Eagles' Season Could Be Over In 38-27 Dallas Defeat
PHILADELPHIA, PA (CBS) — On one side of the bowels at Lincoln Financial Field was back slapping and laughs, and talk about the postseason. On the Eagles' side, an obvious funeral pall hung over their locker room—an underlying, eerie feeling that this is it—the end.
What began with something as simple as who should pick up the ball on a kickoff graduated to a glut of inaccurate passes high, low, and wide, compounded by sketchy pass coverage, a costly fumble and a pair of interceptions.
The Eagles needed to play one of their better games this season Sunday night against the Dallas Cowboys—considering they only had their season at stake.
And they didn't.
After clumsiness led to an early deficit, the Eagles sabotaged their comeback—and quite possibly their season—in a 38-27 loss to the Cowboys in the last home game this year at the Linc.
The loss drops the Eagles to 9-5 with two games left against the Washington Redskins and New York Giants. Dallas improves to 10-4 and takes control of the NFC East, with Indianapolis at home next week, and finishing on the road against Washington.
The Eagles could finish 11-5 and as it stands now will in all probability not make the playoffs, sitting a game behind 10-4 Seattle and Green Bay, and are in a position to lose the tiebreaker to every team they will compete against for a playoff berth.
The Eagles, however, weren't exactly ready to openly concede anything.
"This is frustrating, I'm angry, I didn't do a good job tonight, we didn't do a good job," Eagles' nose tackle Bennie Logan said. "We understood what was on the line. We got into a bind in the first half, but we have to be better, I have to be better. This one hurt. We know we should have that game. They were the better team than us, but I think we beat ourselves. They didn't beat us.
"We gave them 21 points right off the bat. We fought the whole game. We have to clean up the mistakes and get ready for the Redskins. We're in a tough spot and we placed ourselves there. We have to move on and focus on the Redskins. It's not over. It just hurts."
Mark Sanchez was 17 of 28 for 252 yards and two interceptions. Tony Romo, meanwhile, directed the Cowboys to touchdowns on their first three drives and riddled the Eagles by completing 22 of 31 for 265, three touchdowns and no interceptions (and a 129.1 QB rating).
"We shut them up," said Cowboys' safety Barry Church. "This is unbelievable. We knew after they embarrassed on Thanksgiving we had to get some revenge in this game. We have sole possession of first place—and we did this today. We were totally embarrassed on Thanksgiving, but once we watched the film, we really only made two mistakes."
Those mistakes were giving up the edge to LeSean McCoy and losing gap containment. McCoy picked up 64 yards on 16 carries—the longest was for 14.
"McCoy is a punt returner in the backfield. You can't give up the edges against him," Church said. "We were undisciplined the first time we played the Eagles. This game, we did a better job of containing McCoy, and everyone kept their gap discipline. We still shouldn't have let them get [27] points like that. That was still ridiculous. We have proven we're the better team—and if we keep going the way we're going, this division is ours. We had more time to prepare and hopefully will make it to the tournament and prove we are."
"We were buried in Dallas. The Eagles did anything they wanted to against us. Not this time."
It started badly for the Eagles and got it worse. The opening kickoff was a communication foul-up between Josh Huff and Brad Smith for something as simple as who should pick up the ball.
So neither of them did.
The result: The Cowboys recovered at the Eagles' 18 and needed five plays to take a 7-0 lead. Dallas followed that with successive scoring drives of 88 and 56 yards to bolt out to a 21-0 lead.
The Eagles, meanwhile, were seeped in ineptitude. Their first two offensive drives resulted in three-and-outs, and they could do little to stop Romo and the Dallas offense.
With 11:56 left in the first half and Romo hit Dez Bryant with his second touchdown pass—both after penalties against Cary Williams—Dallas had amassed 167 yards of total offense to the Eagles' 0.
Bryant, who was so vocal after the Eagles' 33-10 victory over Dallas on Thanksgiving, took the high road this time.
"We have two games left and we have to stay mentally prepared and we came out and handled business," said Bryant, who had six catches for 114 yards and three TDs. "I'll do the talking and celebrating on the plane ride home."
Romo finished the half completing 14 of 20 for 151 yards and two touchdowns, 4-yard and 26-yard TD tosses to Bryant.
By the end of the half, the Eagles had put together a scoring drive, capped off by Chris Polk's 5-yard run with 8:32 left in the half. Cody Parkey got the Eagles a little closer before the half, hitting a 47-yard field goal with 1:48 left in the half.
The Eagles took a brief 24-21 lead, but that quickly evaporated, when Dallas scored on DeMarco Murray's second TD run and Romo's third TD pass to Bryant gave Dallas a 35-24 lead that was never threatened.
"I can talk about 10 wins and it just seems like yesterday when we started the season, we were trying to guess what this team could do," Cowboys' owner and general manager Jerry Jones said. "We've probably given this team less chance at 10 wins than the last three or four years.
"It is beyond my expectation that we're sitting here with the wins. It doesn't surprise me though when I look at the resolve of this team and the coaching staff. It doesn't surprise me that this team has exceeded my expectations at all."
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