Former QB said games in the 60s were competitive but cordial until Allen put the “gas on the fire”
Former Washington Redskins coach George Allen gets most of the credit for stirring up the rivalry between his old team and the Dallas Cowboys. But the initial instigator was former Redskins quarterback Sonny Jurgensen.
“We got the rivalry started,” said Jurgensen. “George Allen put gas on the fire.”
Recommended Stories
With Washington mired in mediocrity and Dallas an emerging power under Tom Landry, Jurgensen was a burr in the Cowboys’ saddle.
In 1965, Dallas led Washington, 24-6, in the third period. But Jurgensen threw for 411 yards and three touchdowns to lead a 34-31, come-from-behind win at RFK (then called D.C. Stadium). Suddenly a rivalry was born.
Shootouts between the Redskins and Cowboys were so commonplace in the 1960s that Jurgensen doesn’t recall the 1965 game.
“You’d have to show me some tape,” said Jurgensen. “A lot of the games with the Cowboys were like that.”
The following year, the teams split. The scores — 31-30 (Dallas) and 34-31 (Washington).
The games were highly competitive, but the rivalry didn’t have a bitter edge, just yet.
“One time we were flipping the coin at the Cotton Bowl,” said Jurgensen. “And Don Meredith asked me, ‘What size shoe do you wear?’ I said, ‘Size eleven.’ He said, ‘I’ll send you a pair of alligator boots.’”
But when Allen took over in 1971, the rivalry took on more of an edge.
“That’s when the ugliness developed, the name calling,” said Jurgensen. “That was a method of his. George would get [Diron] Talbert talking about Roger Staubach. It was different.”
And it was successful. On his first trip to Dallas, Allen won 20-16. The following year, the Redskins beat the defending NFL champion Cowboys in the NFC title game, 26-3, to advance to the Super Bowl for the first time.
By then, the Redskins fans, taking their cues from Allen, were fully engaged.
Jurgensen remembers fans congregating outside the Cowboys’ hotel in Crystal City on Sunday mornings, waiting for their bus to depart for RFK.
“They would stand out there and wait for them,” said Jurgensen. “Then they would scream at the busses, ‘We want Dallas.’ Then when the game started, the stands would be moving. That’s tough for a visiting team.”
Note » The rivalry also had a geographic component in the 1960s. As the southernmost teams in the NFL, the Redskins had fans as far away as Florida and Alabama while Dallas’ fan base stretched along the rest of the south.
