully Washington wins one before Dallas. The most important thing for Sunday is that Washington is victorious.
Think back to the day when there would be Chief Zee in the stands in native-American attire, and he had fun with the friendly banter with Cowboys fans for the cameras and Cowboys’ superfan “Crazy Ray.” This wasn’t like Eagles and Redskins fans literally fighting in the stands. The “Dallas Week” rivalry was fun when both teams were good. Since Dallas was far away in the geography, you just wouldn’t see more than a scattered few Cowboys fans at a rivalry game in the days of RFK Stadium. Now, that has changed with decades of bad teams under the former ownership of Dan Snyder. And it is a shame since most of these Dallas fans have never been to Texas. NBD.
So yes, the Washington and Dallas rivalry might never be like it once was. There are plenty of Commanders fans in Dallas who have never been to Washington, D.C. Geography does not matter much to fans who sometimes have their rooting interest on players on their fantasy football roster. For me personally, this is a big game in a big season. The 7-4 Washington Commanders want to get to 8-4, and the only way to do that is to beat the Cowboys.
