1960 Dallas Cowboys FOF9 Dynasty

[Passacaglia]

So, I had some issues with the schedule and the game crashing for my last dynasty. I'm not sure if it's something I did, but I'm going to try again with a different schedule and hope things work out better. No guarantees, though.

Our new starting year: 1960. The first year of the American Football League, and the first year that it would even possibly make sense to have a Super Bowl. We'll of course have a common draft and free agency market for both leagues (since that's really the only way the game works).

It's also the first year in which Pete Rozelle acted as NFL Commissioner. Not really relevant to this dynasty, but I thought I'd throw it in for flavor.

What is relevant, however, is that it's also the first year for a new expansion to the NFL, the Dallas Cowboys. This meant that the number of pro football teams increased from 0 to 2, with the Dallas Texans in the AFL also.

A reminder of the AFL as it started in 1960, in the East we had the Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, New York Titans, and Houston Oilers, and in the West we had the Oakland Raiders, Los Angeles Chargers, and Dallas Texans. The Chargers and Texans will move a year from now to San Diego and Kansas City, and the Titans will become the Jets in a few years, but we're staying 1960 forever, so that stuff will not happen. The AFL's 8 teams play each other once home-and-home for a 14-game schedule.

The NFL has the Cleveland Browns, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, St. Louis Cardinals (recently moved from Chicago), and Washington Redskins in the East, and Baltimore Colts (for some reason), Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Rams, and San Francisco 49ers in the West. It was tempting to switch St. Louis and Baltimore, but I'm going to go with historical accuracy over geography here. To this mix, the Dallas Cowboys are added as a 13th team, in the West.

The NFL plays a 12-game schedule. Each of the 6 teams in each division (besides Dallas) plays a home-and-home against everyone else in their division for 10 games, an 11th game against a team in the other division, and a 12th game against Dallas. Dallas plays 12 games, 1 each against every other team in the NFL. That 11th game against a team in the other division could probably be used as a chance to powermatch the schedules a little, but in order to preserve the actual 1960 schedule, I'm not going to do that. So for example, in 1960, the Lions play the Eagles, and they'll play each other every year, regardless of standings. It's just easier.

The one change I made was switching Week 7 and Week 15, so that Detroit and Dallas will play on Week 7, which is Thanksgiving. I'm imagining a universe where there's just one game on Thanksgiving, Detroit vs. Dallas, and it switches location each year. It won't be relevant to the game at all, and since I'll be talking about the Dallas game more than any other game each week, it's really not going to feel any different. But I'm a Lions fan, and I still have turkey leftovers in my fridge, so I'm going to bring up Thanksgiving somehow. This switching of weeks caused the Giants to play the Redskins twice in a row, which is weird. But in the actual NFL in 1960, the Giants played the Eagles twice in a row, so it didn't appear to bother them much. So the Giants have a weird schedule where they play the Redskins twice in a row, and the Eagles twice in a row. Whatever.

I considered putting Dallas in the East so they could be with their traditional rivals -- it's weird that they don't even get the St. Louis Cardinals in a division with them. But, one of the reasons I choose Dallas 1960 is because their schedule makes them sort of divisionless anyway (I'm assuming they weren't expected to win the division in 1960, and it only seemed fair to let everyone get an equal chance of feasting on them) -- if anything, rivalries might develop with those Eastern teams because we meet them in the NFL Finals so much.

[Passacaglia]

The 1960 Dallas Cowboys were coached by former New York Giants defensive coordinator Tom Landry, who ended up staying on for 29 seasons. We're going to replicate and keep him as the head coach of the team for as long as the game will let him. No exceptions.



The most famous QB on the roster was Don Meredith, an SMU graduate, who actually signed with Tecon Corporation before the team existed, and is considered by some to be the original Dallas Cowboy. We'll keep him on as long as we can, but I'm going to allow for exceptions here because I can foresee a situation where it just may no be possible.



In 1960, the Cowboys started Eddie LeBaron instead of him. LeBaron is a solid QB in this universe, but Meredith is better. We rolled a bad Landry, but I'm super-relieved Meredith turned out this good.

[Passacaglia]

First look at the roster:



Wow that's a lot of holes to fill. The Cowboys were created only two months before the season started, so there wasn't time to do an expansion draft -- the Cowboys are the only expansion team that didn't get the benefit of one. It's tempting to just let the team blow chunks in 1960, and get through a free agency session before bring more targeted about which holes to fill through trades, but I'm not going to. We're going to be built to win now and always, and we make the following trades:



This ijmproves our roster greatly.



Probably the biggest deal here is a 1st and a 3rd for DE Nick Mumley. It's obviously a risk because if we make these trades and still end up bad, we've given up a huge pick for him. However, he looks like he's got potential to be a Top 10 player at any position in the league, so I think he'll be worth it no matter what.

