1960 National Football League Season - Conference Races

Conference Races

All teams but Dallas played a home-and-away game against the other five members of their own conference, one interconference game, and one game against the new team (Dallas). The Cowboys, although assigned to the Western Conference, were a "swing team", playing their 12 game schedule against each of the other teams in the league. (Byes would have been necessary because of the odd number of teams in the league.) The Cowboys' first game saw them take a 14-0 lead over the Steelers, with Jim Doran catching a pass from Eddie LeBaron for the first score, but Dallas went on to lose 35–28.

Philadelphia lost its opener, at home, to Cleveland, 41–24. After that, the Eagles went on a 9 game winning streak. The breakthrough came in Week Six (October 30), when the unbeaten (3–0–1) New York Giants lost at home to St. Louis, 20–13, and the Browns and Eagles were both at 4–1. In Week Seven, New York beat Cleveland, 17–13, and the Eagles beat Pittsburgh 34–7. The Eagles kept on winning, finishing 10–2 and on top of the Eastern Conference. Two of those wins were in consecutive games (November 20 and 27) against New York. In the latter game, the Eagles trailed 17–0, then 23–17, before Norm Van Brocklin threw two touchdown passes in the final quarter for a 31–23 victory. The Giants' Frank Gifford was severely injured in a tackle by Chuck Bednarik that almost ended his career.

The Western Conference race was one in which Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Green Bay and San Francisco all had a lead at one time. The Bears fell back after a Week Six loss to the 49ers, 25–7. In Week Seven, the 4–2 Colts and the 4–1 Packers met on November 6 in Green Bay. Baltimore, which had lost an earlier match, won 38–24, to take the lead in the Western. In Week Ten, the Colts lost at home to San Francisco, 30–22, and began a streak of defeats. Baltimore's 20–15 loss to the Lions, and Green Bay's 41–13 win at Chicago, tied the Colts and Packers at 6–4 in Week Eleven. After the Packers' 13–0 win at San Francisco, their record was 7–4, while the Colts, Lions and 49ers were all at 6–5. San Francisco and Detroit both won the next week, the former beating Baltimore 34–10, but the Packers won as well, beating Los Angeles 35–21 for the Western title.

The new Dallas Cowboys lost their first ten games, then on December 4, they managed a 31–31 tie against the Giants at Yankee Stadium in New York. At 0–11–1, they still finished at .000, rather than at .042, under the rules at the time (ties being ignored in computing winning percentage prior to 1972).