“The Catch” ruined the Dallas Cowboys’ chances of going to the Super Bowl for the sixth time in 12 years.
The Green Bay Packers have handed America’s Team several heartbreaking defeats in the NFL Playoffs.
The top-seeded Cowboys missed out on the chance to face the undefeated New England Patriots by losing to Eli Manning’s New York Giants.
Every NFL team suffers a heartbreaking loss in the postseason at some point. But the Dallas Cowboys seem to take more such defeats than any other franchise. And they just take it to an entirely different level at times.
Look no further than Tony Romo’s fumbled snap against the Seattle Seahawks or the horrific clock management against the San Francisco 49ers for proof of that.
But we’re not just talking about blowout losses here, although they’ve taken their fair share of those over the years. There was the 23-point loss to the franchise now known as the Washington Commanders in the NFC Championship Game following the 1972 season. Or how about getting shut out 20-0 by the LA Rams in the Divisional Round after the 1985 campaign?
They lost 38-6 in the Divisional Round to Barry Sanders and the Detroit Lions following the 1991 season and took a 34-3 beating at the hands of Brett Favre’s Minnesota Vikings, again in the Divisional Round after the 2009 campaign. So, again, there have been plenty of blowouts.
But then there are those defeats that just torch the soul, games where the heartbreak level rises several notches. Perhaps it was a game where the Cowboys were underdogs and looked as if they could pull off an upset, only to have victory snatched away at the last second.
Or perhaps it was a game where Dallas was the favorite, maybe not just even in one game but in the postseason as a whole, and failed to live up to the hype, a problem that’s long surrounded America’s Team.
With those things in mind, here’s a look at the Dallas Cowboys’ five worst playoff losses, essentially ranked by the level of heartbreak involved.
And just as a heads up, you’re going to see a lot of the Green Bay Packers in here, which makes sense as the two teams have played more postseason games against one another than any two teams in NFL history.
As has happened many times over the years, the Cowboys spent the 1981 NFL season battling the San Francisco 49ers for the best record in the NFC. And while Dallas had a solid campaign, going 12-4, the Niners were slightly better at 13-3.
As such, when the two sides met in the NFC Championship Game on January 10, 1982, San Francisco played the role of host at historic Candlestick Park. Three months earlier, the Cowboys had come to town and got rolled as the 49ers breezed to a 45-14 victory. But there would be no blowout on this day.
In fact, with just under a minute to play, it seemed as if Dallas was primed to pull off an upset and move on to the Super Bowl for the sixth time in 12 years after forcing San Francisco into six turnovers.
But Joe Montana and Dwight Clark dashed those dreams with one of the most famous plays in NFL history.
After six lead changes, the Cowboys held a 27-21 lead late in the fourth quarter and had the Niners backed up to their own 11-yard line, only to watch Montana, then in his first full season as San Francisco’s regular starter, march his team down the field.
But not all hope was lost. With the 49ers facing 3rd & 3 from the Dallas 6-yard line, the Dallas defense swarmed Montana, forcing him to roll to the right toward the sideline. But while it seemed certain he’d either have to run out of bounds or take a sack, Montana heaved a pass toward the back of the end zone, seemingly throwing the ball away.
But Clark, a big tight end at 6-foot-4, leaped into the air and somehow managed to grab it for a touchdown with 58 seconds left on the clock. An extra point later, the Niners had a 28-27 lead. And when Cowboys quarterback Danny White fumbled on the ensuing possession, that was that, and thus began the 49ers’ decade of dominance.
After four straight seasons of 8-8 or worse, the Cowboys finally turned things around in 2014 thanks to a prolific offensive attack that ranked fifth in the NFL in scoring at 29.2 points per game.
Reminiscent of the Super Bowl-winning teams of the 1990s, this offensive unit featured not just a Big Three but a Big Four. Tony Romo played the Troy Aikman role with one of the best seasons of his career, completing a league-best 69.9% of his passes for 3,705 yards with 34 touchdowns against just nine interceptions.
DeMarco Murray played the role of Emmitt Smith, leading the league in rushing with a ridiculous 1,845 yards and 13 touchdowns, adding another 416 yards as a receiver.
Dez Bryant, who plays a big part in this heartbreaking entry, played the role of Michael Irvin, wearing the same famous No. 88 while catching a fitting 88 passes for 1,320 yards and 16 touchdowns.
And then, of course, there was tight end Jason Witten, who caught 64 passes for 703 yards and five touchdowns. Call him the Jay Novacek of this group if you like, although Novacek never got the recognition he deserved on those ’90s squads.
But back to the matter at hand. Behind this dynamic offense, the Cowboys rolled to their first NFC East title in five years with a strong 12-4 record, tied for the best mark in the conference with the Seattle Seahawks and Green Bay Packers. As such, when Dallas and Green Bay met in the Divisional Round of the postseason, the game was played at legendary Lambeau Field.
This was a close battle throughout, and while Dallas took a 21-13 lead in the third quarter on a one-yard touchdown run by Murray, the Packers scored 13 unanswered on a pair of Aaron Rodgers TD passes to take a 26-21 lead with just over nine minutes remaining.
With 4:42 left on the clock, the Cowboys were facing 4th & 2 at the Packers’ 32-yard line. Dallas head coach Jason Garrett decided to go for it, and on the ensuing play, Romo unleashed a deep pass to Bryant, who made an incredible leaping catch before going down at the 1-yard line.