This left me with just my 1st round pick in 1962 and the Titans 7th round pick in 1962. After taking these screenshots, I realized I only had one TE on roster, so I traded that 7th round pick to Houston for John White. This 1960 file does not have many TEs (I'm guessing most of them are categorized as "End" and the files puts them at WR), so I figure it's worth a 7th round for a nice backup, when there's just not many to go around.



The Oilers probably assumed a 38/38 TE is nothing to get worked up about, not realizing he's one of the only decent TEs around. Too bad for you, Houston and the rest of the leagues!

Also, after this, despite signing a long snapper, I realized I didn't have a Kicker or Punter. There's not many of those, either, and I didn't have much in terms of picks left to trade, and I'm not sure anyone would have given theirs up. Something to address next year, along with the other holes we still have.

[Passacaglia]

Preseason 1960

In the real AFL and NFL, preseason lasted like 6 weeks, which is insane, especially considering that the NFL only played 12 games. We got rid of that, and used the same idea from my last dynasty -- a 1-week preseason game where only the teams who had a potentially interesting matchup played. This is mostly AFL teams with a local rival against an NFL team (I'm including Detroit vs. Buffalo as cities that border Canada), plus the Bears and Cardinals which would have been a local rivalry the year before. I didn't include Redskins and Colts because they're already set up as an interdivisional game in Week 3.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Former Falcons GM Eddie LeBaron as the backup QB

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Former Falcons GM Eddie LeBaron as the backup QB

Nice! I'd been providing wikipedia links for players in my previous dynasty, but since that one ended prematurely, I'm wanting to get to actually playing faster this time, without too much invested. Pretty cool, though. It looks like the Cowboys traded their 1st and 6th round pick in 1961 for him, and still had to convince him to come out of retirement. They got screwed.

[Passacaglia]

The AFL gets things started for us -- they play two weeks before the NFL gets going:

[Passacaglia]

Game 1 -- Finally time for some real football! We had to wait three weeks after that warmup game against the Texans, which apparently we won 13-6, but here we are! First up, the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are coming off back-to-back winning seasons, going 7-4-1 in 1958 and 6-5-1 in 1959. That's the first time ever the Steelers had done that (unless you count 1942-1943, when they were actually the Steagles in 1943). They've had hall of fame QB Bobby Layne since they traded for him in 1958, and he's helped improve the team. In the real 1960 game, the Cowboys started out with a 14-0 lead, and still lead 28-21 in the 3rd quarter, before losing 35-28. In our universe....

Spoiler

It felt like the same thing was going to happen. We were up 10-0, and Meredith's pick-6 seemed like it would give the Steelers momentum, especially since on the next Steelers drive, they got to our 27 before two sacks (one by Dowdle and one by DT Ed Hausmann) pushed them back to the 40, where they punted right before halftime. Pittsburgh didn't do much on offense the next 1.5 quarters -- just one TD drive where we helped them with 20 yards of penalties, then Layne hit a 48 yard pass to WR Pete Brewster. They were down 17-13, but went for two (?) and missed it. Anyway, the Steelers had the ball at their 20 with 1:46 left, and got within striking distance at our 33 with 21 seconds left, when backup Safety Bill Butler got his 2nd interception of the day to end the game. Close win, but we are 1-0 to start our first year in the league!

[Passacaglia]

I still can't get over how bad that call to go for 2 was. You're down 17-13, kick the PAT and then a field goal ties it. And if we kick a field goal, which we did, if it were 20-14, that last drive could have meant a 21-20 win for them. And if the Steelers were successful in going for 2, I don't understand what being down only 17-15 does for you -- gets you a win if you kick a FG and it's 18-17 instead of 17-17? I don't think that's worth the risk of the other two negative outcomes.

[Passacaglia]

The rest of Week 3:

[Passacaglia]

On to the Eagles! They are 0-1 now, but they were the actual 1960 champions. In the actual 1960 game, the Eagles won 27-25, in a game that would have been 27-27 if the Cowboys didn't miss two PATs. Not a good sign, since we don't have any kind of decent Kicker. But, the good thing is we have the 2 point conversion -- maybe the Cowboys could have tied it up in this game if they had been able to go for two.

