Every team that’s faced the Eagles this season has had their own tactic to defending the “tush push.” Some have tried to go up over the top of the Philadelphia linemen, some have attempted to dive underneath to the bottom of the pile for leverage, some have sent a defender shooting around the scrum in hopes of pulling Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts from behind before he can squeeze past the line to gain.
But Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn maintains that a more effective strategy would be to not let the Philly offense get into a fourth-and-short-yardage scenario to begin with.
“I wouldn’t say it’s the only way,” Quinn said this week at The Star, “but it is one thousand percent the best way.”
Delivering Wednesday’s pre-practice press conference in place of Mike McCarthy as the head coach dealt with an emergency appendectomy, Quinn acknowledged that his unit didn’t fare too well against the Eagles on late downs when the rival clubs met in Week 9.
Philadelphia converted seven of their 14 third-down attempts and both fourth-downs that they tried in their 28-23 win.
Quinn believes his troops will have to do much better than that to knock off the division leaders in this critical Week 14 rematch, but he knows it won’t be easy.
“One of the things Philadelphia does really well, amongst many,” he offered, “is third downs.”
The Eagles are currently moving the sticks on 47.85% of their third downs, a mark that places them third in the league.
Dallas’s defense, on the other hand, is coming off a couple games in which their third-down success rate was less than stellar. The Seahawks went 9-of-14 on third-down tries in Week 13. Washington converted nearly 50%, 7-of-15, on Thanksgiving Day.
Prior to those two games- both of which were tightly-contested affairs going into the fourth quarter- whenever the Cowboys defense allowed its opponent to convert third downs at a rate of .500 or better? The team’s three losses.
“To me, that’s where some of the secret sauce in this game is going to live,” predicted Quinn of this Sunday’s showdown, “because some of their third downs can turn into fourth downs where they go [for it].”
And when they do go for it, tush push or otherwise, the Eagles are converting at a 73.68% rate.
“That’s one of the games within the game, to say on our third and fourth downs, that’s a really big deal,” Quinn told reporters. “We’ve got to go make those stops in that space.”
When looking at the season as a whole, the Cowboys have actually done that reasonably well. Over 13 full games played this season, Dallas’s opponents have converted just 36.94% of their third downs (10th-best) and 48.15% of fourth-down tries (14th-best).
Holding Philadelphia to those levels or below would ostensibly go a long way toward a Cowboys win on Sunday night.
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