FRISCO, TX — It was another measuring stick contest for the Dallas Cowboys, which makes for an inherent irony that their bout with the Philadelphia Eagles came down to a literal game of inches. Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb took the opposing secondary to task and A.J. Brown could only muster 66 receiving yards with one touchdown, but it wasn't enough.
Questionable officiating exacerbated the issue, but was not the only issue in a matchup that saw the Eagles fumble three times but, each time, the ball bounced back to their possession.
A knee down just before the goal line on a fourth-down completion to Luke Schoonmaker with goal-to-go in the third quarter, a toe on the boundary on a two-point conversion attempt in an otherwise master class showing by Prescott, so forth and so on, and the Cowboys are 5-3 heading into Week 10.
"Our offense had a great game," said defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence. " … It's a part of the game [that] when you come into hostile territory, you have a lot of things working against you. I feel like my team stood up tonight and fought well. We didn't come out with the win, but we'll learn from this one and get better."
The defense clamped down in the fourth quarter to allow for an opportunity at a comeback by the Cowboys, and only six yards separated them from glory in Philly — a first-and-goal with only seconds to play, down 28-23, that devolved into a false start and then a sack.
Suddenly, the Cowboys were 22 yards away, and they'd never get any closer.
In all, Prescott finished with 374 passing yards, three passing touchdowns, no interceptions and a passer rating of 115.2 to go along with 14 rushing yards — having a hand in 96 percent of the Cowboys' total offensive production (406 yards) on the day.
Lamb set a career-high for a second week in a row, this time hanging 191 receiving yards on an Eagles defense that had no answers for him or Jake Ferguson, who himself had 91 receiving yards (a season-high) on seven catches with a touchdown. And then there was KaVontae Turpin, who re-entered the game after leaving with a rib injury to grab his second career touchdown on a toss from Prescott.
But, as noted above, it wasn't enough.
"I feel like Dak had a great game and we definitely played some complementary football," Lawrence added. "At the end of the day, it's a game of inches and we've got to take every situation, every play like it's our last play and I feel like we did that tonight, but just didn't come out with a win."
That was the common sentiment throughout the locker room in Philadelphia, in that this wasn't anything like what happened in Santa Clara in Week 5. Despite everything that didn't bounce in the Cowboys' favor, and despite both questionable officiating and their own self-inflicted wounds … well … let's just say it took all of that for them to end up only five points and [initially] six yards away from being 6-2 on the season.
"We played hard enough to win tonight, but didn't come out with it," said cornerback Stephon Gilmore. "We measure up to anybody. I like us against anybody. We just weren't able to get it today but we know we should have. We're gonna learn from it and go on to next week.
"… It sucks because I hate losing, but we'll get back to the drawing board and go from there."
As Prescott himself said after the loss, there "are no moral victories in the NFL", and that's an absolute fact. Two things can be true at the same time, though, and here's the other fact:
This team was a knee, a toe and a false start away from sharing the division lead.
