1970 NFL Championship Game
Defending champions, a grizzled legend at the helm, and a Cowboys wall to break through.
The 1970 NFL Championship Game pitted the Baltimore Colts—the defending Super Bowl champions and one of the league's most storied franchises—against the Dallas Cowboys in a clash that epitomized the era's greatest rivalry. Coming off their Super Bowl IV triumph over the Minnesota Vikings just months earlier, the Colts entered this conference-title showdown with the weight of expectation on their shoulders, led by the aging but still brilliant Johnny Unitas.
A victory over Dallas sent Baltimore to Super Bowl V, where they would ultimately fall to the Kansas City Chiefs. But the Championship Game itself remains a defining moment in Colts lore: a gritty, hard-fought contest in which a veteran core proved they still had fire, and in which the franchise's identity as a powerhouse was reaffirmed on the grandest stage short of the Super Bowl.
- Franchise
- Baltimore Colts (now Indianapolis Colts)
- Opponent
- Dallas Cowboys
- Result
- Colts victory; advanced to Super Bowl V
- Starting Quarterback
- Johnny Unitas
- Context
- Defending Super Bowl champions (Super Bowl IV, January 1970)
- Era
- 1970 NFL season, post-merger first year
Lore & Background
By 1970, the Colts were a franchise defined by excellence. The Unitas era had produced two Super Bowl titles, a string of division crowns, and a reputation for playing with a ferocity that set them apart. Johnny Unitas, the man whose arm had carried Baltimore to the pinnacle of the sport, was now in his mid-thirties—still the best quarterback in the league, but no longer the invincible young gun of the early '60s. The 1970 NFL Championship Game was, in many ways, a statement: this team, this quarterback, this standard of play, was not yet finished.
The Cowboys, meanwhile, were the rising force of the new merged league. Dallas had the talent, the swagger, and the modern offensive system that was reshaping the sport. A meeting between Baltimore and Dallas in a championship game was the kind of matchup the NFL built its television audience around—two philosophies of football, two cities with deep football pride, and a rivalry that would define a decade.
For Colts fans, the memory of this game is layered. It is the taste of a hard-fought win that kept their Super Bowl hopes alive. It is the image of Unitas, helmet slightly askew, barking adjustments at the line of scrimmage, trusting the men around him to execute. It is the knowledge that the road to another title was still open, even if, as it turned out, the final destination that season would be a painful loss in Super Bowl V. The 1970 Championship Game is remembered not as a coronation but as a proving ground—and the Colts proved themselves again.
In Their Own Story
The lights at the stadium hummed with a low, electric buzz that you could feel in your teeth. Unitas stood in the huddle, his breath a thin white thread in the December air, and looked at the men around him—faces he'd known for a decade, some for longer. The Cowboys' defense was a wall of young, fast shoulders and helmets, a machine built to hit. He could see it in the way they set their feet, the way their eyes tracked the play before the snap. He smiled, just barely, the kind of smile that meant *I've seen this before and I've won it before.* He clapped once, sharp, and the huddle broke. The ball was snapped. The world narrowed to the pocket, the read, the throw. And for one long, suspended moment, the only sound was the thud of pads meeting pads and the collective held breath of a city that had loved this team through every high and low. Then the ball was in the air, spiraling, and the crowd roared like a wave breaking against a seawall. Unitas watched it go, his shoulders dropping a fraction, and thought: *not yet. Not tonight. We're not done.*
Reader's Guide
The occasion: the 1970 NFL Championship Game, the conference title contest of the first fully merged NFL season. The Baltimore Colts, fresh off their Super Bowl IV victory over Minnesota, met the Dallas Cowboys in a matchup that carried the weight of the league's most electric rivalry.
What happened: In a physical, hard-fought contest, the Colts outlasted Dallas to claim the NFL title and earn a berth in Super Bowl V. Johnny Unitas, playing with the quiet authority of a man who had already written the book, guided Baltimore through a Cowboys defense that was built to disrupt and destroy. The game was a war of attrition—punts, field goals, and the kind of grinding, four-down drives that defined the era before the pass game fully took over.
Why it's remembered: For Colts fans, this game is the sound of a veteran team refusing to fade. It is Unitas at his most defiant, the franchise holding its standard of excellence against the most modern and aggressive team in the league. It kept the title hopes alive for one more season and cemented the Colts-Cowboys rivalry as the defining matchup of the early '70s. In the long arc of Colts history, it is a reminder that the dynasty was built on repetition—winning the hard games, year after year, with the same stubborn belief that the next snap would be the one that mattered.
Did You Know?
- The Colts entered this game as the reigning Super Bowl champions, having defeated the Minnesota Vikings 16-7 in Super Bowl IV just months earlier in January 1970.
- Johnny Unitas, who would be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979, was in his mid-thirties during this game—proof that his legendary career was far from over.
- This victory sent the Colts to Super Bowl V, where they faced the Kansas City Chiefs in January 1971, extending the franchise's remarkable run of late-1960s and early-1970s title contention.
- The 1970 season was the first year of the AFL-NFL merger, making this one of the earliest 'championship' games played under the unified league structure that still defines the NFL today.