Forgive me in advance if I drift a little. These two franchises, these monuments of NFL mythology, have combined for five wins this season, yet somehow they still pull you back into the golden age. Nostalgia has its own gravitational force, and when it comes to the Cowboys and the Raiders, it is undefeated.
It remains one of the sport’s strangest omissions. Dallas and the Silver and Black never crossed paths in a Super Bowl. From nineteen seventy six through nineteen eighty four the Cowboys reached the NFC Championship Game six times. In that same span the Raiders made four trips to the AFC title game. They kept arriving at the same doorway year after year, only to open it and find someone else standing there.
When Dallas advanced it was the Steelers or the Broncos waiting. When the Raiders broke through it was the Eagles or Washington. The football gods, generous everywhere else during that era, withheld the one matchup that felt destined.
And consider the world around them. The Yankees and the Dodgers battled in October. The Miracle on Ice captivated a nation. Doug Flutie created magic in Miami. Thomas Hearns Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard turned boxing into theater. The Lakers and Celtics reshaped basketball every spring. It was an age defined by giants colliding, yet the Cowboys and the Raiders missed their shared moment.
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If the pairing had ever happened it might have carried the same electricity as Michael Jordan and North Carolina knocking off Georgetown. There was too much talent on both fields for anything ordinary to occur. Jim Plunkett delivered his own signature throw to Kenny King on a broken play in Super Bowl fifteen. Marcus Allen spun into immortality three years later. And you can still picture another scene that never happened at all, Drew Pearson and Tony Hill staring across at Lester Hayes and Mike Haynes with the Lombardi Trophy sitting somewhere just out of reach.
Imagine Tony Dorsett’s ninety nine yard run unfolding on a Super Sunday instead of a Monday night in the Metrodome. That run deserved confetti, not cold air and fluorescent lights.
Cowboys fans at least received one small preview. In nineteen eighty three Dallas and the Raiders played a wild classic that ended forty to thirty eight in favor of the Silver and Black. Four quarters that felt as if they had slipped in from some alternate timeline. Danny White even opened the scoring on a pass from Ron Springs, an early reminder of how unpredictable the matchup could have been.
Perhaps that is why the idea continues to linger. Even now, with seasons that will be remembered for all the wrong reasons, Cowboys Raiders still pulls at the imagination. Because sometimes the greatest game is the one history never allowed us to see.
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