FRISCO, Texas – The Cowboys head into their final two games of the 2024 season facing division opponents starting with the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday. Some key contributors are out for both teams, but pride is still on the line is this always entertaining rivalry. Can the Cowboys avenge their 34-6 loss from Week 10? This week's "Here We Goooo" deep dive into the numbers outlines some ways they can do just that:
1. Rush must be a zone beater
Cooper Rush claimed after Dallas' win over Carolina two weeks ago that he was playing some of the best football of his career, and the support from his coaching staff as well as results on the field back it up. On Sunday, he'll need to take another step in his development and improvement for the Cowboys to move to 8-8.
That next step is improving against zone coverage. Vic Fangio's defense plays it at one of the highest rates in the NFL, and Rush has struggled against it this season, completing 132 of his 207 attempts for 1,089 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. His 5.3 yards per attempt against zone is the fewest in the NFL. A deeper look shows his completion rate over expected is at -7.2%, his expected points added is -35.5 and has just a 41.8% success rate against zone.
The Eagles on the other hand have allowed eight touchdowns and four interceptions, getting home to the quarterback 30 times for a sack as well. They only give up 6.4 yards per attempt and 3.4 yards per completion while in zone coverage, a staple of a Fangio defense.
It'll be on Rush to get the ball to the right spots and potentially take advantage of a secondary that has some young, but talented pieces like Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean and Reed Blankenship. The added difficulty to that task comes with not having CeeDee Lamb on the field, and now it's on the Cowboys young core of receivers to find their spots in zone and become available for Rush to fit his throws in.
The positive wrinkle in this for Dallas is that Rush is playing some of his best football over the course of the last three weeks, especially when it comes to moving the ball downfield. In those three games, he's 17/27 on throws with 10 or more air yards for 328 yards and six touchdowns with no interceptions. In the first matchup against the Eagles this season, Rush didn't complete a pass over 10 air yards the whole game.
If he can do that against a defense that has nine of their 10 interceptions on downfield throws, the Cowboys offense will give them a chance to be in this game.
2. Regardless of the quarterback, get home
A big question looming over this game is who will start at quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles, after Jalen Hurts suffered a concussion in last week's game against the Washington Commanders. Kenny Pickett replaced him, but is dealing with a rib injury of his own.
The Eagles officially announced Friday afternoon that Pickett would get the start as Hurts continues to go through concussion protocol, but regardless the formula for Dallas' defense remains the same: Generate pressure.
It seems almost redundant to mention it at this point, but this defense is going to have to step up in a big way in order to win this game. Micah Parsons is the key to all of it, as the Cowboys lead the league in turnovers (15) and sacks (28) since his return in Week 10. Additionally, the defense has generated a 32.3% pressure rate (10th in the NFL) when sending four or less pass rushers in that same timespan.
Here's the telling stat of it all: They've added +127.2% in win probability off of their 28 sacks since Week 10, the most in the NFL. It's no coincidence they've gone 4-3 since then.
And Parsons isn't the only impactful pass rusher the Cowboys have up front, as Osa Odighizuwa's 48 pressures puts him in the top four in total pressures amongst defensive ends. When on the field together, they've generated at least four pressures in six of the seven games they've played since Week 10 and combined for 12 sacks in those games too.
In Philadelphia's loss on Sunday to the Commanders, Pickett was blitzed on 53.3% of his dropbacks, the most he's faced in his entire career. Against the blitz, he completed seven of 13 passes for 94 yards, being pressured 10 times and sacked three times. Mike Zimmer is creative in how he uses his blitz packages, and effective too, with their 20 sacks on blitzes being the fourth best in the NFL.
3. Find a way to limit Saquon again
In their first meeting this season, the Cowboys defense limited Saquon Barkley to 66 yards on 14 carries, his third lowest output of the season. Since then, he's gone over 100 yards on the ground in five of the Eagles' last six games.
The numbers show that Barkley gets better as the game goes on, as he's rushed for 1,118 yards in the second half of games this season, the most since 2018. That said, the last two weeks he's only gained 61 yards on the ground on 28 carries, the two lowest second half totals of the year for Barkley.
With Dallas' defense playing some of their best run defense of the year in recent weeks, it would be huge for it to carry over in this game. In fact, they haven't given up 100 yards to a running back since Joe Mixon gained 109 yards on the ground in the Cowboys' Week 11 loss to the Texans.
Barkley is chasing Eric Dickerson's single-season rushing record of 2,105 yards in the next two games, needing 267 to break that record. Not only are the Cowboys looking to play spoiler for the Eagles' playoff seeding, but they'll also be looking to make it difficult for Barkley to break that record even with a potential uptick in carries with a backup quarterback slated to start.
