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.
No. 9: Terrell Owens dances on the Dallas star
Both the 49ers and Cowboys have had plenty of star players go back and forth between the two teams.
And speaking of a star, wide receiver Terrell Owens sure knew how to make a mockery of one.
Before Owens ultimately departed the Niners unceremoniously a few years later, he was San Francisco’s biggest offensive weapon and the true heir apparent to Hall of Fame wide receiver Jerry Rice, and Owens sure knew how to rub things in when it mattered most.
In Week 4 of the 2000 season with the 49ers on the road at Dallas, Owens celebrated a touchdown by running to midfield and raising his arms on the Cowboys star:
That might have been insulting enough, at least to Dallas fans. But when Owens scored another touchdown, he rushed over to the star again to plant the football in response to running back Emmitt Smith doing the same.
Only to have defensive back George Teague rush over and knock Owens over.
While Owens would ultimately wind up in Dallas, at least the Niners got the last laugh in this game, winning 41-24.
But Owens was the bigger story.
No. 8: Cowboys upend John Brodie, 49ers in 1971 NFC Championship
For those fans not totally familiar with the history of the San Francisco-Dallas rivalry, you’d have to go back to the dawn of the modern-football era when both the 49ers and Cowboys ended up playing against each other in the 1971 NFC Championship game following the 1970 season.
The Niners were heavy favorites in that game. Behind quarterback John Brodie, still one of the most underrated signal-callers in team history, San Francisco owned the No. 1 scoring offense and finished with an impressive 10-3-1 regular-season record.
But, after knocking off the Minnesota Vikings in the divisional round, Brodie and Co. ultimately fell short against Dallas in the conference championship, losing 17-10 and kicking off a stretch where Hall of Fame head coach Tom Landry and his Cowboys knocked the 49ers out of the playoffs.
The painful side, at least for Niners fans against Dallas in the postseason, started there.
San Francisco would ultimately fall on hard times, while the Cowboys would go on to be the self-proclaimed “America’s Team” during that decade.
It would take over 10 years for the 49ers to enact their vengeance.
No. 8: Deion Sanders defects from 49ers to join Cowboys
One can’t fault Hall of Fame cornerback Deion Sanders for wanting to join the Niners in free agency ahead of the 1994 season. He wanted to join a Super Bowl contender, and going to San Francisco was going to be a surefire way to have that chance.
Truth be told, that 1994 team was stacked. And we’ll get to that in a moment.
Yet Sanders’ notable clashes with Jerry Rice meant that season would be the lone one the perennial All-Pro defensive back would spend with the 49ers, ultimately deciding to switch sides the following year to go to Dallas.
Rice and Sanders, surely friends now, would nevertheless continue their rivalry, albeit on opposite sides of the field now.
And to make Sanders’ defection all the more painful, he’d go on to win another Super Bowl in back-to-back years.
This time, with the Cowboys.
No. 6: 49ers trade Charles Haley to Cowboys
Deion Sanders wasn’t the only painful departure from the Niners to Cowboys.
Defensive end Charles Haley, one of the most formidable pass-rushers in NFL history and someone who had already established himself in San Francisco lore during the 1990s, didn’t depart via the free-agent wire.
No, the 49ers traded him. To a Cowboys team that was on the ascent but needed that defensive spark.
That infamous trade in 1992, following Haley’s back-to-back Pro Bowl years, was reportedly because he got in the face of Jerry Rice, at least according to former Niners running back Dexter Carter, although the perceived notions of Haley clashing with head coach George Seifert probably didn’t help matters either.
At any rate, Haley would go on to win three more Super Bowl rings with Dallas after already winning two with San Francisco, and it’s a deal the 49ers probably wish they never made.
No. 5: Roger Staubach breaks 49ers fans’ hearts
It’s time to go back to the 1970s to a moment most 49ers fans, at least those who were able to witness it, would probably like to forget.
In December of 1972, with already two seasons in the belt where Dallas eliminated the Niners in the playoffs, San Francisco was finally looking to get over the hump and had a commanding 28-13 lead behind John Brodie going into the fourth quarter.
Tom Landry was completely dissatisfied with his starting quarterback, Craig Morton, so much to the fact that he decided to bench him in the second half in favor of the backup, quarterback Roger Staubach.
What did Staubach do? Nothing short of engineering a 17-point fourth quarter that stumped the 49ers, leading to a shocking 30-28 victory for the Cowboys and sending the Niners team home.
