Cowboys-Eagles Week 7 MNF Recap: Is the Cowboys offense back?

Prescott now on first and 10. Snap is back as time fires at left side of the end zone for Lamb over the shoulder. Touchdown! Didn't drop that one!

Reek one!

Beating little mint for your lamb chop right there.

You know it's a good night in a Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex when the sham god is playing in your ears. That's right, that was Brad Sham, F-K-R-L-D. The Cowboys battle back and forth with the rival Eagles in Outlast, Philly, earning a win they desperately needed, 38-21. Over the Eagles in the city of brotherly love. I am Nick Shook sitting in for Greg Rosenthal. He is Keegan Abdu sitting in for Jordan Roderick. They're still coming back from Paris, so we're holding down the fort tonight. And Keegan, what a game we got between these two teams.

Yeah, I mean, the Cowboys offense looked like.

as advertised and the Eagles defense, uh, probably one of the most disappointing units in the league at this point.

Yeah. Yeah. As advertised, but it wasn't really, they weren't living up the Cowboys and weren't offensively to that advertisement over the last few weeks. Right. It was, it was a big concern, big point of concern, given that their defense. has been bad for a long time it's the only thing that would hold them up and yet tonight it was the opposite story their defense did give up some points yeah but it was the eagles defense that couldn't get a stop and the cowboys i don't want to say that they're back but i mean they do look a lot like what we thought they would.

Yeah i think one of the biggest things with the cowboys offenses uh tonight was they were finally explosive so entering tonight they were bottom 10 in explosive play rate like still top 10 in success rate they were really just living on razor-thin margins, kind of matriculating the ball down the field, highest pass rate in the league, and just putting so much on Dak's plate that we saw that defenses were able to adjust and just clamp down on that. They finally get in, run the ball a little bit, it opens up the downfield passing game, and they look like They're supposed to on paper, finally.

Yeah, on paper, finally, they do look more like the team that we've expected to see all season. Dak, again, precise with the football in his hands, even got a little bit of a pump fake in near the end there.

Got A.J. Epinesa caught him slipping there a little bit. He hooks up.

With CeeDee Lamb for a touchdown, but it was all really necessary because the beginning of this game, the Eagles came to play.

They came to fight in this.

And after an early drive in which the Cowboys stalled, the Eagles put together a four-play 75-yard drive that ends in a Saquon Barkley touchdown run.

That was the last we basically saw of him for the night.

He exited.

Looked like he had some discomfort again. But it was a back and forth affair. At one point, Joe Buck on the broadcast called it a track meet. And it kind of was because through the first 17 minutes or so, we'd had 24 points put on the board. And you realize that you were going to score a lot of points to really stay in this game, which is usually the Cowboys forte hasn't been in recent weeks. Luckily, after going to CeeDee Lamb early, they go to his running mate.

And it's really nice when you got two highly talented receivers.

Big third down.

Williams to Prescott's left in the gun.

Prescott back, has time, steps up, right side of the end zone, pick.

It, right side, touchdown.

Perfect throw by Prescott over the top of Andrew.

McCuba, the safety for 21 yards. Oh, what a throw that was. Fantastic throw. Even better catch.

Yeah.

And we're looking at a team that suddenly, like you said, producing explosive plays again.

Yeah.

And one of the big things there is they actually had Pickens in the slot. So the Eagles defense this year had just been playing Reek Wollin and Quinion Mitchell by side. But today they switched it up and they put... Quinion in the boundary and Rick won in the field. Um, so the, the Cowboys in the first half are noticing that and starting to attack that the first two touchdowns that Dak throws are actually in the slot to that side.

So you get one on Macuba and one on Dajin at that point in the game, uh, Dak still had not completed a pass to a wide aligned receiver, but he was seven of seven targeting the slot for 91 yards and two touches.

Targeting their weaknesses. And it's funny though, because you do bring up the corner. opposite Quinnian Mitchell. It feels like it's been a theme with this team for so long. Whoever's cornerback two for the Eagles is getting targeted at some point in these games, whether, you know, in the past would be like Keely Ringo or Dory Jackson in recent years. You know, now you got Rick one finding himself in the center of the crosshairs and a good example.

I think of the Cowboys being able to adjust, but everything wasn't perfect for them because as they got close to halftime, they had an opportunity to go down the field and score some points. They let a little bit too much of the clock bleed.

Brian shot.

