The only reason the Dallas Cowboys still have a legitimate chance at the playoffs is because the NFC East is so bad. The East is breaking records for how bad a division can be from top to bottom. Dallas\u2019 only win against a team outside the division this year is against a Houston Texans side that was winless at the time, by four points. Their last win before this in the same category was last Thanksgiving, and they lost four of five to conclude that season immediately afterwards.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the good news out of all of this is the Cowboys next opponent is in the division. That opponent is the Philadelphia Eagles.<\/p>\n
Brian Schottenheimer\u2019s head coaching debut came in the same spot the Cowboys will be on Monday night, in Philadelphia, in primetime. The Cowboys looking competitive, playing with some juice and fire, and running the ball well against the then-defending Super Bowl champs in a 24-20 loss was actually taken well and seen as a decent result.<\/p>\n
22 games later, there is unequivocally zero margin whatsoever for a Dallas loss at Philly this time around under Schotty to be received with a single molecule of positivity. The Cowboys have already lost two straight, dropped another game this season they should have won to the Ravens, and are aiming to avoid not only a three-game losing streak for the second season in a row, but three straight primetime losses to boot.<\/p>\n
Embarrasing is a word that\u2019s been thrown around a ton already with the second month of the season not even completed, but we might be reaching \u201clook the word up in the dictionary and see three straight primetime losses by the Cowboys\u201d territory.<\/p>\n
To avoid an incendiary 2-5 start, Schottenheimer will need to hand head coach Nick Sirianni his first back-to-back home losses in consecutive weeks as the Eagles head coach. Their last game was their first full game without Jalen Hurts at QB, now out for the season, a 25-14 loss to the Carolina Panthers. The Eagles would also fall to 2-5 if the Cowboys win at the Linc for the first time since 2022, the earliest in a season they\u2019d have five losses since Sirianni\u2019s first year of 2021.<\/p>\n
The dynamic of one of these rivals missing their starting quarterback for a head-to-head matchup is one we\u2019ve covered a lot when checking in on the history of this series. The Cowboys slowly but surely adding the offense to their list of things that feel broken over their last two losses doesn\u2019t help this feel like the advantage it should be, with Dak Prescott, who\u2019s thrown the ball 96 times over these two losses, matching up with Tanner McKee.<\/p>\n
This game feels like a defining moment for both head coaches to keep their season\u2019s ship away from the iceberg a little longer. Even with a win, there will still be loads of work to do to resemble the best the Eagles have looked under Sirianni before (perhaps an unfair expectation anyway without Hurts), or the Cowboys under Schottenheimer since the last time they played the Eagles.<\/p>\n
The Cowboys trailed the Eagles 21-0 in Week 12 from AT&T Stadium last year. Jalen Hurts had one passing touchdown and a pair of rushing touchdowns on the Eagles first three drives, which came after the Cowboys started with the ball and turned it over on downs, went three and out, then fumbled. They proceeded to throw a pick in the endzone after this, and miss a field goal following a George Pickens touchdown that made it 21-7.<\/p>\n
In the second half, the Cowboys defense amazingly forced three straight punts in the third quarter, only letting the Eagles hold the ball for a total of 5:49 across these three drives. Between the missed field goal and a three and out of their own, the Cowboys only scored once in the third quarter, but at 21-14 they got an Eagles missed field goal, fumble, and punt in the fourth quarter, got the tying touchdown with Prescott using his legs, and kicked a 42-yard field goal as time expired to come back and win 24-21.<\/p>\n
The Cowboys haven\u2019t shown nearly the same fight in an overall sense this season, haven\u2019t played with similar balance on offense (36 Prescott attempts to 31 rushes in that game), had success pushing the ball downfield (Prescott 9.8 YPA), or capitalized even when the defense does find a way to get off the field.<\/p>\n
Where this next opportunity to right some wrongs falls on the scale of defensive coaches the Cowboys have gone against, and mostly failed against, this season will also be super interesting. This is as much of an open notes test that Schottenheimer will have, going up against not only a familiar Vic Fangio defense, but for the first time a Fangio defense that resembles the Cowboys own defense coordinated by Fangio disciple Christian Parker.<\/p>\n
As my colleague Tom Ryle has pointed out so well, it was reps for the Cowboys offense against this type of defense all offseason that inflated the expectations for the offense and led to a poorly-placed \u201cGOTI\u201d nickname, but Monday night is a chance to earn at least a little respect back.<\/p>\n
They may not have to do any of these things to beat Tanner McKee, but they\u2019d help themselves tremendously to at least leave an inkling of possibility that they can do these things in route to a Monday night win. If not, even a win stands to be forgotten about fairly quickly, much like the previously mentioned one from 2022 which was another Dak Prescott vs. Eagles backup Gardner Minshew game in a season where the Eagles went on to lose in the Super Bowl and Cowboys lost in the Divisional playoffs.<\/p>\n
The last Cowboys win at the Eagles with a bit more elevated stakes than this was likely 2018, where a Week 10 win helped turn a 3-5 Cowboys team into one that won their next four after the Philly win, finished 10-6, and again reached the Divisional round.<\/p>\n
A football Sunday without the Cowboys is probably what the collective fanbase needs right now to take a breath, but the thought of playing the next day against another inexperienced backup QB shouldn\u2019t feel as daunting as it does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The only reason the Dallas Cowboys still have a legitimate chance at the playoffs is because the NFC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,23679,104,103],"class_list":["post-473626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-cowboys-analysis","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}