ARLINGTON, Texas – Woulda.
Coulda.
Shoulda.
And the Cowboys didn't … do … diddly.
Sign of a team that just might not be good enough as is after these first nine games of the season, as painful as that might be to face.
And on this Sunday here at AT&T Stadium, with far too many of the 93,644 folks on hand in Eagles green, the sad part of Eagles 34, Cowboys 6 – Philadelphia's fifth consecutive win, now 7-2 and in first place in the NFC East, and Dallas' fourth consecutive loss, now 3-6 – is that even with the Cowboys playing without Dak Prescott, seemingly likely for the rest of the season, a fact that would hamstrung any team, even with veteran backup Cooper Rush starting in his place, even with Micah Parsons playing in his first game in six weeks, these Cowboys had a chance, a real chance of turning the NFC East upside down.
Why, with 1:48 left in the first half, the Cowboys trailed these Eagles but 7-6, and the Eagles' seven was giftwrapped by Rush's inability to handle a shotgun snap on the team's second possession. The Eagles recovered the fumble at the Cowboys' 17-yard line and just four plays later it was 7-naught.
Nevertheless, the Cowboys defense was ballin,' playing the best football we've seen these short-handed guys play in quite some time. The Eagles, with the NFL's sixth-ranked offense and the league's second-ranked runner, Saquon Barkley, weren't doing squat. After the Cowboys cut Philly's lead to 7-3, this defense stopped them in consecutive possessions, thanks to a Trevon Diggs end-zone interception and a forced punt after consecutive sacks by Parsons and DeMarvion Overshown.
And here came the coulda of the game. The Cowboys mounted a 14-play, 74-yard drive, setting up first-and-goal at the Eagles' 6. And here comes Ezekiel Elliott, back in the fold and powering up the middle, only for Philadelphia linebacker Zack Baun to put his helmet on the ball. He forced a fumble from the 3 that rolled into the end zone, where it was recovered by the Eagles' Cooper DeJean for a touchback.
Seven points down the drain.
Even at that, man, Parsons three plays later records a sack-fumble, twice as many sacks in one half than he had in the four games he played before suffering the high ankle sprain, the ball recovered by rookie Marist Liufau at the Eagles' 6. At the 6 again, understand, and this time Zeke secures those 3 yards again on the first-down play.
Second and goal form the 3, Rush, just before getting hit, rifles the ball over the middle in the vicinity of tight end Jake Ferguson and receiver CeeDee Lamb crossing the end zone left to right. CeeDee says the sun got in his eyes, but Coop, who would never say this, might have thought he was intending CeeDee to stop his route once open. He kept running. Ferguson, for some reason, pulled his hands back and took responsibility for that. Incomplete. Then on third down, rookie center Cooper Beebe whiffs on Jalen Carter, who stuffs Rico for a 2-yard loss.
The Cowboys ended up kicking a 23-yard field goal, now 7-6, instead of a shoulda been 17-7 with 1:48 left in the second quarter.
Right?
"That's how you win these kinds of game when you get the ball at the 5- or 6-yard line, you do it," Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said, "do it" meaning score touchdowns.
The Cowboys let the Eagles out of the gate. Took them just 1 minute, 25 seconds to cover 84 yards, Jalen Hurts finishing the drive off with a 14-yard TD pass to tight end Dallas Goedert right in front of safety Donovan Wilson, who got pushed over the coverage after a blitzing DeMarvion Overshown overran a potential sack.
Eagles 14, Cowboys 6. A one score game at halftime, even though Philadelphia was endlessly picking on rookie corner Caelen Carson, who finished the half with four tackles but mostly because of getting beat in one-on-one coverages.
"So I was feeling real good, frankly, as we went into the half relative to what we are," Jones said.
And think about this. At halftime, the Eagles had 188 total yards, 84 coming on that final drive. Barkley had rushed just six times for 23 yards. The Cowboys already had recorded five sacks, two apiece by Parsons and Overshown, matching the highest first-half sack total in the past 25 years. They had seven QB hits. The Cowboys had two takeaways.
