Rivalry set for latest renewal
Cowboys, 49ers ready to add to already-rich postseason history
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — For Kyle Shanahan, the chance to coach the 49ers against the Cowboys in a playoff game is a throwback to when that rivalry was the biggest in football.
Shanahan’s formative years were spent watching his father, Mike, as 49ers offensive coordinator battling the Cowboys in three straight NFC title games.
After the rivalry went dormant for more than a quarter-century as the proud franchises rarely enjoyed success at the same time, it’s having a rebirth with the 49ers set to take on the Cowboys for the second straight postseason when they meet Sunday in the divisional round.
“That’s how rivalries happen,” Shanahan said Wednesday. “You guys knew it from the ’80s when it started out. I remember so much from my childhood from sixth grade to ninth grade, because I was here ’92 to ’94, so it was the biggest rivalry in football to me growing up. Then usually that goes away when you don’t meet in the playoffs a bunch and we had a big game last year, we have a big game this year, so the more you do that, the bigger it gets again.”
This will be the ninth time these franchises have met in the postseason, tied for the most of any matchup in the Super Bowl era with the 49ers against the Packers and Cowboys against the Rams.
But with six of the previous matchups coming in the conference title game, few rivalries have had as many big games or star players such as Roger Staubach, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Emmitt Smith, Deion Sanders, Steve Young, Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin.
The 49ers-Cowboys playoff history is a rich one from back-to-back conference title games in the early 1970s, the iconic “Catch” in the 1981 season and then the heated rivalry in the 1990s when the Cowboys won the first two meetings on the way to Super Bowl titles and then the 49ers took the third game.
“None of us were around for that,” 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk said. “So the rivalry is really what we’ve done recently.”
The series took a long playoff break before resuming in the wild-card round last year when the 49ers held off the Cowboys 23-17. The game ended with Dak Prescott scrambling to the 49ers 24 in the closing seconds.
The Cowboys scrambled to get to the line and waited for the officials to set the ball. Prescott then spiked the ball in hopes of getting one more play but the clock ran out.
Here’s a look at some of the history of the playoff rivalry.
America’s team
The teams squared off in the first three years after the merger with the Cowboys
beating the 49ers for the NFC title game in 1970 and ’71 and again the next year to help launch their status as “America’s Team.”
In the first meeting at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco, the Cowboys used 143 yards rushing and a TD from Duane Thomas and two picks of John Brodie to win 17-10.
The Cowboys defense dominated again the next year with three more interceptions of Brodie in a 14-3 win that led the franchise to its first Super Bowl title.
The next meeting in the divisional round at Candlestick Park helped Staubach earn the moniker of “Captain Comeback.”
Staubach entered the game in the fourth quarter with the Cowboys down 28-13 and led the team on three scoring drives. He threw a 20-yard TD pass to Billy Parks with 1:20 left to cut the deficit to 28-23.
After a successful onside kick, the Cowboys won the game on a 10-yard TD pass from Staubach to Ron Sellers with 52 seconds left.
The Catch
The 49ers fell off after that three-year run, but got their revenge with a late-game comeback
of their own to launch a dynasty in the 1981 NFC championship game.
The 49ers took over at their 11 with 4:54 to play trailing 27-21 when Montana took over. He picked apart the Cowboys’ “Doomsday Defense” with a quintessential West Coast offense drive.
Then the 49ers faced a third-and-4 at the Cowboys 6 with less than a minute to play when Bill Walsh called “Sprint Right Option.” Montana rolled right and couldn’t find an open receiver immediately. Then with Ed “Too Tall” Jones and the Cowboys defense closing in, Montana launched a high pass that seemed headed out of the end zone.
But Dwight Clark leaped over Everson Walls in the back of the end zone and came down with “The Catch” to give the 49ers a 28-27 lead.
The win was sealed when Danny White lost a fumble and the 49ers won their first of five Super Bowl titles in a 14-year span two weeks later.
“Start of a dynasty,” former 49ers president Carmen Policy said.
“I don’t let myself go down the road of what would have happened if he doesn’t make that catch.”
How ’bout them Cowboys
While the 49ers dynasty was launched with that win, it was the start of the Cowboys’ demise under coach Tom Landry.
The Cowboys bottomed out with a one-win season in Jimmy Johnson and Aikman’s first year in 1989 before beginning a steady rise.
That helped lead to the Cowboys making it to the 1992 NFC title game in San Francisco against a stacked 49ers team led by Young and Rice.
But the young Cowboys didn’t flinch, getting two TDs from Smith to build a 24-20 lead and then Aikman helped seal it with a 70-yard pass to Alvin Harper to set up another TD.
The rematch the next season wasn’t nearly as tight with the Cowboys building a 28-7 halftime lead on the way to a 38-21 win after Johnson guaranteed victory earlier in the week.
Johnson punctuated both wins with his “How ’bout them Cowboys!” proclamation in the victorious locker room.