October 31, 2020
For the second straight week, the Eagles are set to host a division rival for a primetime game with first place in the NFC East on the line. And, for the second week in a row, the Eagles will enter the game as the favorite — this time as a massive 11-point favorite following news that third-string quarterback Ben DiNucci will be getting the start with Dak Prescott and Andy Dalton sidelined.
And while the Eagles haven't been great against the spread this season (2-5), the Cowboys have yet to cover a single spread this season, meaning Sunday night's matchup at the Linc could be a blowout. At the very least, Philly should come away with a win, if you believe the picks we rounded up from close to 85 experts from around the nation, every single one of whom picked the Birds to take care of business in Week 8.
Some of that has to do with Cowboys' QB situation, for sure. But the problems in Dallas are deeper than that — there's trouble in the locker room, the team appears to be in sell mode ahead of this week's NFL trade deadline, and all the signs coming out of Texas seem to paint a team that's looking to pack it up for 2020 and turn their focus to next season, even though a win on Sunday would put them right back in the driver's seat in the NFC East. Meanwhile, the Eagles, despite placing four more players on IR earlier this week, are actually getting healthier at just the right time, and will be welcoming back several players, including Jalen Reagor, Dallas Goedert and Jason Peters on offense, T.J Edwards on defense, and Rudy Ford on special teams.
The division suddenly feels like it's the Eagles' to lose, which is a funny thing to say about a team with a 2-4-1 record. And in pretty much every other year it would be laughable. But not in 2020. And not in this NFC East. With a win against Dallas, the Birds could put even more distance between themselves and the rest of the division entering the midway point of the season — not to mention a much-needed bye week and a chance to get even healthier.
We've given you some matchups to watch, broken down the injuries, and offered up our own predictions. Now, as we do every week, let's give you some numbers we'll be keeping an eye on in the form of our five over/unders...
[A quick reminder for those new to our over/unders: Unless it's explicitly stated, these are my own over/unders based on how I think the players/teams will perform on Sunday — and the advice that follows is where I would put my money if I had to. They are not all actual numbers you can bet on, but we'll let you know when they are.]
That's the current consensus total over at TheLines.com, and it's actually dipped a bit throughout the week, likely because the Cowboys' aforementioned quarterback situation. And whether or not this game is capable of hitting the over largely depends on the Dallas offense. The Eagles are going to score their fair share of points in this one, as the Cowboys defense is atrocious and there's no reason to think they'll suddenly turn into the 1985 Bears — or even a serviceable NFL defense — on Sunday night. The Birds have scored at least 22 points in five straight games, and their offense has looked better in recent weeks following a rough start to the season. On top of that, Carson Wentz will be getting back two talented weapons in Reagor and Goedert and the offensive line could be getting some bodies back as well. Sure, they're still without starting running back Miles Sanders and tight end Zach Ertz, but this version of the Eagles offense should be enough to handle its job getting this one to the over.
The question then becomes the Cowboys offense. There's certainly a possible scenario in which the Eagles defense just absolutely shuts down Dallas and makes DiNucci look like the seventh-round pick that he is. But there's also the flip side of that coin, where Jim Schwartz' unit comes out over-confident and DiNucci does just enough to put weapons like Ezekiel Elliott, Amari Cooper, CeeDee Lamb and Michael Gallup in positions to take advantage of Eagles defenders. We've seen the holes on the back end, and especially in the middle of this defense, and they'll need their strength up front to make sure they put enough pressure on DiNucci to keep him off-balance all night. If not, he has the weapons to put up some points, and the Birds defense might just be willing to acquiesce.
While I think the Eagles offense scores enough to make this a comfortable win, I don't quite trust this defense to totally shut down the Cowboys, at least not enough to keep this from hitting the over (my final score prediction is 33-20).
OVER.
The Eagles first-round pick hasn't played since Week 2, when he suffered a UCL tear against the Rams. In the weeks that have followed, the Eagles have also lost DeSean Jackson (and then got him back and then lost him again), and Alshon Jeffery remains sidelined, meaning Reagor should see a decent amount of targets in this one as he and Wentz were seeming starting to get some decent chemistry before Reagor's rookies season was put on pause. But in that time, the Eagles also saw the emergence of a new wide receiver in whom Wentz also seems to have a lot of trust: Travis Fulgham.