Again.
Even though Dallas would lose in the NFC Championship game to the Washington Redskins a week later, this third playoff loss in a row to the Cowboys goes down as the worst postseason defeat in San Francisco history.
No. 4: ‘How ’bout them Cowboys?’
Too bad the 1972 playoff debacle wasn’t the only painful 49ers postseason defeat at the hands of Dallas.
During the early and mid 1990s, perhaps partially due to players like Charles Haley leaving, the Cowboys began to get the Niners’ number on a seemingly year-to-year basis, and the 1993 NFC Championship would prove to be yet another one of those games San Francisco fans would like to forget.
It was a classic, sure, as both teams were tied at 10 apiece after halftime. And while Dallas took an early fourth-quarter lead, quarterback Steve Young was able to engineer a go-ahead 49ers drive that made it 24-20 on a 5-yard touchdown pass to Jerry Rice.
Until Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman sunk the dagger into Niners fans’ hearts with a Dallas go-ahead touchdown.
Head coach Jimmy Johnson, celebrating at Candlestick Park in the visiting locker room, made his infamous “how ’bout them Cowboys” cheer that still resonates with Dallas fans to this day.
San Francisco fans still hate hearing that to this day, too.
No. 3: 49ers steal Jerry Rice from Cowboys
One of the greatest moments in 49ers-Cowboys history doesn’t actually take place on the gridiron at all.
Well, at least not the opening portion of it.
Let’s rewind back to spring of 1985. The Niners had just won the Super Bowl the previous year, their second of the decade and behind arguably the best overall team in franchise history. As such, they owned the final pick in the 1985 NFL Draft.
Yet San Francisco had eyes on a flashy wide receiver out of Mississippi Valley State, one Jerry Rice, whom the team knew wouldn’t fall all the way to the end of Round 1.
The 49ers also understood the Cowboys were interested in Rice, too, so all the Niners decided to do was trade up to No. 15 in the draft, one spot ahead of Dallas, stealing Rice away in the process.
The Cowboys settled defensive tackle Kevin Brooks, while San Francisco got its hands on the greatest player in NFL history.
No. 2: Steve Young, 49ers throttle Cowboys in NFC Championship
It took over 10 years for the 49ers to avenge all those playoff losses to the Cowboys in the early 1970s.
Thankfully for those losses in the early 1990s, it only took a couple.
Heading into 1994, the Niners were all in business making sure they’d upend Dallas once and for all, signing Deion Sanders and purging Cowboys linebacker Ken Norton Jr. to respark the defense and help make up for the departure of Charles Haley.
It sure worked.
After steamrolling through the regular season with a 13-3 record and the No. 1 offense in the NFL, coupled with the league’s sixth best defense, it came time for the inevitable: another NFC Championship clash with Dallas.
This time, though, San Francisco got off to a rocking start, cornerback Eric Davis picking off Troy Aikman for a pick-six touchdown, then a commanding 24-7 lead in the second quarter.
Sure, the Cowboys tried making things interesting as of late. But Steve Young’s 3-yard touchdown run with him stretching over the goal line ensured the 49ers a 38-28 victory, and the Niners would go on to win their fifth Lombardi Trophy in a lopsided win over the San Diego Chargers in the Super Bowl.
No. 1: ‘The Catch’
You knew it came down to this. And there’d be some who would argue “The Catch” is the most iconic play in all of football.
Since we’re a 49ers site, we’ll go ahead and say it is.
The story itself needs little introduction. An upstart Niners squad being led by a hotshot quarterback, Joe Montana, and an innovative head coach in Bill Walsh. All they had to do was upset Tom Landry and the Cowboys, something those San Francisco teams of the 1970s could never do.
Truth be told, Montana didn’t have a great game, throwing three interceptions in what was turning into a back-and-forth game.
Of course, it came down to that 3rd-and-3 play late in the fourth quarter where Montana hit wide receiver Dwight Clark on a play every 49ers fan knows: the sprint-right option.
That 6-yard touchdown, one which is replayed almost every postseason, gave the Niners a 28-27 lead, although Dallas nearly stole it away on its ensuing possession, only saved by a game-clinching tackle by cornerback Eric Wright.
No one talks about Wright’s play, and that’s probably a good thing.
Instead, they remember Clark, Montana and the greatest single NFL moment of all time.