Tag: Dallas Cowboys vs. Philadelphia Eagles

WATCH: Prescott, Cowboys start strong, take lead on TD toss to CeeDee Lamb

The Cowboys opened with the ball and marched downfield for the quick score to start Week 14 off.

The Dallas Cowboys knew the ask, and they started in the best way possible. Given the ball first in Week 14 after the Philadelphia Eagles won the toss, the offense had one directive; score. Using a variety of passes and runs that’s exactly what Dak Prescott and Mike McCarthy did.

Starting the game with a couple passes to halfback Tony Pollard, the run game got off to a strong start when WR Kavontae Turpin took a 3rd-and-1 end around for 22 yards. A few plays later, Prescott was completing his fourth pass in five attempts, finding a wide open CeeDee Lamb for the red-zone score.

Cowboys-Eagles inactives: Parsons will play, all hands on deck for SNF

The Cowboys and Eagles are a full-go for Sunday Night Football as Micah Parsons is active following a late illness designation.

No mere illness will stop Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons from taking the field on Sunday Night Football against the Eagles. Initial concern heightened when the Dallas defender was added to the injury report, but he’s active for the divisional affair.

With that settled, both teams are considered a full-go with the active rosters entirely present for Cowboys-Eagles. Running back Deuce Vaughn is inactive, so it’ll be the pair of Tony Pollard and Rico Dowdle leading the charge in the Dallas backfield.

It’s a clean report on the Philadelphia side, and both teams gave some key veterans rest during the week. Here’s the full list of inactives ahead of Cowboys-Eagles on at 7:20 p.m., televised on NBC.

Micah Parsons battling flu; Cowboys expect him to play vs Eagles

From @ToddBrock24f7: The two-time All-Pro was added to the injury report early Sunday, but the Cowboys don’t believe his playing time vs Philly will be affected.

Cue up the Michael Jordan memes and maybe get an IV bag ready, just in case. Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons has come down with an illness but is expected to play Sunday night when the division-leading Eagles pay a visit to AT&T Stadium.

The team added Parsons to their injury report just prior to the kickoff of Week 14’s early-afternoon slate. As per Ed Werder of ESPN, a virus has been working its way through the Cowboys locker room; it apparently hit quarterback Dak Prescott last week.

Parsons is dealing with flu-like symptoms, and although the Cowboys do not expect his playing time to be affected Sunday night, it will be a situation worth watching in what is expected to be a fiercely-contested matchup of longtime rivals.

Parsons is currently leading the Cowboys defense in sacks this season, with 11.5 through 12 games, and he is a viable candidate to win Defensive Player of the Year.

[affiliatewidget_smgtolocal]

The two-time All-Pro won’t be the only one suiting up for Dallas tonight in less-than-ideal physical condition; head coach Mike McCarthy had his appendix removed in emergency surgery on Wednesday but says he will handle all his usual sideline and play-calling duties for Sunday night’s NFC East showdown.

[lawrence-auto-related count=3]

[mm-video type=video id=01hh306xch5yg7t6x8my playlist_id=01eqbwens7sctqdrqg player_id=none image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01hh306xch5yg7t6x8my/01hh306xch5yg7t6x8my-a2e1474e95d8d1d3fe1423cda2f40c6e.jpg]

[lawrence-newsletter]

Cowboys-Eagles Week 14 gameday bible: Rooting guide, top prop bets, how to stream

Everything you need to full enjoy every part of Week 14, what to bet on, who to root for before SNF and every way to catch the game. | From @KDDrummondNFL

After 10 days off to heal nicks and bruises, and mentally focus on the coming stretch, it’s finally game day for the Dallas Cowboys. Winners of four straight, the Cowboys are now in the meaty part of their 2023 schedule. When first announced, the gauntlet was meant to have two equally challenging parts. Facing both New York teams, including the Giants twice, was supposed to mean three playoff teams on top of the San Francisco 49ers and the first matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles.

