Bleeding Green Nation
Previewing Philadelphia’s NFC East matchup against Dallas.
The Philadelphia Eagles are headed down to Dallas to try to beat the Cowboys in AT&T Stadium for the first time since 2017.
In order to preview this Week 10 NFC East battle, I reached out to our enemies over at Blogging The Boys. The dapper Dave Halprin kindly kindly took the time to answer my questions about this upcoming tilt. Let’s take a look at the answers. [For my answers about the Eagles, stay tuned to BTB.]
The Cowboys will almost certainly start Cooper Rush this week. Jerry Jones is pretending the season can be saved, see the unwise trade for WR Jonathan Mingo as evidence. The Cowboys are 3-5 so they don’t have a horrible record, but their underlying issues combined with not having Dak Prescott should certainly signal that the playoffs have basically slipped out of reach. But expect the Cowboys to give it the ol’ college try for the next week or two and Cooper Rush will lead that charge. What they should do is, at minimum, give Trey Lance a few series along the way with a package tailored to his skill set and see what happens. Starting him would also be an option and they should be doing that before long. For now, expect Rush, possibly exclusively this week as the front office tries to pretend they are saving the season. I think my confidence level in anything associated with the Cowboys right now can be gleaned from the fact I think the season is cooked.
The first reason you have to point to is the injuries. Their top four defensive ends, Micah Parsons, DeMarcus Lawrence, Marshawn Kneeland and Sam Williams have either missed some or all of the season. We are down to the bottom of the depth chart at defensive end. Thus, no pass rush. Combine that with a very weak interior defensive tackle position and you have a front four that gets bullied. The Cowboys have also been missing CB DaRon Bland all year, and his replacement, rookie Caelen Carson, has been injured and had his own struggles when healthy. The safety duo of Donovan Wilson and Malik Hooker has gotten exposed in the passing game. Top that off with a new defensive scheme under Mike Zimmer that has been known to take a while to master, and you have a defense that is a shell of what it was for the past few seasons under Dan Quinn. They can’t stop the run and they don’t get a lot of turnovers or sacks.
*They...
