Cowboys ain't easy to love

"The Catch" in 1982.. greatest day in football history!

Back in the early 90s, when the Buffalo Bills were in the process of losing consecutive Super Bowls to the Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys, the late writer David Halberstam said that he always cheer against sports teams from cities where presidents were killed. The three cities of assassination were Washington DC (where Lincoln and Garfield were killed), Buffalo (where McKinley was killed) and Dallas (where JFK was killed).

I've never had many problems with the Buffalo Bills, but usually cheer against the Redskins and Cowboys, so I grabbed on to the Halberstam theory. I've been in the strange position of pulling for the New York Giants during the last two weeks against the Cowboys and the Redskins.

My hatred of Dallas goes back to my first football playoff memory ever, when the Cowboys beat the 49ers on a last minute pass from Staubach to Sellers in 1972. This was after the Steelers had beat the Oakland Raiders on the Immaculate Reception. Both of my favorite teams losing in the final minutes should have been my clue to stop following football, but I used it to establish my lifelong vendetta against the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys.

In the last 35 years, Dallas and Pittsburgh have won the Super Bowl five times each. I have pulled against both of them in all their Super Bowl victories, including the three that they played against each other. Nothing makes me happier than either Dallas or Pittsbugh losing in the playoffs.

This is my long way of saying that I was pretty happy watching Dallas lose on Sunday. The Cowboys broke my seven year old heart, so I'll be cheering against them until I'm 77. And the Steelers lost to Jacksonville last week, so this has been a fun NFL playoff season for me.

Of this year's remaining NFL final four, I'll be pulling for San Diego to pull off the upset of the 21st century against the Pats and Green Bay to finally turn back the Giants. But no matter who makes it to Super Bowl XLII, it won't be Dallas or Pittsburgh. And we should all be thankful for that.