Major regression to the mean happened for Brian Daboll’s troops and a Week 1 injury to Aaron Rodgers turned those contests into laughers. The other five tough contests have arrived, with the Cowboys taking out the Seattle Seahawks in a tasty Week 13 appetizer. That was the tune up; Sunday night’s rematch against the Eagles is the one of the main courses to be followed by road trips to Buffalo and Miami before returning home for the upstart Detroit Lions.

And while all of the games matter in the grand scheme of things, they lose some steam if the Cowboys aren’t able to even the series and the season-long records with the Eagles. From the perspective of winning the division and chasing a bye, this is a must-win game for the Cowboys. But they’ll have to wait through a days worth of action where those games could have an impact on Dallas’ pursuit as well.

Here’s everything you need to know about how to cheer during those games, how to wager on the Cowboys-Eagles matchup and how to catch the action if you’re away from your TV screens.

Milestones: Several Cowboys have chance to move up franchise record books on Sunday

While all the focus is on getting the win, accomplishing these milestones will certainly move Dallas closer to that goal. | From @ArmyChiefW3

The only statistic that ultimately matters on Sunday is whether or not a number is added to the win column. That can’t happen until late on Sunday night, so while awaiting the seconds to tick off towards the Dallas Cowboys’ (9-3) colossal matchup with the Philadelphia Eagles (10-2), there are a few milestones that would ice a victory over the proverbial cake.

In the time the Cowboys have existed, they’ve had their fair share of legendary players who have dotted the team record books with marks some may have thought unimaginable to ever be broken. While Emmitt Smith’s rushing record is safe and secure, there are a few surprising achievements that could be surpassed in Week 14.

Here’s why Dak Prescott deserves MVP more than Jalen Hurts right now

0 to 100 has so many stops along the way… why choose an extreme? Jalen Hurts is a really good, young QB. Thus far this season, Dak Prescott has been appreciably better and the stats prove it. | From @KDDrummondNFL

MVP awards don’t go to Cowboys quarterbacks. They just don’t. Roger Staubach never won an MVP, in all of his campaigns that led Dallas to Super Bowl appearances, win or lose. He finished second in 1971 and had back-to-back fourth finishes in his final two seasons, 1978 and 1979. Troy Aikman captained three teams to Lombardis, but never took home the hardware, his best finish being fifth in 1993.

Tony Romo had one of the better seasons in recent years in 2014, leading the league in completion percentage, touchdown percentage, passer rating and QBR in a year Dallas tied for the league’s best record, but could only finish in third place as Aaron Rodgers took the trophy. Now, Dak Prescott is making his second go at the big award, as he is enjoying an exemplary campaign.

Ejected Eagles security man won’t be allowed on sidelines vs Cowboys

From @ToddBrock24f7: Dom DiSandro will not be allowed on the AT&T Stadium sideline following his physical altercation with a 49ers player last week.

Friday’s final injury report showed both the Cowboys and Eagles at nearly full strength heading into a Sunday night showdown that will help decide the NFC East.

But Philadelphia will nevertheless be a man down, at least as far as their usual sideline staff goes.

Dom DiSandro, the Eagles head of security who was involved last week in a confrontation that got physical with 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw, has been barred from Philadelphia’s sideline when the team visits AT&T Stadium in Week 14, per NFL insider Adam Schefter, citing sources.

DiSandro is being allowed to travel with the Eagles team and perform all of his other duties during their trip to Dallas, but he will not be allowed to be on the sideline during the game.

Greenlaw got into a shouting match with several Eagles players on their sideline after making a tackle that drew an unnecessary roughness penalty. DiSandro positioned himself among the players and tried to push Greenlaw away. Greenlaw’s hand then appeared to make contact with DiSandro’s face while making pointing gestures.

Greenlaw was disqualified from the game for the contact; DiSandro was booted from the Philadelphia sideline for “contributing to the escalation” of the argument.

