Blogging The Boys
On a night that was bookmarked for a celebration by the Philadelphia Eagles as last year’s Super Bowl champions, the Dallas Cowboys showed up to Lincoln Financial Field and pushed their division rival to the limit in a dramatic regular-season opener, but fell just short 24-20. The Brian Schottenheimer era begins with a loss that left a lot of encouraging things on the field, but nonetheless still a loss that sets the Cowboys back not only at 0-1 overall, but already tagged with a division loss. They will have a chance to level out both records in their home opener against the Giants next Sunday.
Schottenheimer wasn’t the only new play-caller in this game for the Cowboys, as defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus also becomes the third coordinator in three years. The former Cowboys linebacker coach’s first test was a challenging one, going up against Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley, A.J. Brown, and a quality Eagles offensive line.
Of course, the amount of attention the Cowboys received by trading away all-world pass rusher Micah Parsons just a week before this game was the main story for the Cowboys on defense. In a shocking plot twist that came out of absolutely nowhere though, the Eagles defense also became a unit having to adjust on the fly to not having their best player in this game. Following the opening kickoff, defensive tackle Jalen Carter, Philly’s best overall defender in the trenches and a beast against the run, was ejected with an unsportsman’s like conduct penalty for spitting on Dak Prescott. Yeah, that really happened in the very first game of this 2025 season.
With the Cowboys missing Parsons and the Eagles now without Carter, this game did not see it’s first non-scoring drive until the ninth possession of the night, well into the third quarter. It happened with the Cowboys threatening to score another red zone touchdown too, but a Miles Sanders lost fumble quickly ended that hope.
The game would go to a lightning delay right after the fumble recovery by the Eagles, giving both teams a chance to regroup yet again following halftime. The result coming out of the hour-plus delay was the screws being tightened even more defensively, with not a single point being scored the rest of the game. The last scoring play of a game that began with an opening drive Dallas touchdown came on Jake Elliot’s 58-yard field goal in the third quarter.
With the defenses having this much of a say down the stretch, it would be easy in recapping this Cowboys loss to chalk it up as yet another game where the Cowboys couldn’t stop the run, Eagles DC Vic Fangio got the best of yet another Cowboys offensive game plan, and Prescott did not have enough support around him to win a game that was right there for the taking for the league’s highest paid passer.
While some of these things did happen in the ebbs and flows of this game for Dallas, doing this...