Spoiler

4th quarter comeback!! We do nothing on our first drive, and the Eagles march down the field to make it 7-0. But we march right back and it's 7 to.....6. PAT wide right. With 1:33 left, we punt the ball from our own 25, and it's blocked, recovered at the 1. Special teams doing us in again. But, the defense comes up with an amazing goal line stand, and the Eagles kick a field goal from the 1. 10-6 at halftime. In the 3rd quarter, the Eagles seem in control, but not able to put us away. They miss a 38 yard FG, and get stopped on 4th and 1 at our 33. Early in the 4th we take that 13-10 lead, and don't look back. The Eagles go 3 and out, and we score another TD to make it 20-10. A last second FG adds a little insult to injury (it was 4th down with 9 seconds left, so I can understand why it was done I guess), and we win 23-10.



Next up: Our first road game, against the 0-1 Redskins. They've yet to score points this year, losing their first game 33-0 to the Colts, but they've got a week of rest? In the real 1960 game, the Redskins won 26-14.

[Passacaglia]

Here we go!

Pretty much the worst start you could ask for. We start with the ball, drive down to get 1st and goal at the 6, and end up missing a 22 yard FG. The Redskins take over and score a TD, and we're down 7-0. Next play, our 3rd TE Cedric Kollman fumbles the ball. Three plays later, we're down 14-0. We score a TD in the 2nd quarter, but miss the extra point, so it's 14-6 at halftime. Still in it. We get a stop to start the 3rd quarter, and after getting stopped for three plays at the 1, Meredith runs it in on 4th down on a QB sneak. We make the 2 pt. conversion, and it's 14-14! A three and out for Washington, another TD for us, and suddenly we're up 21-14 with 11 minutes left! Each team gets a three and out, and with 9 minutes left, the Redskins take 8 minutes to drive 92 yards and tie the game at 21. We head to OT. Redskins start with the ball but punt. With 5 minutes left, we're at the 50, and Meredith throws a pass to Howard Clark for 18 yards -- but he fumbles! Jim Crotty picks it up for Washington and returns it 49 yards to our 19. Ugh. But! The Redskins decide to kick on 3rd and 8, I guess in case something goes wrong. Which it does -- Jerry Tubbs blocks the kick! We get the ball at our 30, then Meredith leads us down the field. We wait until 4th down to kick, a 33 yard FG, which we make to win it, 24-21!

Spoiler

[Passacaglia]

Time to have a look at the standings!



Looks like we're on top with the Colts, although the Lions aren't really far behind at 1-0-1. Giants and Browns on top in the East. We host the Browns next week.

Meredith looks amazing, 2nd place in the league in passer rating. And Joe Childress is just 3 yards behind Clem Daniels of that "other" Dallas team, although those guys have played five games to our three. I'm not sure if I can find a place where stats are separated by conference, but it would be nice, since we play less games. We're #3 in points scored per game and #2 in opponent rush yards per game, which is nice.

But the big thing, of course, is the wins and losses. At 3-0, it's hard not to think "did I really exploit something by trading for all these veterans" before going 5-7 or something. This is going to be a tough 3-game stretch -- Browns, Lions, then Colts. Oh, then the Packers right after that, who may be 1-2, but are the most talented team in the league.

[Passacaglia]

Time for Brown, Brown, and the Browns. Things we going okay for a while -- it was 10-10, and Meredith was something like 10/11 passing, when he threw a pick to Bernie Parrish, returned to our 25. Next play, Jim Brown makes it 17-10. We get to the Browns 19 at the two minute warning, when Meredith throws ANOTHER pick. Luckily, we get one back, backup S Carl Tassef intercepts Plum and we go into the half down 7. The 3rd quarter drags, but with a minute left in it, Jim Brown breaks a 48 yard run, and a TD pass a few minutes later means we're down 24-10 with 12:56 left in the game. We sloooowly drive down the field, and kick a 40 yard FG on 4th and 16 with 6:10 left. I guess I get it on 4th and 16, but we're down 14 with 6 minutes left, I don't think the FG does any good. The Browns go 3 and out, and we're in FG range, but Meredith throws another pick, returned 86 yards for a TD. 30-13, 2:52 left. We score a 38-yard TD pass on the last play of the game, and make the 2 point conversion, ending the game 30-21.

Spoiler

[Passacaglia]

I just started putting the boxscores in spoiler tags so those reading don't see results yet if they don't want to. I've noticed that the pictures are really big and can't be seen entirely, at least on my laptop -- would it help anyone reading this to have all the pictures in spoiler tags?

[Passacaglia]

We've got our first real injury -- we've had a couple where the player got better by the next game, or where the player involved wasn't worth mentioning. But now our other DE opposite Mumley, Nate Borden, has a strained hamstring. He's Doubtful, at 80%, and will get to full strength in 8 weeks. He's been splitting time with Gene Cronin, who comes in for rushing situations. We're going to put Cronin in against Base 2 WR packages, and leave Borden for Base 3 WR and Base 4/5 WR, to maximize his usefulness as a pass rusher.