Inaugural Dallas Thanksgiving Game vs. Browns in 1966.

Detroit has had the honor of hosting the NFL’s annual Thanksgiving Day game since 1934, but in 1966, the league added a second Turkey Day game, awarding the honor to the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys played the Cleveland Browns in their inaugural game that year, and the game was pivotal in the young franchise’s development. The Cowboys entered the game with a 7-2-1 record while the Browns, who were 7-3, had played in the 2 previous NFL Championship games and were a powerhouse at the time. Tom Landry’s club won the game, 26-14, and would go on to have an astounding 20 straight winning seasons. The NFL’s move to put an annual game in Dallas was a good decision by commissioner Pete Rozelle, as the team, since that first game in ’66, has been a marquee franchise ever since. My daughter, who is now in her 30s, has fond childhood memories of family get togethers – she recalls them being Sunday afternoons – where the family was gathered around the televison and the Cowboys were always playing a late afternoon game. She distinctly remembers Landry, with his trademark fedora hat and stoic look, standing on the sidelines, with the large silver stars lining the walls of the old Texas Stadium behind him. I think she may actually be remembering Thanksgiving Day celebrations rather than Sundays, since the Cowboys have been Turkey Day fixtures her whole life.

The most memorable Dallas Thanksgiving game has to be the “Clint Longley” game, played on November 28, 1974. It was a matchup of the Cowboys and their most bitter division rivals, coach George Allen’s Washington Redskins. These 2 teams regularly battled it out for NFC supremacy in the 1970s, and this year was no exception. Allen’s “Over The Hill Gang”, a collection of veterans and old misfits that the coach fielded due to his disdain for playing rookies, were challenging Landry’s always strong team for first place in the NFC East. The ‘Skins were dominating this game, and when veteran linebacker Dave Robinson hammered the Cowboys’ star QB, Roger Staubach, with a tackle so vicious that it knocked Staubach out of the game, it looked hopeless for the home town team. Staubach’s replacement was 22-year old unproven rookie Clint Longley, who had not played in a game up to that point. Longley had earned the nickname “The Mad Bomber” from his teammates for his habit of throwing errant passes and hitting Landry’s coaching tower in practice. He came into the game with his team trailing, 16-3, and wound up throwing 2 touchdown passes, including the game-winner to Drew Pearson, to lead the Cowboys to an improbable 24-23 win. Longley had no expectation of ever playing in the game and entered it totally unprepared, and afterward lineman Blaine Nye, his teammate, sarcastically called the win “a triumph of the uncluttered mind.” The game turned out to be Longley’s 15 minutes of fame, as less than 2 years later, he sucker punched Staubach from behind in the locker room during training camp, leaving Staubach requiring several stitches to repair his face. The team immediately traded Longley to San Diego, where his career faded. It was reported recently on the NFL Network that Longley wound up selling carpeting out of his car back in Texas.

                                                            Clint Longley in 1974.

                                Green Bay’s Bart Starr is swallowed up by a swarming Lions’ defense.

On Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 1962, the NFL staged its’ annual traditional game between the host Detroit Lions and the visiting Green Bay Packers, and the game was one of the most memorable ever played on the holiday. A year later, this particular date would forever become etched in history by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, but in 1962 the Lions played one of the most inspired games in franchise history on the date – a game that lives on today in Lions’ team history as the “Turkey Day Massacre”. The Packers were the powerhouse team in the league at that time, having won the championship under coach Vince Lombardi in 1961. They entered the annual holiday game with a perfect 10-0 record, and had beaten the Lions 9-7 in Green Bay earlier in the season on a last-second field goal. That game had stuck in the Lions’ collective craw leading up to the Thanksgiving rematch, and the team was not the mediocrity they are in today’s NFL – they were 8-2 and second to the Packers in the Western Division at the time. Detroit’s defense, led by Roger Brown, Alex Karras and Joe Schmidt, played its’ best game of the season that day, harrassing and swarming Packer QB Bart Starr all game long, and sacking him 11 times for over 100 yards in losses. Brown, a 300 lb. defensive lineman, had 5 of the sacks himself, including one where he tackled Starr in the end zone for a safety. The Lions won 26-14, and although they won the battle that day, Green Bay won the war, as this turned out to be their only loss of the season. The Packers finished 13-1 and won their second consecutive NFL title, on their way to 5 championships in a 7 year period, a feat that earned the small Wisconsin town the nickname of “Titletown, USA”.

Lombardi didn’t easily forget this game, however. At the time, the annual holiday game was not only hosted by Detroit, but the annual opponent, from 1951 until 1963, was always the rival Packers. Lombardi lobbied the league complaining about having to travel to a road game on a short week every year, and how much of a disadvantage it was to his club, and eventually commissioner Pete Rozelle relented and the league began rotating the opponent for the Lions each year.  In 1966, the league added a second traditional Thanksgiving game in Dallas. Tomorrow, we’ll highlight a memorable game from the annual Dallas Thanksgiving series.