Why are the Dallas Cowboys in the Eastern Division?
I’m not really a football fan, so I don’t know that much about the history of how the divisions were formed.
Zev Steinhardt
I found this site:
http://www.football.com/history/index.shtml
Which doesn’t explain much but shows the histoy of the team movements. There seems to be an abundance of “centrally” located teams so some had to go east and some west. I think the Cowboys were very popular and had already established rivalries with Philly and Wash.
Or do you mean why are the Cowboys STILL in the NFC East following the recent shakeup along more geographical lines? Same answer: Tradition and rivalries
I think a better question is why were the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC West?
Exactly.
The Cowboys are in the East because the Redskins are in the east. I don’t think there’s any other proper explanation.
The biggest mistake the NFL made when expanding to 4 divisions was naming them East, West, South and North. If they had named them after HoF coaches and players, there wouldn’t be any confusion or the false sense of obligation in placing teams in geographical proximity.
In 1960, when the Cowboys were formed, they were put into the West division of the NFL.
The next year, the Minnesota Vikings were added as an expansion team. This led to a dilemma. Geographically, the Vikings belonged in the West – it was quite near to three of the six other teams in the division. Dallas, OTOH, wasn’t particularly near ANY other NFL club – St. Louis (in the East) was the closest geographically. So it made sense for the Vikings to stay in the West and move the other expansion team.
The logical alternative, of course, would have been to move the Baltimore Colts from the West Division to the East. However, division lineups are about rivalries, and it’s likely that the Colts didn’t want to change divisions and not have any rivalries to speak of. Since the Cowboys were new and didn’t have time to form rivalries (especially since they didn’t win a game the previous season), they were moved.
To answer the next question, the Colts were in the West Division because they replaced the Dallas Texans, who folded in 1952. They remained in the West of the NFL until the AFL merger, when they moved to the AFC East. One of the reasons they accepted the change was because they’d have a chance to play the NY Jets, whose Super Bowl victory in 1969 automatically created a rivalry.
I should clarify – the divisional changes were all set up so that both divisions had the same number of teams, which is generally preferred in all sports.
And the Cowboys remain in the East for the same reason the Colts stayed in the West in 1961: They had developed rivalries over the years (with Washington and NY in particular) and wanted to continue to play them twice.
The Cowboys actually spent their first season (0-11-1) in 1960 in the NFL’s 7 team Western Division with the Packers, 49ers, Lions, etc. The Eastern Division had 6 teams.
The Minnesota Vikings came along in 1961 and the divisions were evened out by putting the Vikings in the West with the Cowboys shifting to the East where they remain to this day.
Putting the Vikings in the West was natural, as it set up the traditional rivalry with the Packers. But the natural team to shift to the East on a geographical basis was the Balitimore Colts. Why wasn’t that done? I’m not sure, but perhaps the Colts didn’t want to lose the Western Conference rivalries they had, or didn’t want to compete with the Redskins inside the same conference (perhaps the same reason why the Bears and the one time Chicago Cardinals were not in the same division). I’m guessing Dallas volunteered to move and it ended up turning out very nicely for them.
Darn it…too slow…excellent post RealityChuck. 
I had a great response which the hamsters ate.
I was going to mention that the NFL for a brief period (1967-69) before the merger had four divisions called Century, Capital, Coastal, and Central. The Cowboys were in the Capital.
For the first year, the Capital had Dallas, Washington, Philadelphia, and the new New Orleans Saints. The next season, New Orleans and New York switched places.
When the merger went through in 1970 and the number of divisions were reduced, the Eastern divisions of both conferences were given an extra team and the NFC East got St. Louis and the newly reconstituted AFC East got Baltimore from the NFL. The merger put together a four-division NFL and a two-division AFL.
The Falcons started out in 1966 in the NFL East. But in 1967, the NFL expanded to 16 teams and changed things to add an extra playoff game: thus, four divisions.
The Central Division was purely geographical, made up of four West Division clubs. The East Division was split in two, preserving rivalries and adding the expansion New Orleans Saints to the Capital Division. That left four teams out: LA, SF, Baltimore, and Atlanta. LA and SF weren’t near anything else in the league, so it really didn’t matter where they put them. Baltimore was already in the West, so it was logical to keep their rivalry with the two other teams, and Atlanta, being the new kid on the block, got added and the Coastal Division was founded.
After the AFL merger, Atlanta kept its rivalries with LA and SF and was put in the West.
Remember also that travel in the NFL isn’t that big of an issue since there is only one game a week.
Of course, the Lords of Baseball did not seem to care that teams on the West Coast had to make three trips a year out to Cincinnati and Atlanta which were members of the NL West from 1969-1993.
And through 1993, the Atlanta Braves were in the National League West.
I’m still bitter.
That’s because Chicago and St. Louis had more influence. They didn’t want to take as many west coast trips.
Fay Vincent tried to swap Chicago/St. Louis for Cincinnati/Atlanta and was stopped by the owners. And shortly after, he was fired.
I think it was more a case that St. Louis had more influence coming off of 2 straight NL pennants. And where the Cardinals went, so did the Cubs.
Ironically, it was the Mets who really wanted to have the Cardinals in their divsion because they felt they needed to have a team that was a guaranteed draw visit more often. They didn’t think the Reds or Braves would draw big crowds.
And of course, as soon as the divisions were created, the Mets won the East and the Braves won the West and in 1970 the Reds started their domination of the NL West.
Before the latest expansion/reshuffle, 4 of the 5 teams in the NFC West were St. Louis, New Orleans, Atlanta, and Carolina. A better question would have been “What’s San Francisco doing in the NFC West?”
I’ve heard stories about Tex Schramm pulling strings to be in the same division as New York so he’d get a better cut of the local TV revenue. FWIW.
[QUOTE=BobT]
I think it was more a case that St. Louis had more influence coming off of 2 straight NL pennants. And where the Cardinals went, so did the Cubs.
Ironically, it was the Mets who really wanted to have the Cardinals in their divsion because they felt they needed to have a team that was a guaranteed draw visit more often. They didn’t think the Reds or Braves would draw big crowds.
QUOTE]The original NL divisions were set primarily due to their standings the year before. Of the top four clubs, 1 and 3 went to the East, while 2 and 4 went to the West. In the next four, the divisions were reversed: 5 and 7 went to the West while 6 and 8 went to the east. That left NY and Houston.
The Mets didn’t like losing the dates with SF and LA – both big draws in NYC, for obvious reasons. So they lobbied for St. L to be in the East, since they were the best team in the league and presumably a draw. The team depended on exciting teams coming to visit, since it was assumed that the Mets themselves weren’t going to be winning anything in 1969. 
15 posts and no one has mentioned that the Colts have clinched the AFC South title?
Eagles fans are equally (along with Giants & Redskins fans) enamoured of the 2 annual Dallas games, even though there haven’t been many years when one team didn’t dominate the other. It’s more of a social event than a good sports series; we just plain old hate the Cowboys.
In my NFL watching experience, I don’t remember the Giants and Cowboys ever both doing well. However, there have been plenty of seasons where both have sucked. This weekend, for example, could go either way, but who really cares?
Me. Go Big Blue!!!
Except that there is no local TV revenue in football.