What We Saw: Week 6

The What We Saw team recaps everything you missed from Sunday's action

Ben Brown
What We Saw 2 Years Ago
Series Navigation
Introduction
Commanders @ Bears
49ers @ Falcons
Patriots @ Browns
Jets @ Packers
Jaguars @ Colts
Vikings @ Dolphins
Bengals @ Saints
Ravens @ Giants
Buccaneers @ Steelers
Panthers @ Rams
Cardinals @ Seahawks
Bills @ Chiefs
Cowboys @ Eagles

Cowboys @ Eagles

Final Score: Eagles 26, Cowboys 17

Writer: Michael James (@MikeoftheFF on Twitter)

 

Cooper Rush answers the bell once again and takes the Dallas Cowboys on the road to Lincoln Financial Field to match up with Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles for the Sunday night game.  Featuring the top two teams of the NFC BEast, it’s time to see which team is for real and which might need a bit more improvement than their record would indicate.  Both quarterbacks would feel the heat on their respective opening drives.  Dallas would go three and out to punt it only for the Eagles to go for 5 plays before punting it right back to start the back-and-forth.  However, the Eagles would soon get a drive sustained with some 4th down magic, completing a pass on 4th and 3 and then getting some help on red zone 4th and 4 from the Cowboys jumping offsides leading to a Miles Sanders 5-yard touchdown to put the Eagles on the board first.

Dallas would get the ball back and the first play would get a pass punched into the air by the Eagles’ defense and then brought down by CJ Gardner-Johnson for the interception giving the ball right back to the Eagles starting in Cowboys territory.  After running it at the Cowboys six times in a row featuring Sanders and Boston Scott, Jalen Hurts fakes the handoff and rolls out to toss a short pass for AJ Brown to run it in for a 15-yard touchdown, putting the Eagles further ahead.  The Eagles got a lucky break on an egregiously bad spot by the officiating crew, setting up Philadelphia to come up with a stop against a hurry-up 4th and 1 gamble by Dallas to try to catch them off guard, but the play took too long to set up and snap, and the Cowboys would turn the ball over on downs on their own 35-yard line, leaving a lot of heads to be scratched.  Philadelphia would convert that into a field goal by Jake Elliot to add 3 to the Eagles’ growing lead.  Cooper Rush would start to become his own worst enemy, sending the second pass of the drive right into the hands of Darius Slay, for his second interception of the half.  Hurts would drive his offense down and set up another Elliot field goal to take a 20-0 lead.  Not content with going into the locker room, Dallas would ride a 63-yard kick return by KaVontae Turpin through a very effective 2-minute drill into the Eagles’ red zone but after multiple well-defended plays by the Eagles, the Cowboys would settle for a Brett Maher field goal to cut into the lead and go into the locker room down 20-3.

 

 

 

The Eagles would get the ball coming out of the half and look to test the Cowboys deep but came up empty-handed and would go 4 plays before having to punt the ball.  Dallas came out with a revised look on offense, going no-huddle, alternating between running, and bootlegging out to the tight end.  Tony Pollard would be the one to bring them into the Eagles’ territory and Ezekiel Elliott would be the one to punch through the red zone and score the touchdown, bringing the Cowboys to within two scores.  Another turbo Turpin return would get nullified by a penalty, pushing Cooper Rush to start the drive on his own 7.  Dallas would use short out-passes and a heavy dose of the running game to move the chains up the field for a 15-play 93-yard drive ending in a Rush touchdown pass to Jake Ferguson to cut the lead to 3.  Hurts would command a 13-play drive that would consist of 9 rushing attempts, to lure the defense in to set up a big gain for Brown to bring them into the red zone, and then hit a rollout to a wide-open DeVonta Smith for the touchdown.  Trevon Diggs would hulk smash his helmet on the play setting up a penalty to move the ball half the distance for the two-point attempt, but Sanders would get stuffed at the line for no gain.

The Cowboys would get the ball back, only for Rush to get hit as he threw resulting in an underthrown deep ball that would become Gardner-Johnson’s second interception of the night.  The Cowboys’ defense would step up to get a stuffed run and a fumble (recovered offense) to force a quick punt to give one more shot.  Dallas would play the sidelines to maximize the clock but would stall out just inside the Eagles’ side of the field, calling on a Maher 59-yard attempt to put the game within one possession.  The kick would miss just to the right, allowing the Eagles to take over where the ball was kicked and run out the clock to secure the win 26-17.