And I'm kind of been known to do this in recent situations. We saw it in the game in Rio. against the Ravens. And they ended up getting a 27-yard field goal by Brandon Aubrey, but could have gotten more points. So it leaves them in a 20-14 lead going into halftime. But that's when the Eagles, I think, mount their best drive of the night.

Yeah, I mean, they held the ball for about like 10 minutes in that drive.

Methodical is an understatement.

At that point, I think the Cowboys hadn't touched the ball in 30 minutes of real time with the halftime show and everything. But, you know, they... Mountain that drive. And then four, four throws later, uh, Dak finds CD against recall. And as we said, career high yards given up by recall. And by the way, 111, any had a defensive holding kind of. Um, tough for a role switch for that, like that to happen. And then you need to perform that bad. Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, for Dak, it just seemed really easy after the first drive was tough. The rest of the game, he was pressured three times. Um, and the Eagles just could not get a pass rush going. They couldn't stop the run at all. Um, and they had zero tackles for loss

the entire night.

Zero tackles for loss. Think about that. Think about this front. Think about this being the strength of this Eagles team. And it wasn't just that they weren't getting tackles for loss. They couldn't stop the run to begin with, which was another element of this game. And that leads us to our Monday Night Football Player of the Week. It's time for Player of the Week presented by Nationwide. That Player of the Week is Javante Williams going for a career-high 155 yards on 25 attempts and finding the end zone just to cap it off.

Here is a handoff.

Williams plows through the middle.

Watch the dog.

Touchdown, Javante Williams.

A career night for 33. Tyler Guyton getting in the face of the cameraman there, letting him know. That they came to play and they came to win a win that they desperately needed. Javante Williams as a running back who I think has long been underrated and has been very valuable to this offense since he arrived in Dallas.

And yet they could not run the ball consistently for most of this season. So to see them produce at a rate like this tonight where he gets a career high in yardage.

I mean, that's got to be really encouraging for Cowboys fans.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, the broadcast kept hitting on it that they must have hit on this a lot in the production meetings heading into it. But like they were like, hey, Brian Schottenheimer is going to run the ball. And they passed at the highest rate. And sure enough, Vic Fangio, who lets you run the ball more than anyone.

He has the two high shell light boxes, all that. He wants you to run the ball. He doesn't want to get beat over the top. Um, and the Cowboys took what they gave him and, uh, Javante Williams versus light boxes tonight, 11 carries for 98 yards.

There it is.

Almost nine yards a pop. Yep.

Um, he had his most successful, uh, runs in a game in his career and just, they finally got some explosives in the run game. They had seven total by their running backs in weeks one through six, and they had five tonight.

There you go. And what a difference that feels. Exactly.

It makes this offense, it transforms it back into the offense that we anticipated seeing from the Cowboys and fixes a lot of the problems that they had displayed in recent weeks. Now you wonder, like, do you discount some of this because it's coming against the Eagles and they are banged up on both sides of the ball? But you think, The reputation that Fangio's defense usually brings to the table and the personnel they still have out there.

You would expect them to mount a stronger level of resistance, right? Yeah.

I mean, Jalen Carter didn't have a pressure on 24 pass rushes tonight. Jordan Davis also didn't have pressure. They just were lackluster all across the board. Quinion Mitchell really was the only guy that seemed like he was playing an above average game for them. And again, it's been all season long with this defense. They have not played up to the caliber of their roster. The stars are not playing at the high.

Level that they were.

And a lot of even though they have had some injuries, but they're not that banged up of a defense compared to some others across the league.

Yeah. Dak average time to throw three point zero nine seconds, which is pretty close to actually kind of feels like it's a little bit lower than what he usually is. Cause he likes to survey, but he also is pretty decisive, but he only faced a pressure rate of 21.4%. So it matches exactly what you said. Uh, since last year, week six against the Panthers. But I think really we talk about the run game and finally, like it gives him some breathing room.

He's able to attack downfield.

Uh, 10 of his 15 completions came 10 past 10 or more yards.

Past the line of script.

That is the Dak Prescott. That's what we need.

That's what we need. Yeah.

He'd been like just reduced to so many check downs and clamp downs, hitch routes over the middle. Uh, over the past couple weeks because the just defenses did not respect this run game at all so you get you get a few explosives you make them uh fear the run game a little.

Bit and it opens up the rest of this off yeah and it all goes back to finding that production on the ground game which was provided by giovante williams that was our player of the week presented by nationwide for your insurance and financial needs nationwide is on your side. So let's go into some of these other subplots that existed in this game because there were some silver linings, I think for the Eagles, despite the loss. Um, you know, I felt like seeing Makai lemon finally do something for them was, was important given the injuries that they have been dealing with on the offensive side of the ball.

