'76 Cowboys: The Strangest Camp Story Ever Told

Before we begin, I would love to remind you of our August Training Camp special subscription offer to new annuals. This month, our best price of the year is available where you can lock in a year of Sturmstack for $5.33 a month ($64 annually). It ends when August ends so don’t delay.

I admittedly have a habit of falling down rabbit holes and this is no different. Please indulge me on this Friday as I wish to share it with you.

I have a social media project on the side that I enjoy, even if I wander away from it during the offseason. It is a twitter account called “Cowboys Rewind” or https://x.com/CowboysRewind for those who want to go see it and even follow it. It basically is my 50-year time machine where I go search events that happened to the Dallas Cowboys 50 years ago. So, last season, we even created some content on the 1975 Dallas Cowboys season and their run through the Hail Mary Game all the way to two separate pieces on Super Bowl 10 - both a preview piece here and a Morning After piece here. It was a lot of fun.

Well, as you might suspect, I am back for the 1976 Cowboys because I think that taking this journey all the way through Super Bowl 12 vs Denver and Super Bowl 13 vs Pittsburgh sounds like a lot of fun. But, getting from 1975 to January of 1979 sounds like a several year project that will take us to January of 2029. Sounds like me, right?

If you want to see all of my Cowboys History projects, I put them all in one place here.

But, here is a new one I have never spent much time on and it just so happens to have been 50 years ago this week.

This one is one of the most unique stories in NFL history. We all know teammates fight. We all know that these are ultra competitive men in their 20s fighting over the same jobs and money in the National Football League. There will be issues, disagreements, rivalries, and pushing and shoving.

But, two actual fights between the starting QB and the backup QB at a Training Camp? That result in one losing his job? I had to learn the details in that way I do.

Now, I want you to know going in, the timeline I want to take you down is from my searches down the various newspaper archives and YouTube. We have a lot of historical records from that training camp, but the longer we go, the more this will be lost to history. But, I knew when I started trying to figure out exactly what happened that I would keep wandering deeper and deeper down and put more of the history together.

Roger Staubach needs no introduction. He could have run for President – in fact, many of us think that would have been a massive improvement – and he definitely does not need people to vouch for his credibility. He was a man of Faith, a Vietnam veteran, and an upstanding citizen who once publicly vouched for faithfulness to your wife as a superior alternative to the playboy lifestyle of Joe Namath.

He also won a Heisman Trophy, won Super Bowls, and might be the most unassailable sports hero this area will ever know (our apologies to Nolan Ryan and Dirk Nowitzki in this matter).

He requires no introduction to even toddlers – of which few subscribe to this newsletter.

Longley was the Cowboys backup QB in 1974 and 1975. He had a moment of absolute greatness on Thanksgiving of 1974 when the rookie backup from Abilene Christian saved the day and was the hero against the Washington Redskins after Roger Staubach was knocked out. He was the “Mad Bomber” for his 50-yard TD to Drew Pearson and authored one of the most famous moments in Cowboys history. It was truly a Happy Thanksgiving and the kind of moment that one might live off of for years as Staubach’s capable backup.

In 1975, Longley was very lightly used – which is always a good thing that your starter doesn’t need assistance – but the Cowboys won the NFC and he was just entering his age-24 season. Now we get to the 1976 portion of his career where he ends up in San Diego and that would be the end of his stay in the NFL altogether.

How did things end so quickly?