The Eagles’ attack will have to carry them the rest for the way.
If you’re going to have a weakness in the NFL today, it should be defense rather than attack. Both sides for the ball need to be fixed, but the defense might not be able to do it.
After getting whipped by the Cowboys 33–13, both teams’ plays gave fans and experts a lot of reasons to hit them.
Nick Sirianni’s offense scored six points with all eleven players healthy and was on the field the whole game.
Dallas’ defense made it easy for them to score 24 points by halftime. In the second half, they settled for field goals.
Each and every player on the field did a terrible job. Both groups embarrassed one another on national TV for the second week in a row.
The Eagles have four weeks left within the season, a 10-3 record, and four games that they can still win.
They should end the season with an absurdly good 14-3 record. There is no reason to lose against the Seahawks in Seattle. They have two games toward the Giants and one against Jonathan Gannon’s Cardinals.
The Eagles don’t have many playmakers in their back seven, besides what is meant to be a fierce pass rush.
However too much work and a rookie wall seem to have worn down this unit, leaving the defenders, safeties, and corners open every week.
This defense is made up of older, slower players who can’t tackle in space. It’s hard to see how defensive coordinator Sean Desai can make them play better without asking Josh Sweat, Haason Reddick, Jalen Carter, Fletcher Cox, Milton Williams, Brandon Graham, and Jordan Davis to do better in their own battles.
If the pass rush can hit the quarterback, the defense should be fine. The same goes for the run defense, which should be the best in the league once again.
If you like or dislike Desai’s bend-but-don’t-break defense (which I definitely don’t), mistakes made in the off-season seem to be coming back to haunt them, making it hard to make changes on the spot.
Once Nakobe Dean gets hurt, they can’t get him back. The team had high plans for him at linebacker going into the season.
The speed of Darius Slay as well as James Bradberry can’t be slowed down. It looks like both are moving a little more slowly than they did last year, and neither makes splash plays very often.
You can’t expect young players with little experience to suddenly close down the best teams in football, and you can’t expect veterans such as Kevin Bayard, Bradley Roby, as well as Shaq Leonard, who were all picked up in the middle of the season, to play like Pro Bowlers.
Since the Eagles’ defense isn’t sure what it’s doing, it’s clear that Jalen Hurts as well as the star-studded offense will have to lead the way if they want to go on a late-season run and get back on track as a Super Bowl favorite.
If the Eagles want to win this thing, they need to score 30 or more points every game.
With so many Pro Bowlers on the team and a head coach like Sirianni who is supposed to be offensively-minded, there is no reason why this healthy offense can’t put up a lot of points the rest of the way.
The NFL today is an offense-first game. The old saying “you win with defense” doesn’t really hold true today, but it’s still a good idea to have one. But the last few Super Bowl winners had defenses that weren’t very good.
Prescott lost the ball and scored Philadelphia’s only touchdown. The Eagles’ defense was worn down by the run game, and Prescott threw a further two touchdowns.
Dallas’ offense may not have been as well-tuned as it had been over the last month or so.
On top of that, rookie punter Brandon Aubrey kept making field goals, just like he has all year.
After those, he made four more, this time from 60, 59, 45, and 50 yards. With 30, he tied the team record for most straight makes.
For the third year in a row, the Cowboys have won 10 games or more. They have won five games in a row. Before this, they did it six years in a row, from 1991 to 1996.
This is their longest such run. It was during that time that the Cowboys won three Super Bowls. It’s possible that these cowboys just joined that conversation.
Prescott threw two more touchdowns, making it seven games in a row. He now ties Tony Romo to earn the longest streak in a single season in team history. Between 1965 and 1966, Don Meredith threw at least two touchdowns in 12 straight games.
But Prescott’s night wasn’t as smooth as he usually has them, even though he was accurate. As of Sunday, Prescott had successfully completed no less than 65.8% of his passes in the seven games before this one.
He made 58.1% of his passes (18 of 31) through three quarters. Prescott has only completed less than 62.5% of his passes three times this season.