The Cowboys faced the Browns in Cleveland in 1965.
The Cowboys will meet the Cleveland Browns for just the 11th time since 1970. During my own lifetime, this hasn’t been any sort of rivalry at all.
During Roger Staubach‘s last season in 1979, the Cowboys visited Cleveland on Monday Night Football, but the Browns thumped Dallas in a 26-7 Dallas loss.
Fifteen years later, the Browns visited Dallas in December and stunned the Cowboys thanks to three field goals by Matt Stover.
The other eight games were hardly memorable—for me, at least.
During the 1960s, though, the Browns were actually one of the Cowboys’ chief rivals. Between 1960 and 1966, the teams faced 13 times. Dallas only won two of those games.
The first win came in 1962 when the Cowboys piled up 217 rushing yards and held Jim Brown to just 29 yards in a 45-21 Dallas victory.
The next win did not come until 1966. The teams met twice that year, and Cleveland won the first contest, handing Dallas their first loss of the season. About a month later, though, the Cowboys topped the visiting Browns in a 26-14 win.
Dallas had a four-game winning streak over Cleveland between 1966 and 1968, including the Cowboys’ first-ever playoff win in 1967.
The Browns had the last laugh, though. Dallas had to visit Cleveland in the playoffs in both 1968 and 1969. The Browns won both games in dominating fashion. In both seasons, though, Cleveland lost in the NFL Championship Game.
The Cowboys went back to Cleveland in 1970 to face the Browns one more time after the NFL-AFL merger. The Cowboys needed a win to take the NFC East title and came away with a 6-2 win.
After that, though, the series all but died.
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Blogging impatiently about the Cowboys since 2006. Being a fan since 1977 hasn't required quite as much patience. 