 

 

We had the potential for a three-way tie for first place in the East, but instead, the Eagles take control of the division with a 6-0 record, and Cooper Rush takes his first-ever loss as a starter in the NFL.  The end-of-game offensive statistics were surprisingly very similar between the two teams, with the major differences being one team gave up four first downs via penalties and turned the ball over 3 times, while the other kept it clean and performed efficiently.  Now the Eagles have a solid defense that they’ve tallied a win against, and continue to press their undefeated season into the bye next week.  The Cowboys will look for Dak to return to play at home and host Detroit next week.

 

Dallas Cowboys

 

Quarterback

 

Cooper Rush: 18/38, 181 Yards, TD, 3 INT

 

What do you get when you ask your backup quarterback to step into the pressure and score points to keep up with a high-0ctane Eagles offense?  A quarterback rating of 1 for the first half.  No, I did not leave off a digit.  5 completions, 36 yards, and 2 interceptions.  Only one of those passes was for double-digit yards.  But Cooper Rush fought back in the second half, adding 13 more passes, 145 yards, and a touchdown even!  (And also a third interception, ouch).  Rush was definitely rattled in the first half, the throws were considerably off the mark, and was not stepping up to the pressure at all.  In the second half, he calmed down and led the team on their two touchdown drives, including a catch-and-run touchdown for Jake Ferguson.  I’ll be honest I started tracking bad throws for ‘would-be’ completions but the list was getting too long and scrapped the idea.  Being off-target all night, the first two interceptions were balls that should not have been thrown, and the third was to a wide-open CeeDee Lamb that was either caused by being hit on release, or just a bad throw.  Either way, it fell woefully short to the Eagles.  Dak Prescott is slated to return next week and the offense should get a jolt moving forward.

 

 

Running Back

 

Ezekiel Elliott: 13 Carries, 81 Yards, TD | 1 Target, 1 Reception, 5 Yards

Tony Pollard: 11 Carries, 44 Yards | 3 Targets, 2 Receptions, 8 Yards

 

You fall behind this fast, you abandon the run pretty fast.  When you fall behind because you are turning the ball over and cutting possessions short, you’re just not running the ball that much.  The pair totaled 9 rushes in the first half, but stuck to it using Tony Pollard and Ezekiel Elliott to draw in coverage to the box, then using play action and bootlegs to get the ball downfield in the second half.  Elliot averaged over 6 yards per carry and while his cuts and spins looked a tad bit slower, the Eagles’ front line was exploited by both running backs to punch in a 14-yard touchdown for Elliott.  Once again the dynamic duo was used in tandem, with both running backs seeing work on the same drive.  Pollard had 4 rushes to Zeke’s 2 rushes on the drive that got him a touchdown.  The other scoring drive saw Pollard have two rushes to Elliott’s five rushes.  Something of note was Pollard did not see action on third down, Elliott got every call that was a rushing play on third down and a majority of the pass protection.

 

 

Wide Receiver/Tight End

 

CeeDee Lamb: 10 Targets, 5 Receptions, 68 Yards | 2 Carries, 9 Yards

Jake Ferguson: 6 Targets, 4 Receptions, 40 Yards, TD

Michael Gallup: 7 Targets, 2 Receptions, 18 Yards

Peyton Hendershot: 5 Targets, 2 Receptions, 22 Yards

Noah Brown: 3 Targets, 1 Reception, 10 Yards

Sean McKeon: 1 Target, 1 Reception, 10 Yards

 

Dalton Schultz was out for this game after aggravating his knee injury last week.  What’s also aggravating is the split of work to two rookie tight ends, that if you were to combine would make for a top play on average (6 receptions, 62 yards, TD on 11 targets).  They seemed to split the work respectively, Jake Ferguson bringing in the touchdown on a pretty slick move, and Peyton Hendershot getting the penalty flag for bunny hopping on the line of scrimmage after going in motion.  This was the most targets the position has seen since Rush took over the job, and  Schultz put up top-ten season average numbers with Prescott last season, who is set to return next week.

