December 11, 2023
Tim Heitman/USA TODAY Sports
Yep, that about sums up the Eagles' night against the Cowboys.
For the second straight week, the Philadelphia Eagles played an uncompetitive game and lost by three scores. Worse, those losses were to a new rival in the San Francisco 49ers and a longtime hated rival in the Dallas Cowboys. As always, win, lose, or tie, we hand out 10 awards.
42-19 Week 13 against the 49ers. 33-13 Week 14 against the Cowboys. Oof. Those scores just look really ugly to look at. In Weeks 13 and 14 a year ago, the Eagles won games 35-10 and 48-22. They were playing their best football in December, which is what great teams do.
This year, it's fair to point out that the Eagles are playing much better teams, but they are decidedly not playing their best football.
"It's late in the year," James Bradberry noted. "You want to be playing your best football around this time, and we're not doing that."
Not including a kneeldown drive to close out the Eagles' loss to the 49ers last week, the Eagles allowed touchdowns on seven consecutive drives, and scores on 10 straight drives.
That would be 710 yards and 66 points on 90 plays during which the Eagles' defense was little more than a speed bump in their two biggest games of the season.
Haason Reddick had a couple of sacks and Fletcher Cox had a strip sack that Jalen Carter returned for a touchdown, and yet, the Eagles' defensive line did not have a good game overall. Dak Prescott mostly had plenty of time to throw, and the Eagles' once great run defense hasn't been the same of late.
If the defensive line doesn't play well, it simply has not been able to count on the back seven to make plays and bail them out.
Part of the plan defensively was to make the gameplan simpler for this matchup.
"It was simple, for sure," Darius Slay said. "When you make it simple you can play faster. Simple communication, in and out, line up and play ball."
That's fine and good, except that Slay will turn 33 in January. James Bradberry and Kevin Byard both turned 30 in August. Bradley Roby turned 31 in May. Those four guys have 37 years of NFL experience under their collective belts. The Eagles have some young guys in their secondary otherwise and Byard/Roby were added to the roster in-season, but it feels like a team with that level of veteran experience shouldn't need a simplified gameplan.
For as bad as the defense was, they scored more points than the offense.
The Eagles' offense moved the ball at times, but for the second week in a row they could not close when they got into striking distance of the end zone. They got inside the Cowboys' 35 yard line five times and all they had to show for it was a couple of field goals. 6 points.
Jalen Hurts had a game against the Giants in 2021 during which he completed 14 of 31 passes for 129 yards, 0 TDs, and 3 INTs, and the offense managed to score more points in that game than they did Sunday night against the Cowboys.
Of course, the Eagles' inability to put points on the board was a result of fumbles by their three best offensive weapons. Hurts fumbled on the Eagles' promising opening drive.
Donovan Wilson forces the fumble and the @DallasCowboys' offense will go back on the field
— NFL (@NFL) December 11, 2023
📺: #PHIvsDAL on NBC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/YCEDNi5Ozb pic.twitter.com/wRPOE2ojdZ
Next up was A.J. Brown:
Stephon Gilmore forces the fumble and everything is coming up Cowboys 🤠
— NFL (@NFL) December 11, 2023
📺: #PHIvsDAL on NBC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/YCEDNi5Ozb pic.twitter.com/SYbYs0NjKL
And finally, DeVonta Smith:
ASSIM NÃO DEVONTA SMITH! FUMBLE DE NOVO!#PHIvsDAL ao vivo na @ESPNBrasil pic.twitter.com/bBzXWs74sS
— NFL Brasil (@NFLBrasil) December 11, 2023
"Gotta take care of the ball," a succinct Smith said.
If you'll recall, in the Eagles win over the Cowboys Week 9, they fumbled three times and were lucky to recover all three. Their luck ran out.
Hurts struggled to see the field well last Sunday against the 49ers. It felt like he was better at getting the ball to the right spots against the Cowboys, but he also may have missed some opportunities. There was one play, for example, in which he appeared to have Brown running open down the field on a post route and if he saw it, it might have been a big play. Instead he threw incomplete to a well-covered Smith. As always, the tape will tell a more complete story.
Hurts also took ownership of a deep throw to Smith on the run in the corner of the end zone. Whether it was a ball Smith should have caught or it was "off by inches" as Hurts claimed, the theme of the Eagles' offense not hitting on as many explosive plays recently continued.
More than a few Eagles fans bemoaned the Eagles' lack of a run game against the 49ers, even though (a) the run was completely ineffective in the first half of that game, and (b) the game script got out of hand in the second half so it didn't make any sense to run the ball while down three scores.
Well, at one point deep into the third quarter against the Cowboys, despite trailing all game the Eagles had run 32 plays — 16 runs and 16 passes.
Again, they scored zero offensive touchdowns.
The Eagles hit on a fake punt and Jake Elliott made another 50-plus yard field goal. Remember when the special teams units stunk but the offense and defense were good? Ah, memories.
If the season ended today (it doesn't), the 49ers would be the 1 seed, the Cowboys would be the 2 seed, and the Eagles would be the 5 seed. The Eagles do control their own fate in the NFC East, as in, if they win out they will win the division. But if they continue to play the way that they have the last two games, they will not beat the Seahawks in Seattle next Monday night, and they may very well drop a game during the super-easy Giants-Cardinals-Giants stretch to close the season.
In the hierarchy of the NFC, there's no question that the 49ers and Cowboys are much better football teams right now. I'd probably hold off booking a trip to Vegas in February, for now.
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