Packers’ (and future Cowboys’) head coach Mike McCarthy threw the challenge flag, and upon further review, it was deemed that Bryant had not adequately secured the football before it hit the ground, thus making it an incomplete pass. Dallas turned the ball over on downs and never got it back.
The Dez debate rages on to this very day, as many still believe he was in full possession of the football when he hit the ground. Dallas went 4-12 the following season as Romo played just four games due to injury. Ahead of the 2016 season, Jerry Jones drafted a kid out of Mississippi State as Romo’s successor, which leads us right into the next entry.
When Romo went down with yet another injury ahead of the 2016 season, 23-year-old rookie quarterback Dak Prescott was thrust into the spotlight. And the fourth-rounder didn’t disappoint, completing 67.8% of his passes for 3,667 yards with 23 touchdowns against just four interceptions.
With Murray out of the picture, Jerry Jones had taken Ohio State All-American Ezekiel Elliott with the fourth overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft, and he was stellar as well, finishing second to Prescott in the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year vote after rushing for 1,631 yards and 15 touchdowns.
Once again, the Cowboys’ offense ranked fifth in the league in scoring. And with the Dallas defense allowing the fifth-fewest points in the NFL, America’s Team went 13-3 to earn the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
After taking the Wild Card Round off, the Cowboys welcomed Rodgers and the NFC North champion Packers, who’d gone 10-6, to AT&T Stadium for a Divisional Round rematch from two years earlier.
While Dallas was the favorite, Green Bay came out firing, jumping to a 21-3 lead midway through the second quarter. The Cowboys cut the lead to eight by halftime, but a Rodgers touchdown pass in the third extended the deficit to 15.
But Prescott took over in the fourth, throwing a pair of touchdown passes and running in a two-point conversion to tie the score at 28-28 with 4:08 remaining. The Packers answered with a field goal to take a three-point lead, but less than a minute later, Cowboys kicker Dan Bailey drilled a 52-yarder to tie the game once again.
With just 35 seconds remaining, it seemed as if this back-and-forth battle was headed to overtime. But that was only until Rodgers did Rodgers things and hit Jared Cook with a 35-yard pass from his own 32 to put the Packers in field goal range. Mason Crosby came on to kick the game-winning 51-yarder as time expired, thus sending the top-seeded Cowboys home early yet again.
Now, some may not view this loss to Green Bay as more heartbreaking than the entries above. After all, the Cowboys weren’t the No. 1 seed in the NFC here, although they did tie for the best record in the NFC during the 2023 regular season at 12-5 and won the NFC East for the second time in three years. And there was no last-minute heartbreak here, either. No “Dez caught it” or Aaron Rodgers magic.
But here’s the thing. Since the Cowboys last went to the Super Bowl following the 1995 season, they haven’t honestly had many chances to get back, as their squads simply weren’t strong enough. This one was. At the very least, many expected Dallas to get back to the NFC title game.
Up until a couple of late losses, Prescott was the favorite to win NFL MVP as he had his best season since that rookie campaign mentioned above, completing a career-high 69.5% of his passes for 4,516 yards with a league-best 36 touchdown passes against just nine picks, his lowest full-season total since 2018.
In addition, CeeDee Lamb emerged as arguably the best wideout in football, breaking all sorts of franchise receiving records with 135 catches for 1,749 yards and a dozen scores. Is it any surprise the Cowboys led the league in scoring at 29.9 points per game?
And the Dallas defense, led by All-Pro linebacker Micah Parsons, was dominant as well, allowing just 18.5 points per game, good for fifth in the NFL.
So when the seventh-seeded Packers, who were once 6-8 and had to win their final three games just to make it to the playoffs, came to AT&T Stadium over Super Wild Card Weekend, most assumed this would be a one-sided affair. And it was. It just didn’t go the way Dallas wanted.
To make matters worse, Green Bay came into this game as the fourth-youngest team in NFL playoff history. And this wasn’t Favre. This wasn’t Rodgers. This was Jordan Love, who had 18 starts under his belt and zero postseason experience outside of holding a clipboard during the Packers’ loss to the 49ers in the Divisional Round following his rookie season in 2021.
But none of that mattered once the game began, as the Packers jumped out to a 27-0 lead and never looked back. Sure, the Cowboys ended up scoring 32 points, but the outcome was never in doubt in the second half as Green Bay breezed to a 16-point victory.
Love was absolutely brilliant, completing 16 of 21 passes for 272 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. And in earning a 157.2 passer rating, his first playoff game was actually better than the performances of both Favre and Rodgers in their Packer postseason debuts to put the Cowboys back in “wait until next year” mode.
The Cowboys entered the 2007 season coming off a heartbreaking playoff loss to the Seahawks. That was the game, of course, mentioned in the intro in which Tony Romo, serving as the holder on a 19-yard chip-shot field goal attempt from Martin Gramatica, couldn’t hold the snap and fell short of the goal line in his attempt to run for a score, thus giving the Seahawks a 21-20 victory.
But with a new head coach in Wade Phillips following the retirement of Bill Parcells, Romo put the incident behind him and came back strong in ’07, earning a second straight trip to the Pro Bowl by completing 64.4% of his passes for 4,211 yards with 36 touchdowns, which served as his all-time best throughout the remainder of his career.
