In June 2011, Dallas Cowboys Star Magazine decided to count down the best of the best, the top 25 plays in franchise history. Obviously, this wasn't the easiest of tasks, but some 30,000-plus words later, we feel pretty good about the results. Now here in a 25-part summer series, we share our list for one and all. Without further ado, we continue with No. 22, and a snippet from the Dallas Cowboys Star Magazine story:
22) Something Exotic, Jan. 15, 1978:
Officially speaking, the play was "Brown right formation, X-opposite shift, toss 38, halfback lead, fullback pass to Y." In layman's terms, Cowboys fullback Robert Newhouse threw a perfect ball to Golden Richards for a game-securing touchdown in Super Bowl XII against the Denver Broncos. Dallas won, 27-10.
Tom Landry called them exotic plays. And make no mistake, his favorite "exotic" was the halfback option pass. This one, though, was among the more challenging.
Making life more difficult for Newhouse was the fact he had recently doused his hands with stickum, which was typical in this era before gloves were commonplace. However, when throwing the pigskin, the glue-like substance can prove most problematic for obvious reasons.
"I was shocked. I panicked," Newhouse said. "I've never eaten so much stickum in my life. I started wiping it off my pants and started licking my fingers."
Newhouse took the ball and started running on what appeared to be a sweep left, and briefly, ever so briefly, pondered taking his chances with daylight.
"I saw all that wide-open space downfield and I was tempted to run, but then I remembered it was one of Coach Landry's all-or-nothing plays, so I threw," Newhouse said.
