Finally back in the win column, the Denver Broncos (4-4) travel to Texas to face the NFC East-leading Dallas Cowboys (6-1) in Week 9.
The Broncos are coming off a 17-10 victory on Halloween over the Washington Football Team. That win snapped a three-game losing streak, but because of how sloppy the team played in that win, it didn’t instill a ton of confidence within the fanbase in regards to the rest of the season.
Now, the Broncos face what will be one of the toughest remaining games on their schedule when they go on the road to battle a Cowboys team with Super Bowl aspirations. The Cowboys showed the league that they are for real when they went on the road last Sunday to beat the Minnesota Vikings without Dak Prescott.
Prescott is expected to be back in the lineup for this game, which only makes the Broncos’ chances of victory even slimmer.
This will also be the Broncos’ first game since the huge trade of Von Miller.
It’s always fun to look back across the series history between teams, particularly when they are from opposite conferences and play just once every four years. An interesting fact within this series, which the Broncos lead 8-5 all-time, is the fact that the Cowboys have not beaten the Broncos since they had the triplets on the roster.
That would be Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin. Yes, it has been that long.
The Cowboys haven’t beat the Broncos since their last Super Bowl season
September 10, 1995, would be the exact date of that game, a game that was played at Texas Stadium. Aikman threw two touchdown passes in the game while Smith rushed for 114 yards and a score and Irvin caught six passes for 94 yards.
For the Broncos, John Elway completed just 11 passes in the game and though the Broncos kept it close until the fourth quarter, the Cowboys pulled away for a 31-21 victory.
The Cowboys would go on to win Super Bowl XXX later that year.
Since then, the Broncos have beaten the Cowboys five straight times, including some memorable wins such as an overtime victory on Thanksgiving in 2005, a 51-48 victory in a shootout in 2013 that included Peyton Manning rushing for a touchdown and in the most recent game between the teams back in September 2017, the Broncos blew the Cowboys out to the tune of 42-17.
The Cowboys are playing much better football than the Broncos at this stage of the season and it would be a pretty big upset if the Broncos were able to beat them on the road this week.
The Cowboys haven’t beaten Denver in 26 years, but that could change this Sunday.