But darn that offense, just 104 yards, needing only three more on each of those two drives. And despite Rush completing just eight of 17 passes for 36 yards and the Cowboys turning the ball over twice, they were in this game with Rico Dowdle already having rushed for 50 yards. And consider second-year tackle Asim Richards was starting his first career game, in place of rookie Tyler Guyton, who couldn't play through a sore shoulder.
"Well, I mean, I thought the defense came up, played very well in the first half," Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said, hoping his 61st birthday would take a turn for the better in the second half. "(Hurts) just had the one touchdown, the two-minute spot. We gave him the ball in the first turnover. To me the game was about the giveaways. It's unacceptable.
"Our last two home games, we've had 10 giveaways. You can't win games at any level like that. Yet to be there at halftime in a one-score game, and to go out there and turn that ball over three [more] times, we have to make some adjustments."
McCarthy refers to the five turnovers in the 47-9 loss to Detroit, although three of those occurred in the fourth quarter after the Lions had already scored 40 points.
But here came the 27-consecutive-point avalanche in the second half, the first of two straight touchdowns set up by a 31-yard punt return to the Cowboys' 37, the Eagles needing just 2:50 to stretch their lead to 21-6. Think about it. In two drives taking just 4:05, the Eagles went from 7-6 to 21-6. And after a three-and-out, the Eagles drove the nail in the Cowboys' coffin – possibly for the 2024 season – the Cowboys defense running out of gas, the score ballooning to 28-6.
Ball game.
Simply put, playing with what they have, no Dak, no DaRon Bland – and boy did the Eagles pick on Carson – no DeMarcus Lawrence nor Marshawn Kneeland, no Brandin Cooks. And maybe worst of all, no Overshown with 6:52 left in the third quarter, suffering what he said was a bursa sac injury to his knee. And just when he was putting on an NFC Defensive Player of the Week performance, at that point registering 11 tackles, two sacks, two QB hits and two tackles for losses.
De-Mo vowed to me afterward, "I will be back next week."
The Cowboys can only hope.
So look, there was no sense these fans booing this team starting late in the third quarter. Because the worse part of this loss is this: This team was trying. This team was playing hard, and that might be the most disappoiting part of getting beat by 28.
And the dire straits of being 3-6 – with Houston (6-4) coming in next Monday night and then Washington (7-3) after that – to me began to sink in watching the Cowboys walk into the locker room after the game. Dak not in uniform. Cooks not in uniform. Rush walking the walk by his lonesome. Trey Lance, after being inserted into the game and then playing the entire fourth quarter, his first NFL regular-season snaps since Week 2 of the 2022 season, walking past looking as if a man who had played for the first time for the Cowboys. And not as if he was going to come in and spark the offense but instead for reasons of resigning to the outcome and might as well give the kid some reps.
The whole bunch just in over their heads, the lingering pain remembering what they could have and what they should have done in that first half. And while McCarthy and Jones belabored the five turnovers, and that's not good at all, three of those in this game occurred after the scored reached 28-6. It was the two in the first half that did the damage, one basically bequeathing the Eagles a touchdown and one stealing a potential touchdown from the Cowboys.
That's 14 points in a 14-6 halftime score. Do the math.
And now this offense, no matter Dak, Coop or Lance at quarterback, has not scored a touchdown at AT&T Stadium in the past eight quarters, not since the Sept. 22 game against Baltimore when scoring three touchdowns in the fourth quarter of the 28-25 loss.
And Jerry seems to agree with me.
"Well, I'm just as frustrated like everybody else is," Jones said, "but since I had a lot to do with what we're seeing, then it's the proper, proper frustration, as far as I'm concerned, that we're just not playing in a way – especially when you play a team that is the caliber of teams that we're playing out here, and Philadelphia's a high-caliber team – we're not up to them and that's troubling."
Then he would add a bit later, "There is no joy here without winning."
Sobering, too, the mighty Cowboys struck out again.
