Super Bowl VI - Game Summary

Game Summary

According to Roger Staubach, the Cowboys' game plan was to neutralize the Dolphins' key offensive and defensive players—Paul Warfield and Nick Buoniconti. Warfield was double-teamed by Green and Renfro. "They pretty much shut him down," wrote Staubach. Since the running game was the key to the Cowboys' offense, they wanted to take the quick-reacting Buoniconti out of each play. Two linemen, usually Niland and center Dave Manders, were assigned to block Buoniconti. Combined with counterplays and the excellent cutback running of Thomas, this tactic proved very successful.

Miami's defense was designed to stop Staubach's scrambling. According to Staubach, although his scrambing was shut down this did not work to the Dolphins' benefit because it opened things up for the other backs.

Miami won the coin toss and elected to receive. Neither team could mount a drive on its first possession. On the first play of the Dolphins' second possession, Csonka, on his first carry of the game, gained 12 yards on a sweep. That would be his longest gain of the day. On the next play, Csonka fumbled a handoff from Griese–his first fumble of the season–and it was recovered by linebacker Chuck Howley at the Cowboys 48-yard line. Twelve plays later, Dallas kicker Mike Clark kicked a 9-yard field goal to give the Cowboys a 3–0 lead.

On the third play of the Dolphins' next possession at their own 38-yard line, Griese was sacked by Lilly for a Super Bowl record 29-yard loss (A picture of Griese being chased by Larry Cole, Bob Lilly and Jethro Pugh is the game's most famous photograph). Early in the second quarter, Miami drove to the Cowboys 42-yard line with the aid of a 20-yard reception by receiver Howard Twilley, but the drive stalled and ended with no points after kicker Garo Yepremian missed a 49-yard field goal attempt.

Later in the period, Dallas drove 76 yards in nine plays, including a 21-yard reception by Alworth and Calvin Hill's three carries for 25 yards, and then scored on a 7-yard touchdown pass from Staubach to Alworth to increase their lead, 10–0. Miami started the ensuing drive with just 1:15 left in the half, and quarterback Bob Griese completed three consecutive passes, two to receiver Paul Warfield and one to running back Jim Kiick, for 44 total yards to reach the Dallas 24-yard line. On the next play Griese threw to Warfield, who was open at the 2-yard line, but the ball was deflected by Green and bounced off Warfield's chest. Miami had to settle for Yepremian's 31-yard field goal to cut the Dolphins deficit to 10–3 going into halftime.

But Dallas dominated the second half, preventing any chance of a Miami comeback. Dallas reasoned that Miami would make adjustments to stop the Cowboys' inside running game which had been so successful in the first half. So the Cowboys decided to run outside. The Cowboys opened the third period with a 71-yard, 8-play drive, which included four runs by Thomas for 37 yards, a reverse by Hayes for 16 yards, and only one pass, scoring on Thomas' 3-yard sweep to make the score 17–3. This seemed to fire up the Dallas defense, who managed to prevent Miami from getting a single first down in the entire third quarter. The farthest advance Miami had in the third quarter was to its own 42-yard line as Griese and the offense were, said Shula, "destroyed." Miami did manage to advance to midfield early in the final period, but Howley ended the drive by intercepting a pass from Griese intended for Kiick in the flat. After returning the ball 41 yards, Howley tripped and fell at the Dolphins 9-yard line with nobody near him. But three plays later, Staubach threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to tight end Mike Ditka, increasing the Dallas lead to 24–3 with twelve minutes left in the game.

Miami began their next possession at their own 23-yard line and mounted only their third sustained drive of the game, reaching the Dallas 16-yard line in six plays. However, Griese fumbled the snap and the ball was recovered by Cowboys left end Larry Cole at the 20-yard line. The Cowboys then mounted an eleven-play drive to the Miami 1-yard line which featured just one pass and a fake field goal attempt on fourth-and-one at the Miami 20-yard line. However, on first-and-goal at the 1-yard line, Hill fumbled while attempting to dive across the goal line, and the ball was recovered at the 4-yard line by Dolphins defensive tackle Manny Fernandez with just under two minutes left. Miami then ran four meaningless plays to end the game.

Wrote Staubach, "I can say that I don't think I ever felt any better as an athlete than how I felt after that game..." Nick Buoniconti wrote, "I was knocked senseless...The Cowboys seemed to be moving so much faster than we were....We were overmatched psychologically as well as physically." Jim Kiick said, "Dallas wasn't that much better, but football is momentum. We lost it in the first quarter when we fumbled and they scored, and we never got it back." Said the Dolphins' Howard Twilley:

It's so hard to figure. We went in confident. We really thought we'd win and win handily. Something happened, though, during the week. I guess it was that week. The week has its own momentum, like nothing we'd been in before... said we'd been embarrassed. He said we didn't even compete....That's the sickest feeling I've ever had.

Said Cornell Green, "The difference between the Dolphins and Cowboys was that the Dolphins were just happy to be in the game and the Cowboys came to win the game.".

Griese completed the same amount of passes as Staubach (12), and threw for 15 more yards (134), but threw no touchdown passes and was intercepted once. Csonka and Kiick, were held to just 80 combined rushing yards (40 yards each), no touchdowns, and lost 1 fumble on 19 carries. Warfield was limited to just 4 receptions for 39 yards. Thomas was the top rusher of the game with 19 carries for 95 yards and a touchdown. He also caught 3 passes for 17 yards. Dallas running back Walt Garrison added 74 rushing yards and caught 2 passes for 11 yards.

The Dallas Cowboys became the first team to win the Super Bowl after losing it the previous year. The Miami Dolphins would do the same thing the next year.