The NFL sent a memo to all 32 teams this week with a reminder to “please ensure that all members of your game-day staff understand that their role does not extend to being involved with game day altercations and that they must refrain from such involvement.”

Greenlaw and DiSandro reportedly exchanged formal apologies through respective team channels, but the league is said to still be considering further discipline. Both men could face fines for their actions.

[affiliatewidget_smgtolocal]

The league was expected to take further action past even the game-day ejections and memo; there was some concern that teams could begin instigating such incidents intentionally, using a low-tier staffer to bait an opponent’s star player into an altercation in an effort to get that player disqualified.

“It won’t be [a strategy]. It can’t be, and that’s why they probably did make a big deal out of [it],” 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan said earlier in the week. “It can’t be a strategy. They’ll put an end to that, which I think they already have.”

Things were already sure to be plenty tense on both sidelines this Sunday night, as the longtime rivals square off for the 130th time and with the late-season division lead on the line. The absence of one Eagles staffer likely won’t completely prevent tempers from flaring at some point, but DiSandro’s presence after last week’s scuffle with a star player would only have made an ugly incident more likely.

[lawrence-auto-related count=3]

[mm-video type=video id=01hh306xcabtvmjv4z3q playlist_id=01eqbwens7sctqdrqg player_id=none image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01hh306xcabtvmjv4z3q/01hh306xcabtvmjv4z3q-9fbf3b3e8bd1b52916f1728328603c4b.jpg]

[lawrence-newsletter]

Reddick-Steele among 3 critical matchups that will determine Cowboys-Eagles victor

The Cowboys can expect a significantly better outcome against the Eagles in Week 14 if they win these three critical matchups. | From @ReidDHanson

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.

Cowboys fans looking for pro-Eagles bias in Week 14 ref are offside

From @ToddBrock24f7: The Eagles have never lost a game in which John Hussey was the head referee, but that’s not what the Cowboys should be worried about Sunday.

Thanks to the numerous measures the NFL has taken to maintain parity among its 32 teams, any one contest between any two teams generally comes down to a handful of details, a few key moments that typically steer the outcome one way or the other.

Any given Sunday, as they say.

But when the NFL released Week 14 assignments for its officiating crews, many Cowboys fans immediately sensed the universe somehow placing its thumb on the scale in favor of the Eagles, based solely on who will be wearing the white hat at AT&T Stadium come kickoff.

John Hussey, a veteran NFL official with 348 games under his belt and a head referee since 2015, will be leading the crew for Sunday night’s NFC East showdown.

A dive into his all-time record suggested- to some, anyway- that Hussey has some sort of nefarious allegiance to the Eagles.

True, the Eagles have never lost a game in which Hussey was the head referee. And yes, that is statistically anomalous, considering no other team in the NFL is either winless or undefeated with him leading the officiating crew.

But a +7 swing in Philly’s favor does not necessarily a closet Eagles fan make. The Titans, for example, are also +7 in Hussey-called games, having won nine and lost two. The Saints are 8-2. On the flip side, the Panthers are 1-6. The Raiders are just 1-7 with Hussey calling the fouls.

And all the rest of the teams, predictably, fall somewhere in the middle. (Dallas is 4-4 in games he’s called.) That’s not a conspiracy, that’s the law of averages.

In fact, if Cowboys Nation is looking for a reason to pay attention to officiating, the more telling stat may be that Hussey seems to lean toward the home squad. He’s thrown 68 flags on home teams this season, as opposed to 82 on the visitors. That ratio is well off the leaguewide numbers this season (1,148 home penalties versus 1,208).

And Hussey’s calls have skewed heavily toward the home team in other years, too: 72-to-89 last season, 86-to-120 in 2019, 89-to-104 in 2018.

But then again, in 2021 and 2020, his home and away flags were almost equal- a difference of one single penalty in back-to-back years.

