Eagles Exposed In Loss To Cowboys – Still A Good Team?

The knock on the Dallas Cowboys was they hadn’t beaten a good team all season, based on the records of the teams they had beaten. None of them over .500.

That changed in a breezy 33-13 win over the Philadelphia Eagles in a nationally televised dud on Sunday night in Arlington, Texas. Before the December winds began to blow, the Eagles were a good team. Not sure they qualify as that anymore after moving to 0-2 in December.

This is the month when teams are supposed to be playing their best football. The Eagles are playing their worst, and the last two weeks have been telling.

Sure, the Eagles are 10-3, just like the Cowboys and now the San Francisco 49ers. Their two-game lead to be the top seed in the NFC playoffs is all gone now, evaporated in a two-game losing streak to the two teams that were on their tail.

The last time the Eagles lost two straight with Jalen Hurts at quarterback was Weeks 6 and 7 in 2021.

There are plenty of disturbing trends that make one wonder if the Eagles can find a way out of this funk.

Good teams don’t come out of a 23-point blowout loss to the 49ers and lose by 20. They have been outscored 75-32 in the two losses.

That’s not a good team.

Further proof:

The Niners scored touchdowns on six straight possessions before a kneel-down to close out the win, by giving up points on all four Cowboys possessions of the first half.

The outburst included three touchdowns and a field goal as Dallas sent Eagles fans to bed early to get a good night’s sleep for the impending work week by taking a 24-6 lead at halftime.

It was the sixth straight game the Eagles trailed after two quarters. This one was by the largest margin of them all, and it was the largest halftime deficit the Eagles had faced since Week 7 of 2019, also against the Cowboys.

Good teams don’t let that happen.

Good teams don’t turn the ball over with the regularity this team does, adding three more to their side of the ledger against the Cowboys, all given up by the Eagles’ three superstar offensive players.

Hurts had one, foiling an Eagles first-quarter drive that had reached the Dallas 21 when he fumbled. It was his fifth lost fumble this season and, coupled with his 10 interceptions, has now turned the ball over 15 times this season.

Receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith had the others.

Brown had the ball stripped from him by Stephon Gilmore after a seven-yard completion on the Eagles’ first possession of the third quarter.

Smith coughed it up with 6:38 to go in the fourth quarter and the Eagles already trailing 30-13.

The Eagles are now minus-4 in turnover ratio. Good teams are in plus numbers in that statistic. The Cowboys, for instance, are now plus-10 after taking it away from Philly three times.

The Eagles’ defense improved a bit in the second half, getting a strip-sack from Fletcher Cox that rookie Jalen Carter scooped and raced 42 yards with for his first career touchdown, but that only made things interesting for about five minutes, at 24-13.

Then Brandon Aubrey followed up a 60-yard field goal earlier in the game with a 59-yarder that stretched the lead to 27-13 with 4:54 to go in the third quarter.

Good teams don’t commit 10 penalties for 95 yards in a big game inside the NFC East. Three of those penalties were pass interferences, one each from Darius Slay, James Bradberry, and rookie Kelee Ringo.

Everybody knew the schedule gauntlet this team was facing, beginning with the Cowboys in Week 9. The Eagles are now 3-2 in that stretch with what was perceived to be the final game of the gauntlet, which comes Monday night in Seattle against a Seahawks franchise that the Eagles haven’t beaten since 2008.

The Seahawks are 6-7 and fading. It should be a win for the Eagles. Should, but who knows?

The final three games that looked like layups a month ago – home against the New York Giants and Arizona Cardinals, at the Giants – suddenly look more like three-pointers or even halfcourt shots.

The Eagles defense looks gassed. Maybe too many snaps over the past few weeks because the offense can’t stay on the field, getting trounced in time of possession, with Dallas holding the ball for 36 minutes, 36 seconds to the Eagles’ 23:24, and two weeks ago the defense was on the field for 95 snaps against the Buffalo Bills.

All the offense could manage in this one was a pair of field goals. Two field goals don’t win games, though the Minnesota Vikings found a way to make one field stand up for a 3-0 win earlier in the day against the Las Vegas Raiders.

Still, two field goals for a team that was averaging more than 28 points per game coming in, isn’t going to cut it.

The Eagles haven’t faced this kind of adversity under head coach Nick Sirianni since his first season when the Eagles sat at 2-5.

Like they did that season, when they ended up 9-8 and made the playoffs, they will indeed need to be a good team over these final four games, because right now, they are far from that.

Ed Kracz:

MSN