Cowboys Wearing Blue at Giants: What Happened to Dallas 'Jersey Jinx'?
"Big Blue" often refers to the New York Giants, one of the Dallas Cowboys' biggest rivals and their next opponent on Monday Night Football. But in a surprising twist, the Cowboys will be the only team wearing blue at MetLife Stadium.
The Giants (2-0) are riding high after consecutive wins to open the 2022 season. It's the first time they've had a winning record since making the playoffs in 2016. Anticipating one of the season's most raucous crowds, new Giants head coach Brian Daboll has proposed a "white out." New York will wear its "Color Rush" uniforms that resemble their all-white road aesthetic worn during the team's Super Bowl runs in 1986 and 1990.
Daboll has sent a letter to Giants season ticket holders, asking fans to dress for the occasion.
"We look forward to seeing you on Monday night when we will be wearing our white color rush uniforms and handing out white rally towels to all fans," Daboll wrote. "You can wear your best white Giants gear to make it a complete 'White Out.'"
Though the Giants have opened with wins over Tennessee and Carolina, many believe a nationally televised win over the hated Cowboys would be an official declaration of a return to relevancy after five consecutive losing seasons. Dallas has gone 9-1 over the past 10 meetings of the long-standing NFC East rivalry.
The Giants eschewing their usual hues will thus force the Cowboys (1-1) into their blue road uniforms, which for years were considered unlucky by a good portion of the fanbase. NFL teams traditionally wear their colored uniforms at home, but the Cowboys have gone the opposite way, wearing their white jerseys with blue trim.
Superstition toward the Cowboys' colored threads has conflicting origins: some believe that the team opted to ditch tradition after a series of navy-tinted, high-profile losses like Super Bowl V: the infamous "Blunder Bowl" loss to the Baltimore Colts. That legend perhaps grew in strength after the Cowboys won their first championship in the following season, wearing white as they demolished the Miami Dolphins, 24-3.
In the 1970s, Cowboys opponents would often break their trend and wear white at home, forcing Dallas to wear its "jinxed" blue jerseys.
But, contrary to popular belief, the white-at-home look originated long before the Cowboys' first taste of championship glory. Original team president and general manager Tex Schramm invoked the change primarily to see visiting team's trademark colors, offering fans a relatively unique viewing experience in an era long before most, if not every, NFL game and highlight was accessible to fans.
Schramm told the New York Times in 1981, shortly after the navy-clad Cowboys fell to Philadelphia in the NFC title game, that he did not believe in any color-coordinated curse.
That hasn't stopped opponents from trying to invoke the aesthetic demons, though Dallas bucked the trend by going 3-1 when wearing them last year. The Cowboys, in fact, perhaps played into it, often wearing their navy uniforms on Thanksgiving when NFL regulations retired their traditional throwbacks that invoked their original look from 1960. With the NFL relaxing such rules, Dallas is poised to bring the uniform back when the Giants visit this coming Turkey Day on Nov. 24.
Following the visit to East Rutherford, the Los Angeles Rams will be the next to try and test the Cowboys' colored mettle, opting to wear white at home when Dallas visits on Oct. 9.
Whether the jinx is real or not, fact is all five of the Cowboys' Super Bowl wins have been in their white jerseys. They are 0-1 in the Super Bowl wearing blue.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter
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