Raiders Meet the Cowboys for 13th Time

The storied history of the Dallas Cowboys and the Las Vegas Raiders is limited but memorable.

The Las Vegas Raiders are at crossroads in their season as they travel to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, to play the Dallas Cowboys in a Thanksgiving Day game.

The Raiders (5-5) will be trying to break a three-game losing streak after starting 3-0 and looking promising at 5-2, while the Cowboys are 7-3 after losing to the Kansas City Chiefs last Sunday, 19-9.

In fact, both teams have lost to the Chiefs in the last two weeks, the Raiders by 41-14 two games ago.

The Raiders and Cowboys have played only 12 times through the years and the all-time series is tied, 6-6, with Dallas winning the last three games, including a 20-17 victory the last time they met in 2017 at the Oakland Coliseum.

Dan Bailey kicked a 19-yard field goal with 2:44 left in that game to give Dallas the victory and the same two quarterbacks will be on opposite sides this time.

Derek Carr of the Raiders completed 21-of-38 passes for 171 yards without an interception and threw two touchdown passes, both for two yards to wide receiver Michael Crabtree, while Dak Prescott of the Cowboys hit on 18-of-27 passes for 212 touchdowns without a touchdown and threw two interceptions.

The Cowboys also beat the Raiders, 31-24, in 2013 at AT&T Stadium as running back Demarco Murray ran for three touchdowns, and downed the Silver and Black, 24-7, at Cowboys Stadium in 2009 behind two touchdown passes by quarterback Tony Romo, who threw for 309 yards without an interception.

Before that, the Raiders had beaten the Cowboys three straight times—13-12 at Texas Stadium in 1998 on a 75-yard touchdown pass play from Jeff George to wide receiver James Jett, 28-21at the Oakland Coliseum in 2001 behind two touchdowns runs by running back Tyrone Wheatley, and 19-13 in 2005, when Sebastian Janikowski kicked two of his four field goals from 43 and 49 yards in the fourth quarter.

The Raiders and Cowboys were both NFL powers during the 1970s, but the only time they met in that decade came when Oakland beat Dallas, 27-23, in a classic game late in the 1974 season at the Coliseum.

Kenny “Snake” Stabler passed for 131 yards and touchdowns to wide receiver Fred Biletnikoff and running back Charlie Smith, while 47-year-old quarterback-kicker George Blanda hit wide receiver Cliff Branch for a 28-yard scoring pass on his only completion of the game and kicked field goals of 31 and 34 yards to give the Raiders the victory.

The Raiders limited Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach of the Cowboys to completing 17-of-39 passes for 266 yards without a touchdown and sacked him twice.

The Cowboys and Raiders have never played in the post-season and if it happened it would have been in the Super Bowl since the Silver and Black are in the American Football Conference and the Cowboys are in the National Football Conference.

NFL fans were hoping to see Stabler and Staubach go head-to-head in the Super Bowl during the ’70s, and the closest it came to happening came when the Cowboys won the 1977 NFC Championship Game and the Raiders, who won Super Bowl XI over the Minnesota Vikings in the previous season, were playing the Denver Broncos at Mile High Stadium in the AFC title game.

In the third quarter, Denver running back Rob Lytle fumbled on a first-down carry from the Raiders’ two-yard line and Oakland defensive tackle Mike McCoy recovered and was running down the field for an apparent touchdown.

However, line judge Ed Marion incorrectly ruled the play was dead before Lytle lost the ball, which was backed up by replay, but there were no appeals in those days. Running back Jon Keyworth scored on a one-yard run one play later and the Broncos won, 20-17, despite two touchdown passes by Stabler to tight end Dave Casper in the fourth quarter.

The Cowboys dominated the Broncos, 27-10, in Super Bowl XII at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans and Raider Nation, and many other NFL fans, wondered what might have happened had Stabler and the Raiders met Staubach and the Cowboys in that game.

Hopefully, Carr and Prescott can put on a holiday show.

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