49ers vs. Cowboys: 10 biggest moments in most storied NFL rivalry
By Peter Panacy
The 49ers and Cowboys have hated each other in one way or another dating back to the 1960s, and these are the 10 biggest moments of that legendary rivalry.
In recent years, most San Francisco 49ers fans would probably classify the Seattle Seahawks as the No. 1 rival they’d love to hate. A generation before, it might have been the Green Bay Packers after all what went down in the late 1990s.
For all intents and purposes, though, the biggest rival in Niners lore is none other than the Dallas Cowboys.
Perhaps that rivalry has died down a bit in recent years. San Francisco has had only brief stints of success since the early 2000s, while Dallas hasn’t made it beyond the divisional round of the playoffs since its last Super Bowl victory following the 1995 season.
Yet those 1990s Cowboys teams put a lot of pain on 49ers fans, and things weren’t all that different back in the 1970s, too, when the real rivalry began heating up.
Perhaps the rivalry also died down because there haven’t been too many moments to speak of in recent years.
But, with the Niners poised to face off against Dallas once more in postseason play in the 2022 NFC Wild Card round, we might get a few more.
In the meantime, let’s look back at the 10 biggest moments between these two historic rivals.
No. 10: 49ers fans dominate AT&T Stadium
It might not be considered a great on-the-field moment. But Week 1 of the 2014 season saw one of those complete takeovers by San Francisco fans on enemy turf, as nearly half (if not more) of the crowd in attendance for the regular-season opener at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, was donning red.
Seriously, it made for an impressive moment.
While the entirety of the 2014 season didn’t go the 49ers’ way, that game sure did. The Niners dominated from the opening frame, getting out to a 21-3 lead after the first quarter and eventually winning by a score of 28-17.
More impressively, it showed all those Cowboys fans just how well San Francisco fans travel, as they completely took over the venue and turned it into a home game for the red and gold.