It is Day 65 of our 100-day countdown to kickoff. We are looking back at the 100 most iconic games in Dallas Cowboys history. The countdown will leads us right up to the opening game of 2026. Our look back doesn’t depend on just one criteria for our rankings. We take into consideration things like how big the game was for the organization, how memorable the game was, games that had unusual events take place, games that are a part of NFL lore, Cowboys firsts, and games where the Cowboys just plain
dominated. Variety is the spice of life and we have all different kind of Cowboys games to review. At the bottom, we’ll link each day of the countdown so you can go back and check out any you missed.
We’re now at Day 65 of our 100-day countdown to kickoff, when we revisit one of the true turning-point wins in modern Cowboys history. Dallas went to RFK Stadium in Week 13 of the 1991 season as a 6-5 team still trying to prove that Jimmy Johnson’s rebuild had real teeth. Washington was 11-0, unbeaten, powerful, and on its way to contending for Super Bowl XXVI.
Sunday, November 24, 1991 — 1:00 p.m. ET
RFK Stadium, Washington, D.C.
Final Score: Dallas Cowboys 24, Washington 21
Washington landed the first blow when Martin Mayhew intercepted Troy Aikman and returned it 31 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter. In RFK, against an undefeated rival, that could have been the start of a long afternoon. Instead, Dallas answered with the kind of fearless football that became the signature of Johnson’s teams. Emmitt Smith tied it in the second quarter on a 32-yard touchdown run, a gutsy third-and-15 draw call that remains one of the defining plays of the game.
The Cowboys then stole the lead right before halftime. Aikman hit Alvin Harper for a 34-yard touchdown with only seconds left in the second quarter, giving Dallas a 14-7 lead. It was a huge swing, not just because of the score, but because it showed the Cowboys were willing to attack rather than simply survive. They had gone into Washington’s building and made the unbeaten team chase them.
The second half brought adversity. Aikman suffered a regular-season-ending knee injury early in the third quarter, forcing Steve Beuerlein into the game. But instead of collapsing, Dallas kept coming. Early in the fourth quarter, Beuerlein found Michael Irvin for a 23-yard touchdown, stretching the Cowboys’ lead to 21-7 and giving Irvin one of the first true “Playmaker” performances of his career.
Washington, of course, did not disappear. Gerald Riggs scored from the one-yard line to cut the lead to 21-14, and after Ken Willis answered with a 42-yard field goal, Mark Rypien hit Ricky Sanders for a 29-yard touchdown in the final minute to make it 24-21. But Dallas recovered the onside kick and finished off one of the biggest regular-season upsets in franchise history.
This game belongs on the countdown because it foreshadowed everything that was coming. The Cowboys were not yet champions, but they walked into the home of the eventual Super Bowl champions, beat an 11-0 team, survived an injury to Aikman, and looked like a young roster discovering its identity in real time. Dallas would win out from there, finish 11-5, reach the playoffs for the first time since 1985, and win a postseason game for the first time since the 1982 season.
Interesting Facts About the Game
The Cowboys’ official site later framed this game as the moment Dallas began “the road back to being the Dallas Cowboys.”
Countdown To Kickoff by day:
100, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 91, 90, 89, 88, 87, 86, 85, 84, 83, 82, 81, 80, 79, 78, 77, 76, 75, 74, 73, 72, 71, 70, 69, 68, 67, 66
