{"id":698975,"date":"2026-01-23T13:34:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T13:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/698975\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T13:34:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T13:34:19","slug":"dallas-cowboys-30-year-championship-drought-is-altering-legacies-around-the-nfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/698975\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Cowboys\u2019 30-year championship drought is altering legacies around the NFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you sit by the fire (hopefully not out of necessity<\/a>) to watch Sunday\u2019s conference championship games, there are two different ways to ponder the Dallas Cowboys\u2019 30-year absence<\/a> from this weekend. There is the silly stuff and there is the serious stuff.<\/p>\n

The silly or funny part is simply the kind of head-shaking news created by the 30-year void. The Rams\u2019 Matthew Stafford<\/a> was 7 years old, presumably throwing a ball around his Highland Park backyard, when the Cowboys beat Green Bay here on Jan. 14, 1996, to get to Super Bowl XXX. The rest of the starting quarterbacks this weekend were not born. That includes Sam Darnold, an eight-year NFL veteran who has played for five different teams.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to be a young college grad to not remember real success for the Cowboys.<\/p>\n

As for the game itself, Brett Favre was a 26-year-old, five-year veteran. He had 236 starts to go (almost 15 full seasons) in setting his quarterback record for consecutive starts (297). And he has been retired for 15 years. On the Cowboys\u2019 side, the late Larry Allen, a Pro Football Hall of Famer, made his first Pro Bowl.<\/p>\n

Cowboys<\/p>\n

Be the smartest Cowboys fan. Get the latest news.<\/p>\n

By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n

With Barry Switzer coaching against Mike Holmgren in a stadium that was demolished 16 years ago, with a 38-year-old Bill Cowher coaching the Steelers to their first Super Bowl since the 1970s that same afternoon, there are all sorts of ways to illustrate how the Cowboys\u2019 absence from this game is of considerable length. It\u2019s when you talk about the teams still active that the conversation turns more serious and Dallas fans are more likely to get their blood boiling as to Jerry Jones\u2019 grand plan for fixing things.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"In<\/p>\n

Michael Hogue<\/p>\n

The Cowboys\u2019 owner-general manager talked in the season-ending news conference about wanting to finish his career with more Lombardi Trophies than any other owner. It was his not-so-subtle way of reminding fans that the team captured three Super Bowls in his first seven years on the scene before settling into this extended hibernation. It was probably a topic he should have steered away from, when you start to consider the teams still standing in this year\u2019s Super Bowl chase<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the NFC, the Seattle Seahawks had never advanced to a Super Bowl the last time the Cowboys played in one. They are favored at home Sunday to get to their fourth where they will try to win their second. The team in their way, the Rams, has won and lost Super Bowls while playing in two different cities (I\u2019m not talking about Super Bowl sites, I mean their home games) since Dallas last entered the picture.<\/p>\n

It only gets worse when we consider the AFC.<\/p>\n

The Denver Broncos were still, in some regards, the hapless Denver Broncos 30 years ago. In 1977, former Cowboy Craig Morton had quarterbacked the team to its first Super Bowl where the Doomsday defense dismantled him and the Broncos, producing co-MVP\u2019s on defense (Randy White, Harvey Martin). Morton went 4-for-15 for 39 yards with four interceptions. It was the kind of Super Bowl performance you could see C.J. Stroud having one day.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that John Elway had stepped up the program with three Super Bowl trips for Denver in the 1980s. But the scores \u2014 39-20, 42-10, 55-10 \u2014 were more embarrassing than the earlier loss to Dallas.<\/p>\n

Now the Broncos are a team with three Super Bowl titles \u2014 two with Elway after Terrell Davis and Mike Shanahan got involved, and another with Peyton Manning shouting \u201cOmaha.\u201d They would rate as a slight favorite to be playing for their fourth in two weeks if not for the injury to quarterback Bo Nix<\/a>. With Jarrett Stidham playing for the first time this season, they will be challenged Sunday. Regardless, they have used this long, leisurely period in Dallas to turn a 5-0 Super Bowl deficit with the Cowboys into 5-3. Then there is New England.<\/p>\n

The Patriots, like the Broncos, were sitting on zero Super Bowl wins 30 years ago. Their only trip, again like so many of Denver\u2019s, had ended in frustration and embarrassment \u2014 a 46-10 loss at the hands of the magical \u201885 Bears. Thanks to Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, the Patriots have six Lombardi Trophies now, and it\u2019s not going to shock anyone if young Drake Maye leads them to a seventh in Santa Clara next month.<\/p>\n

This is as much a part of Jones\u2019 legacy as those three Super Bowls he loves to recall and discuss at length in fawning Netflix documentaries. What other general manager hangs onto his job after not reaching a conference title round for 30 years?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s supposed to be a one-year-at-a-time league these days with free agency and coaching overhauls and young talent capable of turning a 4-13 New England team in 2024 into a conference championship club this season. Cowboys fans are excused for believing one year is no different from the next year and it all runs together in this drought that is very real and showing few signs of reaching the end.<\/p>\n

X: @TimCowlishaw<\/a><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>10 players to watch at the East-West Shrine Bowl, where Cowboys have home-field advantage<\/a><\/p>\n

NFL draft prospects of intrigue who will be in Frisco on Friday include SMU\u2019s Ahmaad Moses and Texas\u2019 Jack Endries, among others.<\/p>\n

\"Republican<\/a>Letters to the Editor \u2014 Dallas GOP, voting challenges, DART, American history, Cowboys<\/a><\/p>\n

Readers blame the Dallas GOP for voting chaos; say voting should be easy; support DART; remember some American history; and still hope for a Super Bowl for the Cowboys.<\/p>\n

\"Denver<\/a>Who is Christian Parker? 5 things to know about Cowboys\u2019 new defensive coordinator<\/a><\/p>\n

Dallas hires the promising defensive mind away from division rival Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

Find more Cowboys coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As you sit by the fire (hopefully not out of necessity) to watch Sunday\u2019s conference championship games, there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2066],"tags":[3224,230,229,257,2461,7,2883,6],"class_list":["post-698975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas-cowboys","tag-commentary","tag-cowboys","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-dallascowboys","tag-football","tag-jerry-jones","tag-nfl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115944678011575633","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}