2025 Week One: Dallas Cowboys vs. Philadelphia Eagles

dbair1967

dbair1967

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I never understood how people could really argue otherwise (yet some did/do).

The player works for the owner. The agent works for the player. There is no direct connection to the owner and the agent. Guarantee you all 31 other owners feel the same.

 
dbair1967

dbair1967

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www.si.com

Week 1 NFL Grades: Inside Cowboys’ New-Look Run Defense Without Micah Parsons

Conor Orr hands out report cards to an evolved Eagles offense, a Shane Steichen redemption tour, a badly behaved Bills fan and more.
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B: Cowboys’ rush defense​

The Cowboys were far more competitive against the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles than expected. The absence of Jalen Carter was kind of a red herring that took us away—in real time at least—from evaluating what the defensive line looked like without Micah Parsons. Here’s the number that stood out to me: On called run plays—that means rushing yards that were not the result of a quarterback scramble—the Eagles gained just 2.9 yards per carry.

This was one of the most effective rushing offenses in football last season. And, it’s worth noting that part of the reason the Eagles’ offensive line is so good is because they’ve perfected the art of holding. This is not meant to be an insult. The great Packer offensive lines of the middle 2010s had a similar reputation and, the more one obscures the act, the less likely officials are to call it (officials also don’t want to call holding anyway, which is something Philadelphia has exploited in the way the Seahawks did on the defensive side of the ball during the Legion of Boom era).

Still, a lot of gotta-have-it rushing downs against Dallas looked like what we saw at the beginning of the fourth quarter. On second-and-2 with a little more than 14 minutes to play, Solomon Thomas, 2025 seventh-round pick Jay Toia and 2024 second-round pick Marshawn Kneeland effectively took up five blockers and bought time for the linebackers to come up and make a stop.

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via NFL+
Another example, for good measure at the beginning of the third quarter. This rep is without Saquon Barkley, but the story is the same. The Eagles, up by one, are trying to make the rest of the series more manageable but Thomas is dominant off the jump. Kenny Clark takes up two blockers but still has the flexibility to react to the play.


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via NFL+
Set against the backdrop of Jerry Jones suggesting part of the impetus behind trading Parsons was the need to improve the run defense, the fact is this unit, merely with an offseason coaching change and the addition of two vets and a rookie seventh-round pick, already looks day-and-night different from the unit that finished second to last in EPA versus the run last year.

Imagine what the team would have looked like with better coaching … and Parsons!
 
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