Well, this Philadelphia Eagles vs. Dallas Cowboys game was a bit of a weird one to analyze. I wasn’t too impressed with the offensive game plan, and I’ll explain why below, but there is no doubt the offense improved as the game went on.
Offense
The Cowboys did a few things schematically that the Eagles last had to deal with a while ago. Cowboys’ defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer showed a lot of “Double Mug” looks with his linebackers standing in both A-gaps. Zimmer is known for this, and I expected the Eagles to be a little bit more prepared for it. The Eagles struggled with who to protect in pass protection, and it led to the running back dealing with a linebacker far too often, even when the Cowboys only sent 4. Surprisingly, the interior offensive line had their worst game in a while in pass protection, and Cam Jurgens, in particular, struggled. As well as this, I thought the Eagles’ offense was too focused on taking shots down the field and didn’t give Jalen Hurts a lot of easy answers. If you add all of these things up, including some poor individual pass protection reps such as the one below from Kenneth Gainwell, then you get some poor reps. The offense took 5 sacks in the first half, which is not good enough. Some were on Hurts, some were on the scheme, some were on the protection and some were possibly because of the sun! (I’m not joking).
If you are wondering about the other sacks, here they are. We will look at a couple more later.
The Eagles’ best drive of the first half resulted in an interception. It’s an interesting play to break down from a scheme perspective. If I had to distribute blame, this is more of a fantastic defensive play than a terrible mistake by Hurts. I think Hurts’ process is fine here, and this route from Dallas Goedert should be open against this coverage. I’m not even sure that Trevon Diggs is supposed to be covering Goedert here. If Hurts is going to make this throw, he needs to release the ball just half a second earlier and throw it even harder. In the red zone, the windows are very small. I expect Hurts to learn from this mistake and be a bit more cautious when trying this throw again.
This is such a fascinating play to look at. If you are looking at the result, then this is a fantastic play. It’s a brilliant throw by Hurts and a fantastic catch by Jahan Dotson. It’s really good to see that Hurts is starting to trust Dotson more, too. This is a real trust throw. However, this play also highlights some of the Eagles’ issues in the first half. They were a bit too focused on the downfield shots. There was another throw where Hurts underthrew DeVonta Smith, which would have been a touchdown, but Hurts couldn’t step up in the pocket due to the quick interior pressure. I do not mind taking shots against pressure at all. I think this play is perfectly fine. I believe the Eagles could have mixed in some more quick game, too. Everything was a bit too vertical, and it left Hurts without options too many times.
This is a good example of what I spoke about above. You can argue that Hurts should go to Dallas Goedert here, but I can understand why he is wary of the Cowboys cornerback. Once he doesn’t go to Goedert, there’s just nothing else here. There’s no one in the middle of the field at all. There’s no quick checkdown. Here’s an example where I think the scheme didn’t help the quarterback.
I’m just going to talk about the sun now. I genuinely think it made a difference. It’s boring to talk about because we will never know, but I think Hurts was very uncertain about where to go with the football in the second half, and he frequently stared right into the sun. It could have made a difference. What an awful stadium.
This is the miss that makes me think the sun was bothering Hurts. Since when has Hurts played it safe on 3rd and very long? In this situation, there is absolutely no reason not to give DeVonta Smith or AJ Brown a chance to make a play. You are going to punt anyway. You might as well just let it fly!
This is the worst play of the game. There’s nothing good here. It’s a good example of what I mentioned earlier when I said there are various reasons for the 5 sacks. I don’t like the play call. I’m not too fond of the protection against the stunt, which leaves Micah Parsons one-on-one. I don’t like the sun! Despite all of these reasons, Hurts still cannot fumble the ball. He needs to play with better fundamentals in the pocket because this play could have mattered a lot in bigger games.
