The Denver Broncos defeated the Oakland Raiders in the American Football Conference championship game, Broncomania had raged unchecked through Rocky Mountain country. Orange-shirted behemoths representing the Denver Broncos suddenly became known as the Orange Crush during the team's first championship season and sales of a soft drink bearing the same name skyrocketed so that suppliers were unable to meet the demand. Any item with an Orange Crush label was guaranteed to sell. After the Broncos qualified for the Super Bowl, 65,000 Orange Crush T-shirts were sold within 48 hours. Even the Denver mayor was caught up in the contagion and displayed his shirt as proof. Dallas Cowboys and Denver Broncos had compiled the best regular season records in 1977, each winning 12 games and losing two. The Cowboys eliminated Chicago, 37-7, and Minnesota, 23-6, to earn a fourth trip to the Super Bowl. The Broncos, 14-6 losers to the Cowboys in the regular-season finale, beat Pittsburgh, 34-21, before edging Oakland, 20-17, in the AFC playoffs.

The contest with the Raiders carried dramatic overtones for the more than 74,000 who jammed Denver's Mile High Stadium for the title struggle. Oakland, the wild-card team from the Western Division, finished one game behind the Broncos and had split its two previous games with Denver, losing at home, 30-7, and winning, 24-14, two weeks later at Mile High. Riding highest on Denver's emotional wave was Craig Morton, 35-year-old quarterback who had thrown two touchdown passes to Haven Moses in the AFC title game and was about to face his former Dallas teammates, with whom he played nine seasons. Morton's Dallas counterpart was Roger Staubach, the former Heisman Trophy winner at the Naval Academy who had beaten out Morton for the Dallas quarterback position some years earlier. "We're friends now," declared Morton, who had drifted from the Cowboys to the New York Giants and then to Denver where, in Red Miller's first season as head coach, he had helped give Denver its first major sports championship. Super Bowl XII was played on January 15, 1978 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The game was played at the Louisiana Superdome, marking it the first time professional football's premiere championship game was played indoors.

Their was a sellout crowd of 75,583, plus 102 million television viewers, the largest audience ever to watch a sporting event in the history of television. In the first quarter the Cowboys fumbled three times. Unfortunately for Denver, Dallas recovered all three fumbles. The Denver Broncos made a habit of taking the ball away from the opposition, but the bounces were not going their way early in the game. The Broncos committed the first turnover of the game when a Morton pass was picked off by safety Randy Hughes on the Denver 25. After five plays, Tony Dorsett ran the last three yards for the first score of the game. After another interception of a Morton pass, Efren Herrera kicked a 35-yard field goal to put Dallas up, 10-0. After a controversial call on an apparent Staubach interception, the Cowboys stretched the lead to 13-0 with a 43-yard Herrera field goal. Before the half was over, the Broncos had turned the ball over seven times while picking up just three first downs. They fumbled the ball away three times, and Morton was picked off four times.

The Broncos got on the scoreboard on their first possession of the second half thanks to a 47-yard field goal by Jim Turner, but the Cowboys came right back. Staubach hooked up with Butch Johnson on a diving 45-yard touchdown pass that put the Cowboys ahead, 20-3. The Broncos hopes were sparked again on the ensuing kickoff which Rick Upchurch returned 67 yards, to the Dallas 26. Four plays later Rob Lytle plowed in from the one-yard line, making the score 20-10. Dallas clinched the victory when running back Robert Newhouse tossed a 29-yard touchdown pass to Golden Richards with seven minutes remaining in the game. It was the first pass thrown by Newhouse since 1975. The final score was Dallas 27, Denver 10. Harvey Martin and Randy White, who were named co-most valuable players, led the Cowboys' defense, which recovered four fumbles and intercepted four passes. The Dallas Cowboys were once again Super Bowl champions. This victory was the first for the NFC in six years. victory was the first for the NFC in six years.