The 1966 Dallas Cowboys season was the seventh for the franchise in the National Football League. The Cowboys, who had never previously finished with a winning record in their history, would improve dramatically. Dallas finished 10-3-1 and won the Eastern Conference title, their first of six consecutive division titles. They hosted the NFL Championship Game at the Cotton Bowl, where they lost to the defending NFL champion Green Bay Packers, thus missing out on the chance to play in the first Super Bowl which the Packers went on to win two weeks later.
Quarterback Don Meredith had the best season of his career throwing for 2,805 yards, 24 touchdowns (both career highs) and 12 interceptions.
GB – Max McGee 28-yard pass from Bart Starr (kick blocked)
DAL – Frank Clarke 68-yard pass from Don Meredith (Danny Villanueva kick)
Passing
GB – Bart Starr 19/28, 304 yards, 4 TD
DAL – Don Meredith 15/31, 238 yards, TD, INT
Rushing
GB – Elijah Pitts 12 att, 66 yards
DAL – Don Perkins 17 att, 108 yards, TD
Receiving
GB – Carroll Dale 5 rec, 128 yards, TD
DAL – Frank Clarke 3 rec, 102 yards, TD
Green Bay took an early 14–0 lead on two first-quarter scores; a 17-yard touchdown pass from Bart Starr to Elijah Pitts and an 18-yard fumble return by Jim Grabowski on the ensuing kickoff. The Cowboys tied the score with two touchdowns towards the end of the quarter.
Starr's third touchdown pass of the game gave the Packers a 34–20 lead with 5:20 left in the game, but the Cowboys responded with a 68-yard touchdown pass from Don Meredith to Frank Clarke. Dallas advanced to the Green Bay 22-yard line on their next drive, when a pass interference penalty gave the Cowboys a first down at the Packer 2-yard line. But Green Bay's Tom Brown intercepted a Meredith pass in the end zone with 28 seconds left to play to preserve the victory for the Packers.
With the growth in popularity of televised NFL games, the league began looking for a second team in addition to the Detroit Lions, to host an annual Thanksgiving Day game. Every team turned down the offer, except for the Dallas Cowboys. General Manager Tex Schramm recognized this as an opportunity for the franchise to increase its popularity and establish its own Thanksgiving Day game tradition.
In 1966, the Cowboys who had been founded six years earlier, adopted the practice of hosting Thanksgiving games. It is widely rumored that the Cowboys sought a guarantee that they would regularly host Thanksgiving games as a condition of their very first one (since games on days other than Sunday were uncommon at the time and thus high attendance was not a certainty). Since then, the two "traditional" Thanksgiving Day pro football games have been in Detroit and Dallas.