All Eagles fans should be excited by the prospect of watching these two on the field together, as the pair could wind up lined up on the outside for Wentz for years to come if both continue to develop the way they have so far in their young careers. But for this exercise, the question is how many targets a guy like Fulgham — or even John Hightower, who has proven to be an explosive weapon for the Birds in recent weeks — will take away from Reagor.
We're working off a small sample size for Reagor, given that he's only played in two games and was targeted four times in each. And the Eagles used him very differently in each game. In the opener, Reagor was used almost exclusively as a down-field threat, and caught just one pass, albeit a 55-yard touchdown. In Week 2, Reagor caught all four of his targets, but averaged just over 10 yards per catch. And that pretty much tells us all we need to know for this one.
Reagor doesn't need a lot of targets or even receptions to make a big impact on offense. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say he surpasses this number with one catch. He'll have more than one, but he'll have at least one reception of 55 yards. He's got some lost time to make up for ... and this Cowboys defense is awful.
OVER.
In his two full games before getting hurt, Goedert was seeing plenty of targets — seventeen through the first two weeks, to be exact. And that was with fellow tight end Zach Ertz on the field. Now, Goedert returns with Ertz sidelined, and all signs point to the 25-year-old tight end being heavily involved in the offense.
That being said, this is a quick return from Goedert, who fractured his ankle against the Bengals in Week 3 and it's hard to imagine that he's up to 100% — even if that only means conditioning — so it wouldn't be surprising to see Goedert on somewhat of a pitch count. The Eagles really like rolling out two-TE sets, but could opt to go more four-wide at WR in this one with Reagor back in the fold. They also might want to just preserve Goedert's health, especially with a bye week on the horizon. And if the Eagles are able to take a big lead, they would be wise to take him out of the game entirely.
Goedert might only finish with four or five receptions in this one, but I do think he finds the end zone.
UNDER.
In past seasons, this number would've been much higher, especially with the Cowboys on their third quarterback. But Elliott has been having a down season, continuing a trend that's persisted pretty much since his rookie season, and this is actually above his 2020 per-game average.
| RUSH YPA | RUSH Y/G | REC YPC | REC Y/G | |
| 2016 | 5.1 | 108.7 | 11.3 | 24.2 |
| 2017 | 4.1 | 98.3 | 10.3 | 26.9 |
| 2018 | 4.7 | 95.6 | 7.4 | 37.8 |
| 2019 | 4.5 | 84.8 | 7.8 | 26.3 |
| 2020 | 4.2 | 61.3 | 6.9 | 26.6 |
More concerning, perhaps, is that Elliott is already one fumble away from matching his career high for a season (6) and has lost four of his five fumbles so far this season.
With DiNucci at quarterback, the Eagles defense should be able to key on Elliott and make sure he doesn't beat them on his own, but it's worth wondering if Elliott is even capable of beating a team on his own anymore. After getting overworked at Ohio State, the Cowboys picked up right where the Buckeyes left off and just hammered Elliott over and over again early in his career, and it seems like all those carries are finally starting to catch up with the 25-year-old rusher.
And it's probably a good thing the Eagles defense will be able to key on Elliott, as they've struggled more this year against the run than they have in quite some time. Typically one of the top run-stopping teams in the NFL, the Eagles are 17th in YPA allowed, 24th in total rush yards allowed and 30th in rush TDs allowed. They'll need to make sure they do better against the Cowboys, or an easy win could become much tougher on Sunday night.
UNDER.
I've been pretty terrible with my turnover predictions this year, but last week I actually hit the nail on the head with a slightly more specific over/under pick of Daniel Jones over 1.5 turnovers. He threw an interception and lost a fumble in the Eagles victory, moving the Birds to 2-0 this season in games in which they've won the turnover battle. Not so coincidentally, those are also their only two victories this year. And since the Eagles have turned the ball over at least once in each of their seven games this season, they'll likely need at least a pair to win the turnover battle on Sunday night.
We've already talked about Elliott's fumbling issues this season, and when you couple that with DiNucci making his first NFL start, it's not hard to envision the Eagles defense forcing multiple turnovers in this one. Could this finally be the game Darius Slay gets his first takeaway?
OVER.
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