January 17, 1993 - NFC Championship Game - Dallas 30 @ San Fran 20
Jimmy Johnson guarantees a victory that was sealed when Alvin Harper took a crossing pass 60+ yards in the final minutes.

But I'm pretty sure we were total underdogs this year and the 94 championship game was the one that JJ guaranteed the victory.

Plus I have to add the Buffalo game from this year.  I don't know that I have ever experienced the rollercoaster of emotions I had that game and then to pull it out with a winning field goal - twice!

One of my favorite regular season moments was opening day 1999 at Washington.  Aikman did a play action pass to Rocket Ismael on the first play from scrimmage that failed to connect.  Then the Cowboys got down 21 points after 3 quarters.  They stormed back to tie it and send it to overtime where they run the same play action pass to Rocket except this time it connects for a touchdown and the Boys win in overtime.

My other favorite moment came on Monday night against the Eagles during the 1997 season.  It was my freshmen year in college at UNT and I was watching the game with my new roommates in my dorm room.  The eagles were behind late in the 4th but were driving down to score a game winning field goal.  The Dallas defense just couldn't get off the field.  I remember Irvin on the sidelines just beside himself every time they converted on third down to keep the drive alive.  

Finally the Eagles set up a chip shot field goal to win the game as time expired, when the holder botched the snap (sound familiar?).  The holder, Timothy "Stone Hands" Hutton picked up the ball and tried to make it to the end zone.  The Dallas field goal defense unit was so stunned they just stood there flat footed watching him run by them, until Hutton fumbled the ball on the way to score the winning touchdown.  Dallas quickly converges on him and time runs out.  

I can remember celebrating with my roommates only to hear other excited shouting coming from the other rooms on our hall.  Everyone was cheering and running out in the halls.  Great moment for me personally and a wild finish.

Derek

Great Diary DalaiLuke.  I've thought about this subject, and I'm glad you've raised it for discussion.

Here's my ten biggest Cowboys victories since I first started watching in 1970.  I give preference to landmark games where the Cowboys established themselves as an up-and-coming dynasty, where it became clear that team was going to do great things.

1.  1992 NFC Championship Game:  Dallas 30, San Francisco 20, Candlestick Park.  Maybe the greatest game in the history of the franchise.  After falling on hard times in the late 1980's, this was the game where we saw the changing of the guard.  Eleven years earlier, in the same stadium, Montana's touchdown pass to Dwight Clark  signaled the rise of the young, aggressive 49er dynasty...and the decline of our own.  Ghosts aplenty of the past hovered over the stadium.  But from the start, Jimmy Johnson showed his approach to the game plan was completely unlike his predecessor.  He turned Norv Turner loose to relentlessly attack the 49er secondary in the first half.  There's many plays I remember from this game, but one play sticks in my mind from the first half.  Right after Dallas recovered a fumbled punt return in SF territory early in the game, Aikman hit Irvin on a deep square in route to the SF two-yard line.  Dallas was sending a clear signal to the Niners:  You may be a dynasty, but we're not afraid of you.  We're going to come after you, and if we lose, it'll be because we threw everything we had at you, and you were a better team.  After playing to a 10-all tie in the first half, Dallas had an epic drive to start the third quarter that led to a touchdown, then followed that up with an even more epic drive that put them up 24-13 early in the fourth quarter.  The 70-yard pass to Harper came when everyone was expecting Emmitt Smith to try and run out the clock, and again sent out notice this team was a different breed than the cautious teams Landry coached.  Those ghosts that haunted us for over a decade dissolved forever as the sun finally came out over the stadium late in the game.  If you ever get a chance to see this game in its entirety, do it, because it's an epic of two great teams slugging it out.

2.  1975 NFC Championship Game:  Dallas 37, Rams 7, LA Coliseum.  After nearly a decade of dominance from 1965-1973, the Cowboys didn't make the playoffs in 1974, and 1975 was to be a rebuilding year.  Twelve rookies made the roster, and to most everyone's surprise, Dallas went 10-4 and landed a wild card spot.  A Hail Mary pass allowed them to squeak by Minnesota, but the Rams were a 12-2 powerhouse with a great defense, and the Cowboys were big underdogs.  But from the start, Dallas' passing attack ripped up the Rams defense, with Preston Pearson having a great day.

