When the Eagles travel to Texas to take on the Cowboys in Week 14, it will be a battle for first place in the NFC East. With the better overall record and a head-to-head win already on their side, Philadelphia is in the driver’s seat. A win against Dallas on Sunday would essentially seal the deal and banish the Cowboys to a fifth seed according to most projections.
For Dallas to keep pace, they need to win Sunday and also little help down the road since they trail in key tiebreakers. For the Cowboys, this game is extremely critical both for playoff seeding and for their psyche. They haven’t beaten a team of Philadelphia’s caliber this season and need an elite skin on the wall before they can be considered a truly legit contender.
How they perform in a few key matchups will likely dictate their fate on Sunday night. Luckily for everyone there are no shortages of great matchups between these two heavyweights this week.
A great case be made that Philadelphia TE Dallas Goedert will play a significant role on Sunday. He’s expected to return to the lineup for the first time since he broke his arm in the first Cowboys-Eagles meeting back in Week 9. To say he’s extra motivated to bully the Dallas defense is probably an understatement.
Philadelphia struggled at TE without him in recent weeks. He’s by far their best blocker and pass catcher of the bunch and instantly upgrades both phases of the game for the Eagles. But TE matchups are tough because rarely does one defender take on a TE all game. As such, there isn’t a true key matchup here since it will be a group effort against the tastefully named TE.
It will also likely be a chess match between A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith with Stephon Gilmore and DaRon Bland. Matching up Gilmore with Brown and Bland and Smith in Week 9 seemed to work in Dallas’ favor, but after watching Bland’s struggles against the big-bodied D.K. Metcalf last week, the Eagles will likely try to flip the script in Week 14 and force new matchups. It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out and who ultimately matches up against who.