You can drive yourself crazy looking for some pattern that tells you how Hussey (or any official) will call his next game, but the most logical answer is that there’s just no there there. Plain and simple, Hussey isn’t secretly making sure that the Eagles (or anyone else) win the one or two games a year in which he’s on the field with them.

And even though Cowboys fans can recall several games in recent memory that were inundated with flags from overzealous crews or perhaps even tainted with questionable calls, Sunday’s clash isn’t already somehow decided because of who drew the referee whistle.

What may be worth looking at, though- especially for the Cowboys, the second-most penalized team in the NFL- is which penalties Hussey’s current crew tends to call more often than other crews.

Hussey’s squad leads the league in thrown flags per game (16.18) as well as accepted penalties per game (13.64) over 11 contests. And just as with most other crews, false start, offensive holding, and defensive pass interference are among his most-called infractions. As expected.

But Hussey does stand out in a few penalty categories. He’s tied for the league lead in defensive offside flags, something Dallas defenders seem to have trouble with every week. The Cowboys have been called for it 14 times this season; six more than the next closest team.

He’s also tied for the lead in face mask calls. Dallas is tied for the league lead in that infraction, too, with five so far in 2023.

Hussey has thrown more intentional grounding calls than any ref, and he’s one of two officials who’s called unsportsmanlike conduct a surprising five times this season. That penalty has been assessed just 21 times across all games for the whole league; Hussey’s crew threw the flag on nearly a quarter of them. And while the Cowboys haven’t committed either penalty yet this season, it’s worth remembering that this crew is particularly quick to call both.

[affiliatewidget_smgtolocal]

Leave it to second-year Cowboys offensive lineman Tyler Smith to ultimately be the voice of reason for the team.

“Discipline is always at a premium,” Smith said this week at The Star. “That’s every week. That’s something Coach McCarthy harps on week in and week out, just being disciplined. I feel like a lot of these tight games are won in the details- not only in between the snaps but before the snap as well. So just being disciplined with our keys, disciplined with our technique, disciplined with our emotions as well is going to be a huge one.”

Indeed. Just like Dallas’s approach to stopping Philadelphia’s tush push is to not get into 4th-and-short situations, the easiest way to make sure the stripes don’t decide the game is by making sure they keep their hankies in their pockets to begin with.

No matter who the head ref is.

[lawrence-auto-related count=3]

[mm-video type=video id=01hh306xcabtvmjv4z3q playlist_id=01eqbwens7sctqdrqg player_id=none image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01hh306xcabtvmjv4z3q/01hh306xcabtvmjv4z3q-9fbf3b3e8bd1b52916f1728328603c4b.jpg]

[lawrence-newsletter]

This might be Cowboys’ key to avoiding another Terence Steele fiasco vs Eagles

In the Cowboys last matchup against the Eagles Terence Steele was abysmal but there’s reason to believe that will not happen again in Week 14, says @ReidDHanson.

In the Cowboys first matchup with the Eagles, Terence Steele had a performance for the ages, and not in a good way. Dallas’ cornerstone RT had arguably the worst game of his young career, giving up four sacks, one hit, seven hurries and 12 pressures to the Philadelphia pass rush.

He offered less resistance than the 1940 French army and routinely opened Dak Prescott to punishment inside the pocket. On a scale of 0-100, Pro Football Focus awarded his pass protecting efforts a grade of 15 for the day. His protection score out of true pass sets was an almost unfathomably low 6.3, challenging the infamous Chaz Green game of 2017.

In a game that was literally determined by inches, Steele made no excuses.

“It’s really just came down to me, my fundamentals,” Steele said after the game. “Just staying true to it. I got a little sloppy there at the end.”

The noise of no one arguing with his self-critique was deafening. It was Dallas’ biggest game of the season and one they were in prime position to win in the final minute. While a handful of plays, penalties, and bad bounces all shared fault, Steele took the lion’s share of blame from fans.