On Jan. 23, 1994, the Cowboys didn’t just beat the 49ers in the NFC Championship Game. They backed up a season of swagger with a performance that made their place in the league feel even bigger.
Dallas rolled into Texas Stadium with plenty of confidence, and for good reason. The Cowboys had already beaten San Francisco twice over the previous 12 months, including a 26-17 regular-season win, and Jimmy Johnson had publicly guaranteed another victory in the days before kickoff. The 49ers came in after hammering the Giants in the Divisional Round, but the defending champs wasted no time showing who was running the NFC.
The opening drive set the tone. Dallas marched 75 yards in 11 plays, with Emmitt Smith punching in a five-yard touchdown to put the Cowboys ahead 7-0. San Francisco answered early in the second quarter when Steve Young hit Tom Rathman for a seven-yard score, but that was as close as the 49ers would get for a long stretch.
From there, Dallas started squeezing the game shut. Daryl Johnston powered in from four yards out to reclaim the lead, then the defense delivered the kind of swing play championship teams live for.
John Taylor tipped a Young pass into the hands of Thomas Everett, who returned it deep into 49ers territory. Troy Aikman made the turnover hurt immediately, finding Smith for an 11-yard touchdown that pushed the lead to 21-7.
The Cowboys weren’t done. Aikman capped a 72-yard drive with a 19-yard touchdown to Jay Novacek, sending Dallas into halftime with a 28-7 cushion. By then, the Cowboys had scored on four of their first five possessions, piled up 273 total yards, and racked up 19 first downs in a first half that left little doubt about control.
The one real jolt came early in the third quarter, when Aikman took a severe concussion after Dennis Brown’s knee struck his helmet. He left the game and was later taken to hospital. Aikman finished 14-of-18 for 177 yards and two touchdowns, and years later said he still had no memory of playing in the game.
San Francisco tried to make things interesting when Ricky Watters scored from four yards out to cut it to 28-14, but backup quarterback Bernie Kosar answered with the kind of drive Dallas needed. He led an 82-yard march and hit Alvin Harper for a 42-yard touchdown, restoring the three-score cushion and shutting down any realistic comeback talk.
Eddie Murray added a 50-yard field goal in the fourth quarter to make it 38-14, and Young scored on a one-yard run with 4:06 left, but the outcome was already settled. Dallas had beaten its biggest conference rival for the second straight postseason, this time in the NFC title game.
Kosar’s relief work mattered, too. He finished with a 123.8 passer rating, completing five of nine passes for 83 yards and the key touchdown to Harper.
That’s why this game lands so high in the countdown. It showed the Cowboys’ first championship wasn’t a fluke, and it did it against one of the league’s most talented teams. Even losing Aikman couldn’t stop a roster deep enough to finish the job.
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