Noah Brown had a circus one-handed catch in the end zone but failed to get two feet in bounds.  Michael Gallup also was open for a touchdown throw, but the pass was off the mark and not close.  He would spend the night being covered like a blanket and had a few passes that were well-defended, including one of the interceptions.  The Cowboys just did not seem to want to attack the middle of the field short, and the attempts to attack the middle deep did not end well.  CeeDee Lamb broke free for what would be a catch and run for a touchdown that would have changed the entire game, but the pass was severely underthrown (and intercepted).

This unit only got half a game of work, as the first half was spent in meltdown as the Eagles raced up 20 points on turnovers into halftime.  Lamb got 9 targets in the second half, the volume was there, but so was the Eagles’ secondary.  Better days are most definitely ahead with the schedule and the return of Prescott.  Credit needs to be given to the Eagles, they game-planned for this passing attack extremely well.

 

 

Philadelphia Eagles

 

Quarterback

 

Jalen Hurts: 15/25, 155 Yards, 2 TD | 9 Carries, 27 Yards, Fumble (Recovered)

 

It seemed half of Jalen Hurts rushes were ‘victory formation’ one-yard sneaks for the first down that were executed very well.  The other half of his rushes did not get far, one of the few things the Cowboys did right was spy effectively on Hurts.  This is another case of a team racing to a lead, and then wanting to run the ball to control the time of possessions to limit the other team.  Other than one pass almost being intercepted in the first quarter, the team relied on short passes.  Only one attempt at a deep throw was executed, and that went incomplete.  Multiple times the team used the run to set up the throw once they got in deep, and it worked once each for AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith coming away with touchdowns to show for it.  Hurts would only add 44 passing yards for the entire second half.  This was his lowest offensive performance on the season, and it falls in line with the defensive game plan the Cowboys had for the quarterback.  They made sure they were covered over the top to prevent the big plays, the longest catch went for 22 yards to Brown.

 

 

Running Back

 

Miles Sanders: 18 Carries, 71 Yards, TD | 1 Target, 1 Reception, 1 Yard

Boston Scott: 6 Carries, 16 Yards

Kenneth Gainwell: 5 Carries, 25 Yards

 

The Eagles kept to roughly a 60-20-20 split for the carries outside of Hurts and were relied upon to protect the lead.  The team ran it 39 times, the second highest on the season.  Miles Sanders got the majority of the work, averaging 3.9 yards per carry with his longest going for 11 yards.  He ran for the first touchdown of the game and the Eagles seem to be relying on him far more than last season’s roller coaster giving him RB1 volume and he continues to produce on it.  He did not have a lot of pretty runs, but he came through and gave Philadelphia a reason to continue feeding him the ball.  Boston Scott and Kenneth Gainwell shared the backup load, and while neither was fantasy-relevant, Gainwell looked to be the superior back on the runs he had compared to Scott.

 

 

Wide Receiver/Tight End

 

A.J. Brown: 8 Targets, 5 Receptions, 67 Yards, TD

DeVonta Smith: 5 Targets, 5 Receptions, 44 Yards, TD

Dallas Goedert: 5 Targets, 2 Receptions, 22 Yards

Jack Stoll: 1 Target, 1 Reception, 21 Yards

Quez Watkins: 1 Target, 1 Reception | 1 Carry, -3 Yards

 

There was no long bomb or a busted catch and run for big yards to be had today.  The Eagles just punched in, got the job done, and punched out.  Short passes over the middle were met shortly thereafter for a tackle, and the rest were shallow passes to the sides to move the chains.  AJ Brown lead the day with 67 yards on 8 targets and brought in one of the two receiving touchdowns.  The other went to DeVonta Smith, both giving you double-digit fantasy scores for your team.  The longest play on the day was Brown converting a 22-yard catch to set up Smith’s touchdown on the next play.  Dallas Goedert was covered pretty well by –checks notes– Micah Parsons, but did draw a costly 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty out of Parsons, but was otherwise ineffective on the day.

 

 

Series Navigation
Introduction
Commanders @ Bears
49ers @ Falcons
Patriots @ Browns
Jets @ Packers
Jaguars @ Colts
Vikings @ Dolphins
Bengals @ Saints
Ravens @ Giants
Buccaneers @ Steelers
Panthers @ Rams
Cardinals @ Seahawks
Bills @ Chiefs
Cowboys @ Eagles

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