Where does Craig Morton rank among the Dallas Cowboys’ greatest quarterbacks?
Last season, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott broke the franchise’s career passing yards record, and the Star-Telegram used that occasion to assess Prescott’s legacy.
We easily placed Prescott among the six greatest Cowboys QBs of all time. Super Bowl winners and Hall of Famers Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach stand alone, followed in some order by Prescott, Don Meredith, Tony Romo and Danny White.
If we had added a seventh, it would have been Craig Morton, who died Saturday at age 83.
Morton produced one of the stranger careers in NFL history at quarterback, full of highs but with football immortality just out of reach.
He joins Hall of Famers Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Kurt Warner as the only quarterbacks to start for two franchises in Super Bowls, but unlike them, he never won one. And he didn’t just lose — he threw seven interceptions while his teams scored a combined 23 points.
In Super Bowl 5 in January 1971, Morton completed 12 of 26 passes for 127 yards and one touchdown with three interceptions in the Cowboys’ 16-13 loss to Baltimore.
In Super Bowl 12 in January 1978, Morton completed only 4 of 15 passes for 39 yards with four interceptions and was benched in the Denver Broncos’ 27-10 shellacking at the hands of the Cowboys and Staubach, the man who unseated Morton as Dallas’ starter.
But, Morton did start in two Super Bowls, and his 27,908 career passing yards, compiled over an 18-year career with the Cowboys, New York Giants and Broncos, rank him No. 71 in NFL history, just ahead of Joe Namath. He also earned a Super Bowl ring as Staubach’s backup in Super Bowl 6.
From a Cowboys perspective, Morton is the only quarterback besides Staubach and Aikman to start a Super Bowl, and his regular-season winning percentage (32-14-1, 69.1%) trails only Staubach (85-29, 74.6%) among full-time starters.
Morton also went 3-2 as a starter in the playoffs with the Cowboys and 5-5 for his career, matching White (5-5) and bettering Romo (2-4), Prescott (2-5) and Meredith (1-3).
Yes, you can poke holes in Morton’s playoff record with the Cowboys. Staubach relieved him in one of those starts, at San Francisco in the 1972 divisional playoffs, and deserves the credit for Dallas’ 30-28 comeback victory. And Morton didn’t have to do a whole lot in playoff victories over Detroit (5-0) and San Francisco (17-10) en route to Super Bowl 5.
But that’s Morton’s career in a nutshell. Usually winning, sometimes on the edge of greatness, sometimes failing on the big stage.
Craig Morton was a good NFL quarterback, better than the vast majority. He was more than simply the guy Roger Staubach replaced.
Cowboys fans shouldn’t dismiss his legacy.
This story was originally published May 12, 2026 at 1:42 PM.
