Dallas Cowboys Trivia
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60 free Dallas Cowboys trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
51 free Dallas Cowboys trivia questions with answers. Dallas Cowboys trivia for the fans who bleed silver and blue and the rivals who love to hate them. This quiz covers the whole franchise story: the 1960 expansion fight and the fight song that swung the vote, the Landry years and the Doomsday Defense, Roger Staubach's Hail Mary, the Herschel Walker trade that built a dynasty, the Triplets and three titles in four years, and the Jerry Jones era through Dak Prescott and Micah Parsons. It also covers the stuff every fan should know cold: why there is a hole in the roof at Texas Stadium, how the Thanksgiving tradition started, who was the first name in the Ring of Honor, which numbers are unofficially retired, and the only Super Bowl MVP from a losing team. Questions run from easy to expert and every one is labelled by difficulty. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the primary sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which NFL team began in 1960 as the Dallas Texans, the Cowboys' crosstown AFL rivals?
Chiefs
The Kansas City Chiefs began as Lamar Hunt's Dallas Texans and won the 1962 AFL title there. Hunt still decided the city could not support two pro teams, and he moved his champions away in 1963.
Q 02Why did Dallas's new NFL team swap the name Rangers for Cowboys in March 1960?
A baseball club used it
A baseball club used it already, and the general manager feared the press would confuse the two. The owner agreed, though he had called Rangers 'a name for a football team if ever there was one'.
Q 03Which fight song did the Cowboys' founder buy, then trade back for the vote that created his team?
Hail to the Redskins
Hail to the Redskins belonged to its composer, not the team. Clint Murchison Jr. quietly bought the rights, and Washington's owner, who was blocking a Dallas franchise, gave his vote to get the song back.
Q 04Who was the Cowboys' first head coach, holding the job for 29 seasons?
Tom Landry
Tom Landry went his whole first season without a win and finished below .500 in each of his first five years. The Cowboys stuck with him, and he repaid them with two Super Bowl titles.
Q 05Starting in the 1960s, the Cowboys set an NFL record with 20 consecutive what?
Winning seasons
Winning seasons. The fall afterwards was steep: by 1988 Dallas had the worst record in the league, and within months the team had been sold.
Q 06Which item of clothing was the trademark of the Cowboys' first head coach on the sideline?
A fedora
A fedora, worn with a jacket and tie, was so much the coach's signature that Homer Simpson buys the hat in an episode of The Simpsons, hoping it will make him a better leader.
Q 07Cowboys linebacker Chuck Howley was named Super Bowl MVP despite a 16-13 loss to which team?
The Baltimore Colts
The Baltimore Colts won Super Bowl V on Jim O'Brien's field goal with five seconds left. Howley, who intercepted two passes, is still the only MVP chosen from the losing side.
Q 08Which team did the Cowboys beat 24-3 in Super Bowl VI?
Dolphins
The Dolphins managed only a field goal against Dallas, then answered the defeat by winning every game of the following season, still the NFL's only perfect campaign.
Q 09Roger Staubach won the 1963 Heisman Trophy playing for which school?
Navy
Navy held Staubach to four years of active duty after graduation, including a tour in Vietnam, so he did not reach the Cowboys until 1969, as a 27-year-old rookie.
Q 10Staubach's game-winning 1975 playoff pass to Drew Pearson gave football which lasting phrase?
Hail Mary
Hail Mary became football's name for a last-gasp long pass after the devout Catholic told reporters, 'I closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary.'
Q 11Roger Staubach's knack for winning games on late drives earned him which nickname?
Captain Comeback
Captain Comeback signed off in style: in his final regular-season game, in 1979, he threw two late touchdown passes to turn a 34-21 deficit into a 35-34 win.
Q 12Which organisation first called the Cowboys 'America's Team', after their 1978 season?
NFL Films
NFL Films made it the title of the team's 1978 highlight film after editor Bob Ryan noticed Cowboys jerseys and hats in the stands wherever Dallas played, even on the road.
Q 13Which former Cowboys quarterback later sang 'Turn out the lights, the party's over' in the Monday Night Football booth?
Don Meredith
Q 21Dwight Clark's 'The Catch' ended the Cowboys' 1981 season with a 28-27 win for which team?