Right, I’ve got through the negatives now. I will give Kellen Moore and Jalen Hurts a lot of credit. Last year, when the offense was bad. It stayed bad. In this game, the Eagles started to adjust to what the Cowboys’ defense was doing and Jalen Hurts ended up playing a strong second half. This is probably my favorite throw of the game. The pass protection is a lot better. Compare Gainwell’s block here to his one on the first play above. Hurts pocket movement is fantastic. More importantly, unlike the earlier plays, Hurts has an option available to him over the middle of the field. Hurts throws a perfect ball, which enables AJ Brown to get good YAC, too. This is good stuff overall.
This is another fantastic play. Everyone goes mental if Hurts takes the sack here with no timeouts left. But he doesn’t! Sometimes, you have to take risks to score points. He makes the Cowboys’ linebacker miss and delivers a strike to Dallas Goedert. I have complained for a while that Hurts is not as good out of structure as he should be. He is much better as a scrambler than someone who extends plays in the passing game.
However, I think this was one of his best games at extending plays. He made numerous plays outside of structure. Earlier in the game, he rolled out to his left and hit AJ Brown across the middle of the field. Here, he keeps two hands on the ball, makes the linebacker miss, and keeps his eyes down the field. I do think Hurts is not solely to blame for the Eagles being average outside of structure, either. The receivers often don’t provide Hurts with an easy option. Dallas Goedert does well here and provides Hurts with an option. This is the case when great players make great plays, and coaching doesn’t matter. On the whiteboard, Mike Zimmer wins here. But it doesn’t matter here!
This is a very similar play to the one above. Firstly, check out Lane Johnson dominating Micah Parsons. Do you want a closeup? Why not…
Secondly, this is another excellent play from Hurts out of structure. The pass protection is outstanding, but Hurts doesn’t panic or try to force anything. He waits for a receiver to come open and then throws a perfect ball. I am happy for Johnny Wilson because he should be a good role player in the red zone. Just look how big he is! There should be a role for a player like him.
This is just classic Hurts and AJ Brown. We take this stuff for granted. Hurts is an exceptional deep ball thrower. The velocity, the ball placement and the timing are all perfect. This throw is also from under center with a 7-step dropback. We haven’t seen this much before from Hurts! This is the benefit of being a great running team. When you are up, the opposing team will start to sell out against the run. This is the easiest read in the world for Hurts. He knows he is getting single-high coverage. He just needs to hope his protection can hold up, which it does. Sometimes, everyone makes football seem too complicated. This is just a fantastic receiver winning his one-on-one matchup and the quarterback delivering the perfect throw. Good stuff!
If you checked out my concept of the week last week, you would have already read about QB Counter Bash! The beauty of QB Counter Bash, as I said in the article, is that the quarterback can keep it or hand it off to the running back. This makes it really easy to run a few times on the same drive and confuse the defense. The Eagles did just that on this drive. They ran QB Counter Bash, and Hurts handed it off to Saquon Barkley (who I haven’t even spoken about yet!). Barkley had a quiet game, which is probably a good thing, considering that the Eagles will play again on Thursday night. He made one outstanding play in the receiving game but didn’t really get into a rhythm. On this play, Hurts handed it off to Barkley.
Then, just two plays later, they ran the exact same play, and this time, Hurts kept it. It’s so simple but so effective. Just look at Mekhi Becton on the move, too!
I didn’t speak much about the running game in this one, so I’ll finish with a summary. I think the Eagles struggled to run the ball against the Cowboys’ fronts, and it was the worst game I’ve seen from the interior of the offensive line in the run game in a while. Cam Jurgens, in particular, really struggled against the Cowboys’ ‘double-mug’ looks. The Eagles’ run game was better when they targeted the outside and ran away from the linebackers in the middle of the field. I would expect other teams to look at the Cowboys’ success with their fronts and try to replicate it moving forward.
That’s all for this week! Huge game against the Washington Commanders on Thursday, and I can’t wait!
Thank you for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to comment below and ask any questions. If you enjoyed this piece, you can find more of my work and podcast here.
