4 ways the Eagles can completely break the Cowboys' spirit in Week 10

There’s something special about Dallas Week when both the Philadelphia Eagles and the Cowboys are in contention for the playoffs. It gets nasty, it gets physical, it gets your blood pumping, and it’s fun. This year is different. 

The Cowboys are trash and they’re playing an entirely different sport than the Eagles. Their defense is one of the very worst in the NFL, their offense can’t do anything right, and Dak Prescott just turned his leg into a Renaissance fair turkey leg when he tore part of his hamstring off the bone.

That’s not to say that there’s nothing juicy about this game. The Eagles have an opportunity to send the Cowboys into the hell that is ‘NFL insignificance.’

This Dallas Week gives the Eagles the chance to end the Cowboys' season.

If the Eagles can beat the Cowboys into non-existence now, it’ll pay off dividends later. Their second match-up comes in Week 17, and if the Cowboys are quiet-quitting then, it’ll give the Eagles an easy and important late-season win. 

There are a few things the Eagles can do to make sure Jerry Jones, Mike McCarthy, and the gang lose hope for the rest of the season.

Just win the game

This seems simple enough. The Cowboys are a terrible team in the middle of a collapse, and they’ll be using a backup quarterback. A win seems like it should come easy.

A win won’t just be a win though. It would be a trend-breaking win because the Eagles haven't won in Dallas since November 19, 2017. That’s six straight years of losing, and those were some bad losses. In 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2023 the losses were by 20 or more points. All in all, the Eagles have been outscored 217-118 in that streak.

If the Eagles win this wouldn’t just be a really bad year for the Cowboys… This would be the year the Cowboys winning streak ended. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to the players (it probably does) but it would also kill the hopes of the Cowboys fans that are still somehow hanging around.

Ruin Cooper Rush before he can get started

Don’t let people tell you that Cooper Rush is remotely good. You’ll see people say that he went 5-1 as a starter when Dak Prescott was out with his thumb thing in 2022. While that record is true, there are a couple of things to remember: the Eagles were his one loss, and the Cowboys' defense was really good that year.

Rush made his first start in Week 2 against the Cincinnati Bengals. In that game, Joe Burrow was sacked six times for 35 yards and the Bengals offense was held to 17 points. Despite that, the Cowboys won on a last-second 50-yard field goal.

His Week 3 game was against the New York Giants. Daniel Jones went 20-of-37 for 196 yards and was sacked five times for 27 yards. The Cowboys' defense held that offense to 16 points.

Week 4 was against the Carson Wentz-led Washington Commanders. Wentz was 25-of-42 for only 170 yards. Dallas’ defense held Washington to 10 points.

Rush’s final win was in Week 5 against the Los Angeles Rams, who finished the season with the worst record (5-12) for a defending Super Bowl champion in the history of the league. In that game, the defense held the Rams to 10 points, while also scoring a defensive touchdown.

That stretch ended in Week 6 when the Eagles were the only team to score more than 17 points, which is notable because the Eagles ended up winning 26-17. 

Can Cooper Rush play quarterback? Sure, but he can’t win games. He relied entirely on his defense to do that. You should win games when the other team can only get into the end zone twice.

The Cowboys season is currently in the cremation chamber and all the Eagles have to do is flip the switch to turn it into a bunch of undesirable ashes. Shut down Cooper Rush and make sure no one thinks he has the juice to revive their pitiful season. 

Starve Ezekiel Elliott.

Zeke has played the Eagles 13 times in his career and he’s carried the ball 240 times for 1,136 yards and six touchdowns. That’s fewer games than an entire season, and he’s still rushed for over 1,000 yards. He’s been a boogeyman since he was drafted in 2016.

Now he’s 29 years old, very clearly washed up, and having one of the most unsuccessful farewell tours of all time. Jerry Jones says he’s saving Zeke for later in the season, but that’s just because he’s an old man with a brain that is deteriorating at an exponential rate. Zeke’s not carrying the ball because he straight-up stinks this year. He’s only carried the ball 48 times for 149 yards through Week 10… but for whatever reason, he’s still terrifying. 

Let’s say you fell asleep right now and woke up on Monday: When you grab your phone to look at the box score for this game, would it surprise you to see that Zeke somehow used the last bit of hatred in his heart to run 15 times for 90 yards and a touchdown? Probably not, because that’s just what he does. 

If the Eagles can shut Zeke down in this game, it will sully his legacy and put a particularly rusty nail in the Cowboys’ coffin.

Dominate the line of scrimmage.

In 2023, the Cowboys drafted defensive tackle Mazi Smith in the first round, assumedly for the sole purpose of stopping the Eagles. Turns out that was a bad idea because he actually just stinks.

Per Next Gen Stats, in 2023 he played 142 pass-rush snaps and generated a total of six pressures. This season, he’s played 103 pass-rush snaps and generated ZERO pressures. You would think a player like that would be buried in the defensive tackle rotation, but you’d be wrong. Mazi has actually played the third most snaps of any defensive tackle on the Cowboys’ roster. 

Micah Parsons leads the Cowboys in pressures and DeMarcus Lawrence leads them in sacks, and neither of those guys has played since Week 4. That defensive line is a joke.

The Cowboys' defense is ready to quit and if the Eagles' offense can win up front early and often, it’ll expedite that whole process. Then the backups will come in and all the starters will get rest going into a short week when they have to play a real team on Thursday.

The whole point here is to insult the Cowboys as much as humanly possible, and nothing is more insulting than finishing a game with Kenny Pickett on the field.