He had two big catches on that long touchdown drive that we referenced 17 plays, 84 yards. He makes a four yard catch where he has to kind of wear a crushing hit off catch.

Yes.

And then get across the goal line to score the touchdown. It felt like a triumphant moment for a first round pick who just hadn't lived up to expectations. They got to be encouraged by that, even though everything else around them is it's I mean, it feels like the walls.

Are still cave.

In on this team.

I do feel like with Tanner McKee though, this is the offense that Sean Manning and wanted to run. This is what we heard about all off season long. They're going to go more under center. They're going to use play action. They're going to use motion, all that. And all that went out the window. Cause Jalen hurts just does not want to live that way. He does not want to throw over the middle. In fact, McKee threw about two-thirds of his passes between the numbers. Jalen Hurts has done that twice in his career. So you talk about McKay Lennon, a tough guy who's going to win on crossers over the middle of the field, and it's a.

Much better fit with McKee.

Yeah, and how did he make his gains on that specific drive was a crosser against man coverage, which the Cowboys kind of blew coverage.

It's a big gainer, and it's another crosser to score the touchdown, right?

So it does make sense that it fits and that you're able to get him involved The question though is like, did Saquon Barkley come back too early? That's another one because he was not in this game for very long. He got banged up. There was a lot of monitoring of his, of his health throughout the game. He's questionable to return. It's a back injury, which is not what he was dealing with before. I just wonder, I understand the desperation at this point, but you know, now at two and five, if you do without him, you know, for an extended period of time or even just one more game, it's like, Did we make a mistake? And you felt his impact on those first two drives. I mean, they went right down the field. As soon as he

touched the ball.

I mean, I'm pretty sure his first nine snaps, he touched the ball every single snap.

Yeah, he did.

That's true. Yeah.

But like you saw the speed on the touchdown and the long explosive run on the first or second drive. And like, he also gives this offense some breathing room, you know, and with Devonta Smith out and Wicks out and you have a bunch of kind of journeymen slash young wide receivers, like, they need him if they're going to have any chance of competing on offense this year.

But like, again, you can't rush him back because he's basically the entire off.

Right.

And that's, I think where you sense the level of desperation that this team is dealing with amid all of these injuries and, and just the adversity that they face, the young receivers, you referenced as Darius Cooper, one catch for 17 yards, the journeyman Hollywood Brown, two for 30. It was one of those moments where he catches a ball and you're like, Oh yeah, Hollywood Brown still on this team. And so that's just kind of where the Eagles are right now. Saquon finishes with seven attempts for 62 yards and a rushing score. The worst part about, I think, this viewing experience from an Eagles perspective is watching how this offense struggled once he was off the field.

I mean, all credit to Damian Pierce. He had a couple of respectable runs, but 14 for 47 and a touchdown. 3.4 yards per carry is not going to get the job done for a team that's already playing with a backup quarterback.

No, it is not.

Um, yeah, I think, I mean, at least our offensive line was healthy. Um, but again, that did look better. Tanner McKee had a lot of time to throw for a certain stretches of this game. He did.

And he wasn't forced to just get rid of the ball super quickly. Like it was last year, two weeks ago before the buy it's Panthers. Um, but yeah, uh, it'll be interesting to see what Saquon's health looks like next week. Hopefully, you know, it's not a, Another re-aggravation, but we'll see.

Some of the final things that I think we could probably cover coming back from this game.

You got to love the return of DeMarvian Overshown.

Yeah. And the interception that he made on this play in the second half, in which he reads an out route, I believe it was run by Dallas Goddard, and just does not miss a step. I mean, just instinctively understands there's an out. I'm sliding underneath it. Makes a diving interception. You see his athleticism. Huge moment in that game. in which the Cowboys were able to regain possession and then go down and kick a field goal to take a 10-point lead. That really closed out the game.

Yeah, it felt like that was it.

In fact, there was a period where I was like, they didn't get the most out of that possession, that takeaway, you'd like a touchdown there to really completely end it.

Turns out it was already ending it at that point.

And so that's a big get for a Cowboys defense that has been much maligned, understandably so. You get a player like that at the second level who's capable of making plays like that, suddenly everything else Gets a little bit easier for everybody around you. Not to say that they played clean football overall because they still made a lot of mistakes in coverage. I think on that one lemon reception, you see Deron Bland realizing, oh, that's who I'm supposed to take. I am five yards away. I'm going to try and just take a pursuit angle and meet him at the sideline. So there's a lot to fix there. But I mean, you got to be excited for the return of a player like that. A guy that a lot of people have been excited about for

a while. He just hasn't been able to stay healthy.

