When it comes to the history of rivalry in the NFL, there have been very few rivalries as cutthroat as the one between the Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers. While the heat might have fizzled out between the two franchises over time, Pittsburgh legend Terry Bradshaw took the fans back to the 1970s to show how Dallas fans crossed the line to teach Bradshaw a lesson. 

“I had trucks come at me while I’m running on the road,” shared the former Steelers quarterback on the September 11 live streaming of The Buddy Martin Show. “Come right at me. And I run into the ditch, which is full of sandbars. Oh, I had a great black mare. They shot it standing right there in the front pasture road: shot her dead. And when we posted her, or when we did an autopsy, she had a .22 shell stuck in her heart.”

The 70s were dominated by a constant power shuffle between the Steelers and the Cowboys. These were two of the best teams in that league, filled with stars on pretty much every front. The Black and Gold had Bradshaw, while America’s Team had Roger Staubach. Pittsburgh had Chuck Noll, while Dallas had Tom Landry. This was peak football at that time, giving rise to perhaps the most volatile rivalries among fanbases.

However, the rivalry has turned grisly off the field. In 2021, a fight broke out at a San Antonio bar between Cowboys and Steelers fans.

Pittsburgh took home a 21-7 win in Super Bowl X, beating the Cowboys and beginning their run as Champions. The Steelers knocked them out once again three years later in Super Bowl XII, in which Bradshaw threw for 318 yards and scored four touchdowns. Paired with the might of the Steelers’ iconic ‘Steel Curtain’ defense, which sacked Dallas quarterback seven times in Super Bowl X, Pittsburgh was the team to beat. According to former Cowboy Cliff Harris, Staubach still regrets losing to the Steelers.

“I talked to Roger Staubach, my good friend and quarterback, and told him that he needed to score more points in the Pittsburgh game. It upsets him, you know,” he told Norm Hitzges on his podcast.

Steeler icon Jack Lambert was one of the most menacing linebackers ever to play in the NFL, known fondly as ‘Jack Splat.’ Known for his fierce look and missing teeth, he was also called ‘Dracula in Cleats.’ Back then, Harris fell prey to Lambert’s rage after he taunted Roy Gerela, patting him on the head following a missed field goal. Jack Splat then showed Harris why he was Jack Splat, flattening him to the ground.

“It still pisses me off even thinking about that, that someone would do that,” former Steelers running back Franco Harris said on The DA Show in 2021. “Lambert handled that in the right way. He handled that in the Steelers’ way.”

The Steelers would go on to cause more pain to Dallas, winning two more Super Bowls. However, the script flipped in the 90s, when the Cowboys won two straight. This was the era of Doomsday defense, while the offense was powered by players like Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin, aka the Playmaker.

This did not sit well with Lambert, who slammed Harris to the ground. Years later, in 2024, former Pittsburgh wide receiver George Pickens grabbed then-Cowboys cornerback Jourdan Lewis by the helmet and threw him to the ground. Who knew that only months later, he was to be shipped off to the Cowboys, where he would go on to post a career year?

The last time the two rivals faced off was in 2024, when Dallas took home a 20-17 win. Things have flipped now. Back in the 1970s, the Steelers took the lead. If we take the data in the late 2020s, the Cowboys lead the series 18-16. The emotions may not be as apparent between both sides now, but that rivalry is still smoldering.