It is the final Dallas week of the regular season and potentially in 2025. The Philadelphia Eagles (8-2) look to make it five straight wins and further distance themselves from the Dallas Cowboys (4-5-1) in the NFC East when the meet at AT&T Stadium Sunday at 4:25 p.m.
The two rivals opened up the season in Philadelphia back in early September and after a thunderstorm caused a nearly hour delay mid-game, the Eagles held on to win 24-20.
However, both teams are drastically different from that season opening contest.
Here are five key matchups to watch:
The Cowboys boast one of the best wide receiving duos in the NFL this season. Pickens is having a career year ranking second in the NFL with 908 yards, trailing only Seattle’s Jaxson Smith-Njigba. His seven touchdowns are tied for third-most in the league.
Last game against Las Vegas, he racked up 144 yards and a touchdown and will look to keep his strong connection going with Dak Prescott.
The Eagles held Pickens in check in the season opener holding him to three catches and just 30 yards. A large reason for that was Quinyon Mitchell’s ability to shut down the wideout. Mitchell and Pickens matched up against one another 18 times in the first meeting and Mitchell allowed just two catches for 15 yards.
On the flip side, Lamb did most of the damage in the first matchup, racking up 110 yards on seven catches. He could have had an even bigger game and potentially set Dallas up for a last minute touchdown drive, but he had two costly drops including this one on 4th and 3.
Lamb is still one of the best receivers in the league and gave Adoree’ Jackson trouble, hauling in three catches for 72 yards when lined up against the Eagles’ second outside cornerback.
It will be interesting to see if Vic Fangio switches up his cornerback assignments with the much improved pass rush and move Mitchell on to Lamb, or trust Jackson who can have a second chance trying to slow down Lamb on the outside while Cooper DeJean would handle Lamb in the slot.
Prescott bounced back in a big way against the Raiders on Monday Night Football, throwing for four touchdowns in the win and now ranks fourth in the league in passing yards per game (258.7) and sixth in passing yards (2,587).
In 14 career games against the Eagles, Prescott has thrown for 3,590 Yards, 24 touchdowns and eight interceptions. He has thrown just one pick over the last seven meetings (249 pass attempts).
In the Week 1 matchup, the Eagles held Prescott without a passing touchdown for the first time since 2019. Prior to the season opener, Prescott tossed multiple touchdowns in five straight games against Philadelphia including a five touchdown game back in 2022 at AT&T Stadium. Prescott’s 188 passing yards in the opener were also the fewest allowed by an Eagles’ defense since 2017 when Prescott only threw for 179 yards in a 37-9 thumping by Philadelphia.
Like Pickens, Williams is enjoying his best season as a pro, entering the game with the fifth-most rushing yards with 809 yards averaging five yards a carry to go along with eight touchdowns. He is also very tough to bring down after contact, ranking just behind Jonathan Taylor, De’Von Achane and Bijan Robinson averaging four yards per carry after initial contact.
That is where Nakobe Dean and the rest of the improved rush defense will need to step in for the Eagles. Dean has brought an extra dose of physicality to the defense and since his return, Philadelphia’s rush defense has improved noticeably during the four-game win streak, the Eagles have allowed 83.8 yards per game and held all four opponents to under four yards per carry
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“I think as a unit we’re just playing it better,” Vic Fangio said.
“Obviously, Nakobe helps. Last two weeks, [Jaelan] Phillips helps. I think Jalen Carter has really kicked up his game here lately, so it’s a combination of a bunch of things.”
The Cowboys made some improvements to their defense throughout the season, most notably adding Quinnen Williams from the New York Jets at the trade deadline giving up some serious draft capital in a 2026 second-round pick and their 2027 first-round pick along with defensive tackle Mazi Smith.
The Cowboys have the 30th-ranked pass defense allowing 249.9 yards per game and 26th in pass completion percentage allowing opposing quarterbacks to complete 67.9% of their passes. Sounds like another very promising situation where Hurts and the passing game can finally get in sync.
But as the great Lee Corso says… “Not so fast!”
Dallas plays a lot of zone coverage and implemented it on 32 of Hurts’ 33 dropbacks in the Week 1 game which still stands as a season-high and the second-highest zone coverage rate by any defense in a game (97.0%) per NextGen Stats. On the season, the Cowboys have run zone coverage 81.2% of the time which is the fifth-highest rate in the league.
Hurts has struggled against zone coverage this season while Kevin Patullo and the offense as a whole has yet to truly prove they’ve been able to draw up zone-beating routes. Before the rain delay in Week 1, Hurts went 9-of-11 for 93 yards against Dallas with eight of his nine completions going for less than 10 yards. The biggest play in the first half was the 51-yard strike to Jahan Dotson to set up the third touchdown of the half for Philadelphia.
Hurts and the offense will look to have better success this time around.
This is more of a fun talking point than an actual matchup, but the sun has become a factor at AT&T Stadium in the late afternoon time slots which is when this game will be played. Large, 120-foot tall glass windows in the southwest end zone causes havoc for receivers trying to locate passes at times.
We saw it first hand last season when the two teams met in November and Lamb fell victim to his own stadium’s quirk when the Cowboys were threatening to score on Philadelphia’s three-yard line.
“It’s hard to see sometimes early on when the sun goes down,” A.J. Brown said.
The Eagles look to pick up another game on the second-place Cowboys in the NFC East and maintain their grip on the top-seed in the NFC tied with the Rams in the win-loss column with the Chicago Bears on the heels at 7-3.
