Super Bowl VI — 1971 Season

Result

Super Bowl MVP

Roger Staubach, QB, Dallas Cowboys

Starting lineups

Starting offense

Starting defense

Box score

Passing

Rushing

Receiving

Game context

A year after their gut-wrenching Super Bowl V loss, the Dallas Cowboys returned and dominated the Miami Dolphins 24-3 in Super Bowl VI, finally shedding their reputation, per coach Tom Landry's own players, as a team that couldn't win the big one. Played in 39-degree temperatures at Tulane Stadium -- still the coldest Super Bowl on record -- the game was effectively decided by Dallas's dominant "Doomsday Defense" and a balanced offensive attack that overwhelmed Miami's second-year expansion franchise in just its fifth season of existence. Miami's day went wrong immediately: on the Dolphins' first offensive play, fullback Larry Csonka fumbled, and Chuck Howley recovered for Dallas at Miami's 48-yard line, setting up a Mike Clark field goal. Dallas extended the lead before halftime on a 7-yard touchdown pass from Roger Staubach to Lance Alworth, capping a 76-yard drive, and Miami's Garo Yepremian answered with a field goal of his own to trail 10-3 at the break. From there Dallas took total control: Miami ran no first downs at all in the third quarter as the Cowboys drove 71 yards for a Duane Thomas touchdown run to make it 17-3, and Howley's 41-yard interception return in the fourth quarter set up a second Staubach touchdown pass, this one to tight end Mike Ditka, for the final 24-3 margin. Staubach, completing 12 of 18 passes for 119 yards and two touchdowns while playing the entire game, was named Super Bowl MVP and became the first quarterback of a Super Bowl-winning team to play every offensive snap. Running back Duane Thomas, who led all rushers with 95 yards and a touchdown on 19 carries, became the first player to score touchdowns in consecutive Super Bowls (having scored the year before as well), though his refusal to speak to media all week -- responding to reporters' questions at Media Day with silence, and to one enthusiastic postgame question with a single word, "Evidently" -- became its own story; Staubach later suggested Thomas might have won MVP himself had he engaged with the press. Defensive tackle Bob Lilly delivered a Super Bowl-record 29-yard sack of Bob Griese, still the longest negative-yardage play in Super Bowl history, epitomizing Dallas's defensive dominance, which held Miami to just 185 total yards and zero touchdowns -- a defensive standard later matched by only the 2018 Patriots and 2020 Buccaneers as Super Bowl-losing performances. Beyond the final score, the game represented Miami's remarkable, if premature, ascent -- the Dolphins had become the youngest franchise (founded in 1966) to reach a Super Bowl by defeating two prior champions en route -- and it was the last Super Bowl blacked out in its host market despite selling out, a policy the NFL abandoned the following year. Dallas's win, its first Super Bowl title, opened a decade in which the Cowboys would become the league's most visible franchise, eventually earning the "America's Team" moniker, while Miami, having lost this game, would channel the disappointment into an even more historic response the very next season.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Super Bowl VI
• Pro-Football-Reference: Super Bowl Game Summaries