Yeah.

And I think who the Cowboys fans should also be really excited about is Joey Porter Jr.

Yeah. Because.

He had 20 coverage snaps today in man coverage.

He's their man corner. Even when they're playing zone, he's doing man lock. Zero receptions allowed on three targets. He's not allowed a reception in man coverage all season. He's only played a few games because a little bit of a.

Holdout, we'll say.

Yeah, we'll call it a contract dispute.

Still in his career, he has never allowed a touchdown while playing man coverage.

Wow.

Which is awesome. I think he really is a.

Difference maker that allows you to play different types of coverages, allows you to take out a number one receiver. I mean, obviously they were down to their third string as their starting receiver today, but I think he can be someone that makes this defense a little bit more average, which if the offense is playing like this, that's all you really need.

Well, yeah, and especially in a season in which Bland has been under fire plenty, understandably so. He just hasn't had a good year. And it's not just the dropped pick six against Tampa. It's much more than that. He's just been pretty bad in coverage. So to get somebody like that opposite, it felt like when they made the trade that maybe they were overpaying a little bit in sending a second round pick. But if they can get production from him, then it'll all be worth it, right?

Yeah, and if it's a late second round pick, I still think Joey Porter Jr.

Is a guy you want to bet on.

Yeah, I would agree to a degree, as long as he can be a little bit less handsy, which it seems like year by year he's getting a little bit less handsy and getting better with this technique. Just some basic numbers that folks will really understand and appreciate. Cowboys offensive success rate tonight, 52.3%. That is what you want from your offense.

Above 50% is a lead.

Yes, that's how you score 38 points. The Eagles sitting at 40.3%. And of course, much of that.

Not only Javante Williams, but also Dak Prescott, 57.1% drop back success rate, according to.

Which is ridiculous when he most of his completions are over 10 area.

Yes.

Underneath, he didn't get anything.

He only threw for 28 yards on 10 passes under within 10 yards, a lot of scrimmage, which has been his game kind of all year long.

Yeah, it's finally opening it up.

He has the deep one to CD a few deep ones to CD and it feels good.

It was very refreshing to see Dak not be sped up and hurried like he's been in recent weeks. But the first time I think in, in multiple years, we saw an uncomfortable Dak Prescott quarterback.

And the week after that, they were just blitzing the hell out of it.

Yeah.

And he had no answer for it.

Yeah. Yeah.

And they just couldn't do anything with it.

So to see him have time to throw, to see him be able to find his receivers down the field. Cause look, I know that quarterbacks have different reputations. You can say what you want about how you feel about Dak Prescott. Over the last four years, he's still been one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.

Without a doubt. Watch the tape. You can see it.

He has not been this year. He's had his ups and downs, and especially in recent games, he has not been. I felt as though I would finally have to take my foot off of that soapbox this season if things continued the way that they did. But there are a few things that are more beautiful to watch than the fade for a touchdown to either CeeDee Lamb or George Pickens.

We played both of them tonight on the show. They defined the night for the Dallas Cowboys as well as Javante Williams. And they are going back to Arlington with the sweet taste of victory over a hated rival.

38-21, your final.

The Dallas Cowboys take down the Philadelphia Eagles looking ahead for the now 3-4 Dallas Cowboys.

They get Arizona next. I think they're going to be in a pretty good spot.

To end up back at 500 and back in the race in this very weird NFC.

I'll tell you what, by the next chance stats division probabilities right now, they are still favored 43% over the giants at 39%.

Yeah.

And that makes sense because the giants live in an alternate universe right now.

Every game is very fun. We'll call it. It's entertaining. Yes.

And that's what this is. This sport is in part entertainment. I hope we were entertaining.

What do you think?

You have a good time?

I had a great time.

Yeah. Wonderful.

Thanks for having me on.

We're looking forward to having Greg back in the studio with Colleen Wolf tomorrow. We're looking forward to have Jordan back in here, hearing all about their Paris journey that they didn't cover on Sunday.

Until then, I'm Nick Shook. That's Keegan Abdu. This has been your Monday Night Recap. Greg's back tomorrow. Find him then.

Cowboys-Eagles Week 7 MNF Recap: Is the Cowboys offense back?

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