A few random Eagles thoughts, plus some insights on this weekend’s monster game:
My last word on that messy game in Arizona this past weekend: I’m not going to apologize for calling it what it was, a fortunate victory. There’s a real possibility that Philly loses if ANY of the following things don’t happen: 1) Cardinals drop an interception in the first half in Philly territory, 2) Cardinals drop another pick in their own end zone, 3) Marquise Brown drops a guaranteed big gainer (and possible touchdown), 4) Britain Covey recovers his fumble inside his own ten on that punt return, 5) the Cardinals DB sustains an injury breaking up Hurts’ last pass (forcing Arizona to use their last timeout), 6) Murray misses a wide open Zack Ertz on the final drive, 7) everyone that possibly could screwed up on the now-infamous Murray spike at the end of the game (seriously, how do Murray, Kingsbury AND the clock operator all get it wrong on the same play?), and of course 7) their rent-a-kicker misses a chip shot (or maybe it was blocked, either way). Again, if any of these seven things go the Cardinal’s way, the game gets to overtime at least. I won’t pretend that Philly deserved to lose (the game was a statistical dead heat), but acting like that wasn’t a wake up call is foolish.
It should certainly be pointed out that just because Philly had a dud of a game, does not mean that we should bury them, nor does it mean that they were exposed as some kind of fraud. Every single team in the league has had at least one game where they looked like garbage.
We’ll know fairly early on Sunday night if the Cardinals game served as a wake-up call, or not.
We’ll also quickly find out what adjustments were made. I’m mostly thinking here of how they handle the blitz. It’s what Dallas does better than anything else (including anything they do on offense), so Philly will need to be ready. In Arizona they responded with that endless stream of WR screens. More creativity will certainly be necessary.
I have no confidence in Cooper Rush to win this game for Dallas. His 5-0 record as a starter is entirely based on Dallas’ defense. Rush’s career stat line as a starter: 95.7 QBR, 7.3 AY/A, 3 fumbles. Nothing special to see here. The Eagles’ defensive strategy should be to do what’s necessary to get Dallas in as many third and longs as possible; thankfully that’s what they specialize in. If Rush has to throw more than 30 passes on Sunday, it’s a good sign for Philly.
Speaking of Rush, Dallas fans will absolutely blame a potential loss on missing their starting QB. It’s interesting to note that injured starting quarterbacks are a longstanding tradition in this rivalry. Going back to 2006, one team or the other has been missing their presumed starter 19 times (30%). In several cases, both teams played their backups. I counted eight instances where one team played a backup for injury purposes and the other team had their starter. The backup went a respectable 3-5 and was only outscored by 2.5 PPG. My bottom line: don’t let the Cowboys fan in your life use Cooper Rush as a crutch.
The one Rush stat that I didn’t include above is likely the most important: in his five starts, the Cowboys have only managed 22 PPG. These five games were @Minnesota last year, Cincinnati, @NY Giants, Washington, and @LA Rams. The Vikings were dysfunctional last year, the Bengals, Giants and Commanders are all purely mediocre and I don’t think anyone has a lot of confidence in the Rams this season. There’s a better than average chance that none of those four teams make the playoffs, and certainly none of them have a defense like Philly does. None of those five environments will be anywhere close to as hostile as the Linc will be on Sunday night, either.
On the other side of the ball, the best chance for success is what we’ve been talking about all year; run the ball against the Cowboy’s talented but undersized front seven, and set up the pass through the run. Much has been made of the Dallas defense, but two counterpoints should be made: first, the Dallas run defense has been thoroughly average so far and should be susceptible to the Eagles rush attack, which is far better than anything the Cowboys have yet seen. Second, while Dallas has averaged 4.0 sacks per game this year so far, the opposing offensive lines that they’ve faced haven’t exactly been iron doors. Collectively, they’ve allowed 62 sacks in the games where they didn’t face Dallas, or 3.1/game. That’s nearly a sack per game WORSE than the league average of 2.3. Philadelphia’s offensive line has surrendered 2.2 sacks/game, an average that will drop once they get fully healthy. They will likely have all five starters available for Sunday night.
Add it up, and I think the Cowboy’s unexpected four game win streak ends on Sunday. I think the only shot for an upset would be for Philly to lose the turnover battle. I certainly look for the defense to be cleaned up substantially in terms of coverage and missed tackles (similarly to how they responded to their Detroit struggles the next week against Minnesota). I look for a close, defensive game that ends with an Eagles win. A score of 20-16 sounds reasonable.
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