text: Led by quarterback Craig Morton, the Cowboys had a 10–4 season in 1970. A 38–0 shutout by the Cardinals was the low point of the year, but the team recovered to make it to the playoffs.  They defeated Detroit 5–0 in the lowest-scoring playoff game in NFL history and then defeated San Francisco 17–10 in the first-ever NFC Championship Game to qualify for their first Super Bowl appearance in franchise history, a mistake-filled Super Bowl V, where they lost 16–13 to the Baltimore Colts courtesy of a field goal by Colts' kicker Jim O'Brien with five seconds remaining in the contest. Despite the loss, linebacker Chuck Howley was named the Super Bowl MVP, the first and only time in Super Bowl history that the game's MVP did not come from the winning team.
  1971: First Super Bowl victory and the move to Texas Stadium
  The Cowboys moved from the Cotton Bowl to Texas Stadium in week six of the 1971 season. Although the first game in their new home was a 44–21 victory over New England, Dallas stumbled out of the gate by going 4–3 in the first half of the season, including losses to the mediocre New Orleans Saints and Chicago Bears. Landry named Staubach as the permanent starting quarterback to start the second half of the season, and Dallas was off and running. The Cowboys won their last seven regular season games (finishing 11–3) before dispatching of the Minnesota Vikings and San Francisco 49ers in the playoffs to return to the Super Bowl. In Super Bowl VI, behind an MVP performance from Staubach and a then Super Bowl record 252 yards rushing, the Cowboys crushed the upstart Miami Dolphins, 24–3, to finally bury the "Next Year's Champions" stigma. The Cowboys rushed for 252 yards, while holding the Dolphins, who went 17–0 in 1972, to 185 total yards.