Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Redskins owner Dan Snyder despised each other so much that they vowed never to play the Washington team again. However, this past weekend’s Christmas Day game has revitalized their mutual respect for one another.
The “washington nfl team” is a football team located in Washington, D.C.. The Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Football Team have renewed pleasantries after a long period of animosity.
On Sunday, the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Football Team will face off for the first game in the 2021 season, and the stakes couldn’t be greater. The Cowboys (8-4) now lead the Washington Redskins (6-6) by two games in the NFC East, but things may change quickly with the teams playing twice in the next three weeks.
Whatever the stakes, it’s a typical situation for these two fierce enemies. And the regular-season stakes were never greater than they were 38 years ago this week, when Tom Landry’s Cowboys faced Joe Gibbs’ reigning Super Bowl champions for home-field advantage in the 1983 NFL playoffs.
On Dec. 11, 1983, Washington triumphed on a Sunday afternoon, with Pat Summerall and John Madden announcing the game on CBS. The 31-10 triumph at Texas Stadium, though, had far-reaching consequences that stretched well beyond the NFC rankings.
This was the game that prompted the NFL to rename themselves the No Fun League the following spring. And it was all owing to The Fun Bunch, the pinnacle of end zone celebrations.
Washington’s opponents were subjected to a new end zone celebration in the early 1980s.
Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images Washington Fun Bunch
Few teams in the early 1980s were as colorful as Washington’s. The Hogs were the nickname for the offensive line. The Smurfs were given to the small wide receiving corps. At running back, John Riggins was almost unstoppable. The celebration started, though, when quarterback Joe Theismann connected with a receiver for a score.
Wide receivers Art Monk, Charlie Brown, Virgil Seay, and Alvin Garrett, as well as tight ends Clint Didier and Rick Walker, came up with the “Fun Bunch” end zone celebration.
A half-dozen players first formed a circle in the end zone, then rocked their arms forth and back three times before jumping in unison and high-fiving at the peak before heading back to the sideline.
The Fun Bunch didn’t have the style points of Billy “White Shoes” Johnson’s end zone dances or the wild enthusiasm of Mark Gastineau of the New York Jets after a sack, but it was unique, and Washington Fun Bunched it all the way to a Super Bowl XVII triumph in 1982. As a result, their opponents despised it. And Dallas despised it.
The Cowboys didn’t think Washington’s shenanigans amusing… Neither did the National Football League.
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The Cowboys were not going to allow the Fun Bunch fly in their home after Art Monk blew open that crucial December 1983 game with a 42-yard touchdown.
Backs on defense As the Washington players prepared to group up, Ron Fellows and Dennis Thurman came into the circle. As a consequence of the uncomfortable jump, which was used to counter unwarranted roughing penalties, a near fight ensued.
That, it turned out, was all the league needed to know. The amusement had gotten out of hand and was becoming hazardous. The rule book was amended in March 1984 to include a prohibition on “excessive celebrations.” The Fun Bunch had come to an end.
Charlie Brown told the Washington Post, “I’ve never heard of something that absurd.” “Don’t they have more pressing matters to attend to than the Fun Bunch?”
As the Dallas dynasty fell in front of his eyes, Tom Landry had no joy at all.
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But no one realized at the time, even before the Fun Bunch Brawl after Monk’s score, that another of the game’s pillars was going to crumble.
Landry’s Cowboys had been a consistent Super Bowl contender for almost two decades. In the 1970s, they appeared in five Super Bowls, winning two of them. The Cowboys had gone to three consecutive NFC Championship Games in the previous three seasons, with Danny White replacing retiring great Roger Staubach, losing to Washington the year before.
With Dallas behind 14-10 early in the third quarter, the Cowboys set up for a 4th-and-1 from the 50 yard line. White was supposed to run out the play clock, accept the delay of game penalty, then punt, according to Landry. White, on the other hand, had a different plan. He audibled a hopeless running play and snapped it with one second left on the clock, despite Landry’s screams of “No, Danny! No!” captured by CBS’ cameras.
Dallas suffered a three-yard loss. A few minutes later, Monk scored. The dynasty in Dallas was virtually finished.
There’s no joy in Big D. It’s not at all enjoyable.
Pro Football Reference provided the statistics.
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