The San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers won on Clark's leaping fingertip catch of a Joe Montana pass in the final minute, then went on to win four Super Bowls in the 1980s.
Q 22Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys from Bum Bright in 1989 for roughly how much?
$140 million
$140 million bought the team and its stadium rights, and Jones at once replaced the only head coach the Cowboys had ever had. Forbes valued the club at $13 billion in 2025.
Q 23Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson were teammates on which school's 1964 national championship football team?
Arkansas
Don Meredith, known as 'Dandy Don', joined Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football and crooned the Willie Nelson line whenever a game was out of reach for the losing team.
Q 14Texas Stadium was located in which Dallas suburb?
Irving
Irving was the Cowboys' home for 38 seasons from 1971. When the stadium was imploded in 2010, the button was pushed by an 11-year-old boy who had won an essay contest.
Q 15The Cowboys' home in Arlington, opened in 2009, is widely nicknamed what?
Jerry World
Jerry World is named for owner Jerry Jones, the force behind it. In the Cowboys' first preseason game there, a punt hit the giant video board hanging over the field and the down had to be replayed.
Q 16In 1966 the Cowboys joined which team as an annual Thanksgiving Day host?
Detroit Lions
The Detroit Lions had hosted on the holiday since 1934. Dallas volunteered for a second game for the national television exposure, and has hosted almost every Thanksgiving since.
Q 17Which defensive tackle, known as 'Mr. Cowboy', was the first draft pick in franchise history?
Bob Lilly
Bob Lilly started out as a defensive end; only after a move inside to tackle in his third season did he become a first-team All-Pro, an honour he then won seven times.
Q 18Which nickname was given to the Cowboys units that smothered opposing offenses during the 1970s?
The Doomsday Defense
The Doomsday Defense was so dominant that even in defeat in Super Bowl V one of its linebackers was voted the game's MVP, something no player on a losing team has managed since.
Q 19Which two Cowboys defenders shared the MVP award of Super Bowl XII?
Randy White and Harvey Martin
Randy White and Harvey Martin remain the only co-MVPs in Super Bowl history. White had spent his first two seasons as a backup linebacker and had only that year become a starting defensive tackle.
Q 20Which 1976 Heisman winner did the Cowboys draft second overall in 1977?
Tony Dorsett
Tony Dorsett later ran 99 yards for a touchdown, a record that can be tied but never beaten, on a broken play that Dallas ran with only ten men on the field.
Arkansas won that title with Jones a co-captain on the offensive line and Johnson on the defensive line. A quarter-century later Jones bought the Cowboys and at once hired his old teammate as coach.
Q 24Jimmy Johnson came to Dallas in 1989 from the head coaching job at which university?
Miami
Miami won college football's national title under Johnson in 1987, yet two years later his first Cowboys team lost 15 of its 16 games.
Q 25The Cowboys' 1989 trade of running back Herschel Walker sent him to which team?
The Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings paid with five players and a stack of draft picks. Dallas turned those picks into Emmitt Smith and Darren Woodson, cornerstones of three Super Bowl winners.
Q 26Which team did the 1-15 Cowboys of 1989 beat for their only win?
Redskins
The Washington Redskins lost 13-3 at home that November, the lone bright spot of Jimmy Johnson's first season. Three years later the Cowboys went 13-3 and won the Super Bowl.
Q 27Troy Aikman was drafted first overall in 1989 out of which school?
UCLA
UCLA was his second college: he started out at Oklahoma but left when the Sooners turned to the run-heavy wishbone offense, which had little use for his passing arm.
Q 28Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin were collectively known as what?
The Triplets
The Triplets were completed in the 1990 draft, when Dallas traded up from the 21st pick to the 17th and spent it on Smith.
Q 29Whose NFL career rushing record did Emmitt Smith break in 2002?
Walter Payton
Walter Payton's 16,726 yards fell in Smith's thirteenth season in Dallas, yet the Cowboys released him a few months later. He finished with 18,355 after two years with Arizona.
Q 30Why did Emmitt Smith miss the first two games of his MVP season in 1993?
A contract holdout
A contract holdout kept him out while Dallas lost both games. Once he signed, he won the rushing title, league MVP and Super Bowl MVP, and the Cowboys recovered to win the Super Bowl.