3.  1991 Week 16: Dallas 25, Philadelphia 13, Veterans Stadium.  This might seem like an odd choice, but with this game, I knew Dallas had arrived as a serious playoff contender.  Excluding a 1987 strike game, Dallas had lost nine straight games to the Eagles, and had been spanked at home by them 24-0 early in the season.  So to go into the Vet on a cold, windy December day, facing all those ghosts, with a playoff spot on the line, and to come from behind in the fourth quarter to win against one of the best defenses I've ever seen, told me we had arrived.  Really good teams beat other good teams on the road late in the season, and that's exactly what we did this game.  Steve Beuerlein started for an injured Aikman, and was wildly inaccurate in the first half, but didn't turn the ball over, which had killed us in the past.  Dallas trailed 10-8 early in the fourth quarter, when Kelvin Martin returned a punt 85 yards for a touchdown.  That play marked the beginning of the new Dallas dynasty.  After the Eagles kicked a field goal to pull within 15-13, the stadium was rocking.  Dallas was facing a stiff wind, a hostile crowd and a great defense.  But instead of running Emmitt, Turner sent Jay Novacek deep over the middle, and Beuerlein hit him for 32 yards.  Two plays later, Steve Beuerlein hit Irvin for 36 yards to put them deep in Philadelphia territory, and three plays later Dallas scored to put the game away.  The dynasty was born.

4.  1971 Super Bowl VI: Dallas 24, Miami 3, Tulane Stadium.  After the frustration of the two Championship losses to the Packers, two early playoff exits to the Browns, and the last-second loss to the Colts in Super Bowl V, we had finally reached the promised land.  Even as a 11-year old, I was pretty cynical.  Knowing all the history going into the game, and having seen Super Bowl V, my reaction to the game was not elation but a relieved "it's about time."

5.  1975 Divisional Playoffs: Dallas 17, Minnesota 14, Metropolitan Stadium.  As a surprise wildcard team, no one expected us to beat a 12-2 Vikings team, on the road in late December.  In reality, we should have lost:  Drew Pearson pushed off on Nate Wright on the Hail Mary pass, something he admitted many years later.  But it was a great win, and signaled we were a team to be reckoned with, as the Rams found out the hard way the next week.

6.  1977 Super Bowl XII: Dallas 27, Denver 10, Superdome.  The second Super Bowl win of the Landry era, and the culmination of the 1975 rebuilding effort.

7.  1995 Week One:  Dallas 35, Giants 0, Giants Stadium.  After the disappointing loss to the 49ers in the 1994 Championship Game, many sportswriters were convinced the Dallas dynasty was finished, and most picked the Giants to win the division in 1995.  The Giants offense went three-and-out after the opening kickoff, and on Dallas' first offensive play from scrimmage, Emmitt Smith ran through a gaping hole, and 60 yards later the rout was on.  The 1995 team faced a severe three-game crisis towards the end of the season, but except for that stretch, this was a dominant team, and in this game the Cowboys threw down the gauntlet to announce to all the pretenders that the dynasty was still alive and kicking.

8.  1992 Super Bowl XXVII: Dallas 52, Buffalo 17, Rose Bowl.  The first Super Bowl win of the Jerry Jones-Jimmy Johnson dynasty.  After beating San Francisco two weeks earlier, this game was anticlimactic.  The Bills were a wild card team that was lucky to have beaten the Oilers at home, with an interception-prone QB and a secondary that could be exploited.  The Bills put up a good fight for about a quarter and a half, then the talent of this team completely overwhelmed them.

9.  2007 Week 3: Dallas 34, Chicago 10, Soldier Stadium.  I have a good feeling about this team, but it's hard to know for sure how things will turn out for us in the long run.  If the current team goes on to great things, this will likely be the game I remember where we began to establish the dynasty.  On the road, against the defending NFC Championship, in prime time; and after a close first half, Dallas grinds the Bears into mush and pulls away.  We had not had a decisive victory against a good team on the road in many, many years, so this stands out in my mind as an important win.  It could move higher on the list if this team goes onto to become a multiple Super Bowl winner.

10.  1990 Week 11:  Dallas 24, Rams 21, LA Coliseum.  Dallas had gone 4-28 the two previous years, and had struggled to 3-7 after ten games.  The previous week, we had less than 100 yards offense in being dismissed by the 49ers 24-6, and the situation looked bleak.  Dallas was facing a team that got off to a slow start, but which played in the Championship game the previous season.  We were able to finally get the offense going, and led 21-14 at the half.  The Rams came back to tie, but a late Ken Willis field goal gave us the win.  This game marked the end of the futility that started in the late 1980's, and that better things were ahead.  Incredibly, this was the first of four straight wins that put us in playoff contention.  We would fall short, but the worst was over.

maybe one or the best I've see. Agree the 1st NFC Championship vs SF is my favorite. The changing of the guard metaphor is perfectly apt, both for those teams and those 2 that met back in the 80's. But the game ws great not only for its context but the the plays

• Harper's catch and run
• K Norton's interception and inexpicable fall during the return
• K Mart's TD, after the catch barely getting over the goal line on a 3rd down play. You just knew a FG wouldn't be enough.

Got up at 4AM to watch it in Hong Kong, I DID make the trip to SoCal to see the 1st SB vs the Bills.

Lastly, I'd like to give an honorable mention to the 1980 Divisional playoff round game vs ATL. Two Danny White to Drew Pearson TD's in the last 4 minutes showed the Boys could still contend at a championship level, in a game they were largely outplayed.