Philadelphia Eagles Submit to Dallas Cowboys 29-23 (OT)

Instead of making this post a reaction to everything that happened in this game, I am merely going to make it a critique of rookie Head Coach, Doug Pederson. Let me just say that this was a really good game. It had offense, defense, clutch performances, turnovers, and it went down to the wire. While I knew that the Philadelphia Eagles were going to lose, I was very impressed by the way that they were able to halt rookie sensation, Ezekiel Elliot and was able to disrupt rookie Quarterback, Dak Prescott. The Eagles were actually winning 23-13 at one point in the game, but because of some really bad coaching decisions, the Eagles eventually submitted to the Dallas Cowboys. The main reason was because while the Eagles made some questionable decisions in the 4th quarter and the Cowboys showed their experience and made some good choices of their own.

My girlfriend is an avid Dallas Cowboys fan and ever since I started dating her exclusively we circled October 30th as being our biggest test. Lets just say that she was very down in the 4th quarter, until her team started to come back and go into overtime. When Jason Witten caught the game winning touchdown, she was happy, but full of so much emotion that she didn't know what to do. I knew before that overtime drive even started that the Eagles would probably lose. I actually said to myself in the 3rd quarter that it would be really cool if the Eagles won this game, they would be 5-2 and at the top of the division, despite being a rebuilding team. Okay, back to the point of the post, the reasons why the Eagles gave this game away to a formidable Cowboys team in order was:

Number 1: Chris Jones fake punt run

At the end of the third quarter, the Dallas Cowboys trailed the Eagles 20-10 and had a 4th down deep in their own territory. Instead of punting the ball, they instead threw a curve ball to everyone watching by calling a fake punt. Chris Jones, the Cowboys punter, is actually a really fast human being. After getting by the rush, he went down the field for about 25 to 30 yards. If the Cowboys had punted, then the Eagles would have gotten it at around their own 40 yard line in good field position. As anyone might know, fake punts don't usually happen, but this is the second time the Cowboys have fooled the Eagles on special teams. In 2014, the Cowboys kicked the ball shallow, the Eagles return man, Josh Huff, didn't go to get it and the ball was recovered by the Dallas Cowboys. If memory serves me, the Cowboys scored a field goal on the drive to make the game 20-13.

Number 2: Switching out to cold running backs

One of the things that the Eagles have yet to figure out this season is who their feature running back is. For a few weeks, they have been playing Darren Sproles a lot in the first half because they are worried that Ryan Matthews keeps fumbling the football. This came into play because the Eagles got back up 23-13 and had the ball at around their own 40 yard line. This until on first down and ten, the Eagles gave the ball to rookie running back, Wendell Smallwood, trying to get cute and they fumbled. The Cowboys recovered and then kicked another field goal to make the game 23-16. Now I don't know about everyone else, but when you are trying to ice a game in clutch situations, the last thing you do is give the ball to a back that doesn't have a lot of experience. This would have been a good chance to work out someone like Kenjon Barner, but instead, they put their chances in the hands of a rookie and paid for it.

Number 3: Swing passes for negative yards

Swing passes are a situational thing for most teams. Usually if the defensive backs play off of the line, you can bring a receiver in to block for another one going out on a screen. However, the Eagles don't have any deep threats on the team and Carson Wentz threw short, pretty much the whole game. The receivers even had trouble catching these swing passes and these plays either ended in an incomplete pass or a really short gain. Late in the 4th quarter, however, the Eagles had a 2nd down at the Cowboys 32 yard line with a chance to run the ball and ice the game with a late field goal. However, instead of playing it safe and going forward, the Eagles ran a fake jet sweep, swing pass to Darren Sproles, which lost yards. Now Doug Pederson thought the team was out of field goal range, so he had Donnie Jones punt the ball.

Number 4: Eagles have 3 time outs, but they don't stop the clock

With about 30 seconds left in the game, the Cowboys were deep in their own territory and it was 3rd down. A coach with a lot of experience in game management would stop the clock so that they can have their offense have a chance to win the football game. However, this never happened as Doug Pederson let the clock run down to zero with me yelling at the TV, "CALL A TIMEOUT!" You call a time out, you can make a stop on 3rd down and get the ball back. Why? Because with two or one timeout(s) and about 20 seconds left is enough time to kick a field goal, especially with how short the Cowboys would have likely punted the ball because they wouldn't have wanted Darren Sproles to get a huge return. The time, however, went off the clock and the game ended.

Now the Eagles a 4-3, Carson Wentz had a decent game, it wasn't super impressive, it wasn't horrible. The guy is a rookie on a struggling offense that doesn't have many weapons and hasn't found it's complete identity. The coaching staff has a lot of time to grow as the team is rebuilding even though they are likely not admitting that the team is "rebuilding". The Cowboys really impressed me with how they bounced back because Dak was having a terrible game up until the 4th quarter as he completed less than 50% of his passes. However, when it all came down to it, the Cowboys were more proactive at the end of the game and made more "gutsy" calls to win. I hope this teams learns from this as they build for the long haul through the draft and free agency. Good game Dallas, it was a game for the ages.

Jason Witten score the game winning touchdown in overtime