Cowboys' Road Warriors on the Brink of Franchise History

If the Cowboys are to beat the Eagles Sunday and keep their hopes alive for the NFC East championship, they’ll have to go where only two teams in the franchise’s 55-year history have gone:

7-0 on the road.

Despite being the NFL’s only undefeated road team at 6-0, the Cowboys are 3.5-point underdogs in Philadelphia. The only two teams to make it to 7-0 on the road: 1968 and 2007. A Dallas team has never gone 8-0 away from home.

In ’68 it was the Cowboys of Tom Landry and Don Meredith and Bob Hayes who – in a 14-game season – went a perfect 7-0 on the road before losing to Cleveland and a running back named Jim Brown in the Eastern Conference Championship Game. In ’07, of course, Wade Phillips’ team led by Tony Romo and Terrell Owens was 7-0 on the road before resting its front-line players in a meaningless, regular-season finale loss in Washington.

While the current 6-0 road mark isn’t an ultimate achievement, it is a pretty snazzy precursor. The Cowboys went 6-2 on the road during their Super Bowl seasons of ’92, ’93 and ’95, and 6-1 in ’77 and 5-2 in ’71.

Of the Cowboys’ eight teams to win at least six road games, all made the playoffs and six advanced to at least the conference championship game. Only road-warriors-turned-underachievers were in ’07 (when they were upset by the Giants in the divisional round at Texas Stadium) and ’83 (when the infamous “No, Danny! No!! decision by quarterback Danny White triggered three consecutive losses to end the season with a Wild Card upset defeat to the Rams).

A native Texan who was born in Duncanville and graduated from UT-Arlington, Richie Whitt has been a mainstay in the Metroplex media since 1986. He’s held prominent roles on all media platforms including newspaper (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dallas Observer), radio (105.3 The Fan) and TV (co-host on TXA 21 and numerous guest appearances, including NBC 5). He currently lives in McKinney with his wife, Sybil, and two very spoiled dogs.

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