Why aren't the Cowboys in the NFC south?

The Game Room
21

It’s not as deep as many of you are thinking. The answer is always the most obvious.

MONEY

Jerry Jones lobbied hard to stay in the East. The Cowboys not only have long standing rivalries with each team in the east, but there is more money to be made being involved in the New York, Washington and Philadelphia markets.

Dallas didn’t want to lose that. They have a lot of fans on the east coast, also. For the rest of the teams in that division, they all wanted Dallas to stay as well. It is simply the hardest ticket to get each year in Philadelphia, NY, and Washington. EVERYONE hates Dallas. It is easily the Eagles biggest rivalry game of the year… same with Washington. And unless someone can tell me otherwise, I am almost positive that the NY Giants fans hate Dallas more than the Eagles, Redskins, or any other team.

It was a smart thing for the NFL to keep them there. I hate the Cowboys, but I can’t get excited over a Cowboy-Ram rivalry game every year. I am personally glad they left them in the east.

As for the rest of the NFL, 4 of the divisions are no-brainers because of geography and long-standing rivalries. The best divisions are:

NFC North - Green Bay. Minnesota, Chicago and Detroit. - you just can’t break up the old black and blue division.

AFC West - Oakland, Kansas City, Denver, San Diego - great division filled with old AFL rivalries, even if it geographically it is not so good

NFC East - Washington, Phildadelphia, Dallas, NY - as mentioned above.

AFC North - Cleveland, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Pittsburgh. - Baltimore may be the only team that doesn’t “fit”, but that’s a matter of debate. But since they used to be the old Browns, leaving them in the division with the Steelers, Bengals, and new Browns absolutely makes sense. As a Steeler fan, I hated the Browns more than any other team. When the Browns became the Ravens, my hatred moved to Baltimore. Even with the new Browns, I still hate the Ravens the most, so I’m glad they are in the AFC North.

22

Distance between Detroit and the NFC North cities:

550 + 288 + 237 = 1075 miles.

Distance between St. Louis and the NFC North cities:

467 + 262 + 423 = 1152 miles.

I was incorrect about the distances between St. Louis and Dallas relative to the NFC West teams.

23

In the 2002 realignment, there were several proposals for the division. I remember that the Arizona owner favored a plan that kept them in the same division as Dallas, whom they claimed as a rival.

In the end they just voted, and the teams that had moved recently didn’t get a vote.

24

Given that football teams play just once a week, it really doesn’t matter. Geography is useful only insofar as it maintain traditional rivalries, and allowing rivalries and business needs to trump geography makes sense in a sport where you’re only playing once a week and so a little extra travel doesn’t make much difference.

25

I really dig those maps.

26

IIRC when the realignment/merger happened in 1970, they couldn’t completely agree on what the alignment should be. So they put five possible plans in a hat and picked one. You also had a lot of resistance among three NFL teams to go to the AFL/AFC. Steelers owner Art Rooney volunteered to convince Cleveland/Art Modell to join him.

Before expansion in 1960, the Washington Redskins were the NFL team of choice for southerners as they were the southernmost team. Redskin owner George Preston Marshall bitterly opposed giving a franchise to another southern team in Texas (he also opposed playing Blacks until the Kennedy administration came in and told him to integrate or else). When the NFL changed to a four division per conference set up, the rivalries were very well set. I wouldn’t be surprised if Giants owner Wellington Mara wanted them and he had a lot of input as an old time owner. I know here in New York, there are a lot of Cowboys fans, especially among baby boomers because the Cowboys were good and the Giants were in the Rocky Thompson era (the J-E-T-S sucked too). Plus even Cowboy haters like to look at the Cowboy cheerleaders’ butts.

There was an article in “Playboy” in the mid 1970s with convicted influence peddler Bobby Baker which he talked about some of the machinations in Congress between Redskins and Cowboy owners in 1960.

27

Also regarding Dallas, Lamar Hunt wanted to start an NFL expansion team in Dallas in the late 50s. When they rejected his proposal, he started the AFL and his team was the Dallas Texans. When the NFL expanded in Dallas later, he had to move his team to Kansas City - the Chiefs.

NFL History would be different if they had listened to him.

28

Petey-Dunno if he HAD to. Though I was -14 when it happened, so I’m unsure.

29

You’re right that he didn’t “have” to. It was just with the competition, Hunt probably thought it was better financially to move.

30

Another thing to consider is that as air travel has become more common the geographical distances between the cities became less important. It is much easier for teams to recover for an away game after a 4 hour flight then to recover after a three day bus ride. With those concerns deminished the rivalries become much more important to maintain. Add to that the recent scheduling change that has every team playing every other team at least once every 4 years and the rivalries gain even fmore precident over the cities being close to each other as they will travel to all the other cities eventually.