The Eagles just killed the Cowboys season, and it was beautiful.
The Philadelphia Eagles walked into Dallas, slaughtered the Cowboys, and walked out before the game was over. It was the Birds’ first time winning in that stadium since 2017, and it was just about as cathartic of an experience as you could imagine.
When a win is that dominant, it’s easy to find winners and it’s tough to find losers. That’s totally because as fans, we’re flying right now. Let’s keep that high going going into a short week.
The Eagles put together another phenomenal game on defense
The Eagles are thriving under the Fangio defensive scheme, to a point where you could argue that the defense is more fun to watch than the offense. That defense showed up BIG TIME in Dallas.
Ultimate Winner: Taking the ball away
Going into the Cowboys game, the Eagles’ defense had forced only seven turnovers. In this game, the Eagles’ defense had a whopping five turnovers. It was incredible. Milton Williams, Zack Baun, Reed Blankenship, and Cooper DeJean all recovered a fumble, and C.J. Gardner-Johnson got an interception.
This game puts the Eagles at plus-1 in turnover differential, which is crazy knowing where they were at the beginning of the season. Through the first four games, they were minus-6 with eight giveaways and only two takeaways. Both of those takeaways were Reed Blankenship interceptions.
Football is so much more fun when the defense can flip the game and that’s all that’s been happening since the bye week.
Finally a loser: Ezekiel Elliott
With 3:04 left in the second quarter, the Cowboys had the ball on the Eagles’ six-yard line. Cooper Rush handed the ball to Zeke, and there was this sinking feeling in your stomach where you said to yourself, ‘Oh, this again? We’ve seen this for the past eight years. He’s going to get a touchdown here. That’s what happens. That’s what ALWAYS happens with this guy.’
Zack Baun said, ‘I’m new here. Who the hell is that guy?’ as he came up and blasted Zeke, forcing a fumble in the end zone. He has no history with Zeke and he doesn’t care what Zeke has done to Eagles fans. He saw a washed-up running back and snatched his soul.
A forced fumble by a linebacker is great. If you can get one of those in a game, you’re happy. Fortunately, Baun forced another one after that.
Baun is a top-three linebacker in the NFL, and he’s not number three. This is his first season as a linebacker and it is one of the most fun things to watch. He’s so awesome and so wholesome.
But yeah … Ding dong, the witch is dead. Baun ended the almost decade long nightmare of Ezekiel Elliott and he did it with some pizzazz. He rocks.
Galactic Winner: The Sun
11 percent to 35 percent of the population suffers from the Photic Sneeze Reflex. That’s when you sneeze from walking from a dark place into the sunlight. At some point, we’ll see someone sneeze while trying to catch a ball at AT&T Stadium, but until then we’ll just have to watch players get absolutely blinded by the setting sun.
That stadium actually has curtains, but you would never know it. Jerry Jones closes those curtains for every event other than Cowboys games. Typically, the sunlight only negatively affects the Cowboys, which is, has been, and will continue to be, utterly dumbfounding and hilarious.
Unfortunately, that light clearly affected Jalen Hurts in the second quarter. He was standing in a beam of light focused directly in the backfield and taking way too long to make decisions. He ultimately paid for it when Micah Parsons strip-sacked him. Fortunately (and deliciously), immediately after that, the Cowboys got a turn to melt their retinas.
It was one of the Cowboys’ two chances to make it into the endzone, and Cooper Rush threw a ball at CeeDee Lamb who couldn’t bring it in because his visor isn’t made of eclipse glasses.
The point is, there’s a reason behind Jalen’s bad second quarter, and that reason is a flaming ball of glass that’s 92 million miles away and a millionaire who loves natural light on a football field.
Revenge Game Winner: Kellen Moore
Kellen Moore was with the Dallas Cowboys for eight straight years. He was their backup quarterback from 2015 to 2017, their quarterbacks coach in 2018, and then their offensive coordinator from 2019 to 2022.
He had a shot at a revenge game win in 2023 when he was the Los Angeles Chargers offensive coordinator, but he lost 20-17 when Justin Herbert threw a game-sealing interception.
This time he came back and put his former team into the grave. It’s just really really nice when your guy is on the winning side of a revenge game, especially when he gets to thoroughly outcoach, outclass, and embarrass his ex.
Loser: Memories
Remember Week 1, when it seemed like the Brotherly Shove wouldn’t work this season? Remember last week when the Jaguars stopped the Brotherly Shove? Well, turns out that’s not because the field in Week 1 was terrible and the Jags just had a good plan.
If you were wondering how dominant that play is, Kenny Pickett converted a Brotherly shove, and he did it behind an offensive line that was 80 percent backups. He did it behind Fred Johnson, Tyler Steen, Nick Gates, Mekhi Becton, and Jack Driscoll. It’s disgusting at this point.
The second most insulting way to win a game against a rival is to have your backup quarterback in at the end of the game. The most insulting way to win a game against a rival is to have that same backup quarterback sucessfully run a play that the starting quarterback is known for to run the clock out.
Also, do you remember back in Week 4 when the Buccaneers put the Eagles’ defense on a spit and slow-roasted them for 445 yards and four touchdowns? Well, it’s been five games since then, and the Eagles’ defense has only given up four touchdowns. This defense has not just turned a corner, but they’ve done some Inception-type thing where they flipped the world over and turned it into a spiral. Don’t look now, but this defense has become the strength of the team.
Short Week Winner: The Eagles
It’s always great when the starters get to sit, and it’s even better when it’s for the entirety of the fourth quarter. In this game, it was sweet for two reasons: it was incredibly insulting to Jerry Jones and his lackeys, but also the Eagles have to turn around and play the Washington Commanders on Thursday night.
The Commanders didn’t have the same luxury. Their game wasn’t over until the Steelers started kneeling the ball with a minute left. That was also a game with an absurd number of plays without going into overtime: Washington’s defense was on the field for 75 plays and their offense was on the field for 59.
Compare that to the Eagles: (not including the fourth quarter) the defense was on the field for fewer than 55 plays and the offense was on the field for fewer than 45. Rest-wise and workload-wise, the Eagles have a pretty significant advantage.
It’ll be fun to see this team have a meaningful game against a team that’s not completely worthless, sad, broken, beaten, and tattered like the Cowboys. Luckily we only have to wait four days for it.