The year was 1976, the place the Orange Bowl in Miami Florida, the event Super Bowl 10 and the participants were the NFC Champions the Dallas Cowboys and the AFC Champions the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Cowboys reached the Super Bowl by beating Minnesota 17-14 in the Divisional Round and routing the Los Angeles Rams 37-7 in the NFC Championship. The Steelers took their root through Baltimore by beating the Colts 28-10 in the Divisional Round and beating the Oakland Raiders at home 16-10 in the AFC Championship. The Cowboys opened the game with a little trickery with a reverse that gave them the ball on the Steelers side of the field. However, Dallas failed to take advantage, went four, and out. The Cowboys took advantage of a block punt and scored the games first points. Now in the pasted, nine other Super Bowl games the team that scored first went onto win. Dallas's scoring was the result of two touchdown passes by Staubach, one to Drew Pearson for 29 yards and the other to Percy Howard for 34 yards. Toni Fritsch had a 36-yard field goal. The Steelers scored on two touchdown passes by Bradshaw, one to Randy Grossman for seven yards and the long bomb to Swann. Roy Gerela had 36- and 18-yard field goals. Reggie Harrison blocked a punt through the end zone for a safety. In the fourth quarter, Pittsburgh ran on fourth down and gave up the ball on the Cowboys' 39 with 1:22 to play. Roger Staubach ran and passed for two first downs but Glen Edwards picked off his last desperation pass. Swann set a Super Bowl record by gaining 161 yards on his four receptions and was named the Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl Ten. Here are some very interesting twib notes for you. During the regular season, the Cowboys defense limited opponents to just 168.8 yards per game and held the Los Angeles Rams to just 118 yards in the Championship game. In the Super Bowl, the Steelers racked up 339 yards of total offense. CBS Sports with Pat Summerall provided the television coverage doing the play by play and Tom Brookshier doing the commentary. The announcing was so one sided for Dallas I had to wonder how much were they paid to make Dallas sound so good. The confidence that both coaches showed in there quarterbacks was the difference between night and day. Tom Landry the Cowboys head coach showed no confidence in his quarterback Roger Staubach because he called all the offensive plays. However, for Pittsburgh Head Coach Chuck Knoll didn't call any offensive plays as he lets his Quarterback terry Bradshaw do it and maybe that was the difference in the game. The Steelers defense was just awesome as they held Dallas in thirds to just three for 14 which was only 21%. Staubach also spent most of the day running for his life as he was tackled attempting to pass 7 times and the Cowboys committed 3 turnovers. Over all it was a great game and I give this 10 weasel stars.
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