Before the Dallas Cowboys dominated the league in the 90s, it was the hard work of team legends Roger Staubach and Cliff Harris that kickstarted the legacy of America’s Team. Today, it has been 46 years since Staubach hung up his cleats, and he has a comfortable business as a realtor. However, according to Harris, Staubach still deals with the pain inflicted by one particular team.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
In a conversation with Norm Hitzges on his podcast, the veteran journalist told Harris that if someone simply bet on the team with the better-ranked defense in the regular season in the last 60 Super Bowls, they would have won 49 of those games. The statistic shocked Harris.
“That’s an interesting statistic,” he said. “You have to get to the playoffs in the Super Bowl by playing great defense and stopping an offense. So that means, when you get to the Super Bowl, you’ve got the two best defenses in the nation. And 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.”
It was certainly a jab at the Cowboys’ two Super Bowl losses to the Steelers in the 70s. Had Staubach won them, Dallas would have had seven Super Bowl victories.
In Super Bowl XIII, Pittsburgh was dominant throughout the game, and Dallas did its best to fight back. The Cowboys were only a touchdown away from tying the score in the third quarter. Staubach found Tyler Smith, but Smith dropped the ball. It forced Dallas to opt for a field goal.
Staubach tried to come back and scored twice in the final couple of minutes. But it couldn’t match up to the two touchdowns the Steelers had already scored by then. The Cowboys fell short and lost the game 35-31, after already having lost Super Bowl X to the Steelers 21-17.
The sting of those losses has never fully faded for Staubach. Speaking ahead of a Cowboys-Steelers matchup in November 2016 at Heinz Field, the quarterback reflected on the historic rivalry and the pain of coming up short against the Steel Curtain.
“The only thing I can say is when we lost to the Steelers, we lost to a really good team,” Staubach admitted. “We didn’t lose to a bunch of slugs.
“I pull for the Cowboys every week, but I even pull a little harder when it’s against the Steelers. There’s still something about the Steelers. But it’s healthy, though. It’s not horrible. I’m grateful for never having a losing season but I wish we would’ve beat the Steelers though.”
Staubach also came to watch the Super Bowl XXX with his wife, more than a decade after he retired, and tasted sweet revenge. The Cowboys defeated the Steelers 27-17, and he celebrated so animatedly that even his wife was taken aback.
“[She] told me, ‘I’ve never seen you get up and yell and scream at any game than when we were sitting there.’”
Ironically, the 70s Steelers defense is why the ‘Steel Curtain’ nickname exists. This was the country’s best defense at the time, and had been so from 1972 to 1979, save for one year. With Joe Green, LC Greenwood, Ernie Holmes, and Dwight White in the front seven, Pittsburgh was a defense worth being scared of. The four of them would start for the Steelers until 1978.
Head coach Chuck Noll and defensive coordinator Bud Carson created a defensive domination that the fans of yesteryears remember to this day. Staubach himself was sacked four times in Super Bowl X by Greenwood alone, the first time any defensive player had posted that number. In all, Staubach was sacked seven times and was brought down five more times in Super Bowl XIII.
In the book “Facing the Pittsburgh Steelers: Players Recall the Glory Years of the Black and Gold,” Staubach shared that Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw had approached him for a hug as a mark of sportsmanship. He recalled he was in no mood to be all chummy with Bradshaw, but met the quarterback in a respectable embrace anyways. The loss still hurts him, but he might not have preferred to lose to anyone else.
“Our 1978 team was one of our best teams, and we were healthy. We were really good. Unfortunately, they were just a little bit better than us. I would not say they were much better than us, but they won. I hate losing two Super Bowls, but I really feel like I lost to one of the greatest teams of all-time.”