Blogging The Boys
When the Dallas Cowboys travel to the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday, looking to spoil their Super Bowl championship banner night, they will also be looking to avoid their first three-game losing streak to the hated rivals since 2003-04. These teams have gone punch for punch in recent history beyond last year, with neither side winning more than four times in a row since the Cowboys did from 2017-2019. An Eagles win streak of at least four games in this series isn’t found until 2000-02 when they won six in a row. The Cowboys own the longest winning streak in rivalry history with 11 straight between 1967-72. Even more amazingly, just one of those wins by Dallas was by one score.
Through all of this history, the stage being set for the Cowboys and Eagles to renew a rivalry that features the two teams with the most division wins in Thursday’s week one season opener feels like the closest thing to a reset as possible for their 133rd all-time meeting. The Cowboys and Eagles first played on September 30th of 1960, and the Cowboys lead the all-time series 74 to 58.
The Eagles sweeping the season series a year ago was the first sweep by either team since 2021, when the Cowboys went a perfect 6-0 against the division. It was the Eagles’ first sweep since 2011, the first of three straight 8-8 seasons under Jason Garrett for the Cowboys.
When the Cowboys earned that sweep in 2021, only one win was a Dak Prescott vs. Jalen Hurts quarterback matchup. For the Eagles’ most recent sweep in 2024, it was Hurts against Cooper Rush in a week 10 win 34-6 in Arlington for the Eagles, and then Rush against Kenny Pickett in a battle of two teams going complete opposite directions in week 17 in the city of brotherly love. The Cowboys were going through the motions in their second to last game and eliminated from playoff contention, ending the season on two losses outside of the playoffs for the first time in four years. The Eagles’ 41-7 win ignited a new winning streak for them, one they rode all the way to a Super Bowl victory over the Chiefs.
One of these two teams not having their starting quarterback in the head-to-head matchups has become a theme of the rivalry as of late. Since Hurts became the Eagles’ starter in 2021, he has missed at least one game in all but one season. Also since 2021, Prescott has missed 15 games, the majority of which came last season after his season-ending injury in week nine. The 2022 week six game at the Eagles was the last of five straight Prescott missed that season, and also the only game backup quarterback Cooper Rush did not win.
Off of a stunning overtime loss in Jacksonville in week 15, Prescott and the Cowboys returned home to face an Eagles team without Hurts. Gardner Minshew surprisingly gave Dallas all they could handle in a...
