Super Bowl 10 - 50 Years after The Morning After
It felt like a tour of the Pro Football Hall of Fame to revisit one of the iconic Super Bowls.
Welcome to the end of the journey for the 1975 Dallas Cowboys.
Last week, we previewed Super Bowl X in Miami and today we review it. If you would like to catch up, I will put the preview piece here and in that preview piece, you can watch the entire game or just read the six essays we have written about that “Dirty Dozen” Cowboys team of 1975.
It was a truly magical season that had a less than magical ending. But, all told, a journey well-worth taking and based on the memories of so many of you that are in your 50’s or 60’s, it was the first time you truly fell in love with Dallas Cowboys football.
Today, we gather after a rewatching of that final game to offer views and observations from one of the most iconic afternoons this sport has ever offered from January 18, 1976.
About a year ago, I got it in my head that it would be fun to review the newspapers from a season from long ago and I settled on the 1975 Dallas Cowboys. Mainly because I missed it the first time around. I was a 3-year old cheesehead and couldn’t read, so it wasn’t an interesting concept in real time.
But, as you might imagine, I have fallen in love with football and more specifically, the NFL from the 1970s and 1980s. And, let me tell you, walking through the 1975 season has been a real joy. Now, I must make a decision on whether to make this a once-off, or to just continue on to 1976 and beyond. I know there are amazing stories yet to come and I am tempted to just keep going, but I suppose I would like to hear from some of you to see if this is a trip you might have interest in.
Now, as for this particular game that we have arrived at in the Orange Bowl against the Pittsburgh Steelers, I must confess I don’t totally know how to do this rewatch in essay form. So, for lack of a better plan, I am thinking I will simply offer my observations as we go through the game and assume that spoilers won’t be a problem.
Let’s see where this takes us.
– This was the very first Super Bowl in which two teams were meeting that had both won Super Bowls. This was also the chance for Chuck Noll or Tom Landry to join Vince Lombardi and Don Shula as coaches to have won two Lombardi Trophies (which had been renamed upon his death in 1970).
– The Cowboys ran a reverse on the opening kickoff in which Preston Pearson sold a right return, only to have their rookie LB Thomas Henderson swing back to the left. This is exactly what they did in Week 2 against the St Louis Cardinals, but he took that won for a 97-yard touchdown. This one was quite impressive as it set up the Cowboys first drive in Steelers territory at the 44. Perhaps more importantly, it injured the ribs of Steelers kicker Roy Gerela and was blamed for his missed field goals that would absolutely become a story.
