Carter's Says: The Fallout Of The Philadelphia Eagles Loss to Dallas

The Philadelphia Eagles are 0-3 this season against the Dallas Cowboys and are STILL without a Super Bowl Championship. This is what this basically means: the Philadelphia Eagles are the Dallas Cowboys’ (enter expletive here)

I mean, really people. The Dallas Cowboys have had a great season and deserve all the credit in the world for beating the Philadelphia Eagles for the third time this season. Tony Romo is finally being considered as an elite quarterback in the NFL, the Cowboys are considered true Super Bowl contenders, and Wade Phillips is no longer on the coaching hot seat.

Phillips was 0-4 in the playoffs as a head coach before last nights’ game started. Tony Romo also had a goose egg as his win total in the playoff before Saturday’s blowout win. Apparently Wade Phillips and Tony Romo got tired of remembering that this week and FINALLY did something about it. Wade’s defense stepped up huge and Tony Romo led his team to points in their first five drives of the game.

As far as the Philadelphia Eagles go, well, it’s almost the opposite. I say almost because Andy Reid isn’t on the hot seat either because he’s a genius and his record as the Eagles’ coach proves it. The Eagles are 7-1 in their playoff openers with him as their coach, and 6-1 with McNabb as their QB. But Donovan McNabb is starting to fall away from the NFL’s “Elite Quarterback” group. He’s never going to be the quarterback he was during the 2004 season when he threw for over 3,800 yards, 31 touchdown passes and a 104.7 passer rating. Ever since then, he’s dropped off quite a bit. I know all of you Eagles’ fans are going to disagree but it’s true. I also believe that Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb are both still pretty good at what they do but it’s hard to believe at this point that they have the talent around them to win a Super Bowl because the Eagles tend to fold every year once they get deep into the playoffs. This year was no different, obviously.

Going back to the Cowboys, the playoff game-winless streak is all over. After the game the Cowboys reacted well to their win, saying that they are a great team but they still have things to improve on. I find that difficult to believe at this point for the Cowboys because the they have done everything right ever since their win over the New Orleans Saints and ended their bid to go undefeated in this years’ regular season.


If I were the Dallas Cowboys at this point, I’d feel pretty confident going into next week’s matchup against the Minnesota Vikings. Coach Wade Phillips even said it himself that his team is playing their best football and are playing as good as anyone at this point, which is exactly right. They put all the labels away. Labels like “they can’t play well in December even if they tried” or “the Philadelphia Eagles are such a better team than them” or one more like “Tony Romo is never going to win a playoff game for this team.”

If I were the Philadelphia Eagles, I would be saying to myself “how could this happen?” They finished their season poorly. I mean, let’s not kid ourselves. They barely squeezed by the Denver Broncos on December 27, they get blown out by the Dallas Cowboys during the last week of the season (a game that would’ve given them home field advantage if they would have won) and they play the same team in the exact same stadium and get blown out AGAIN not even a week later! This happened after leading WR DeSean Jackson tweeted to the public that the Eagles were going to “sting them this week.” It turns out that the stinging happened, but to the Philadelphia Eagles. Jackson was kept without any huge games for the THIRD time by Dallas, but he did get a four-yard touchdown catch in the fourth quarter. I guess the Cowboys felt bad for him so they just gave it to him…

Now all the negative labels seem to be stamped on the Philly organization. Labels like “not a deep playoff team” or “a team that just can’t win the Super Bowl” or “the team that just makes the dumb slip ups right when they start to make huge strides in the season”

Now with the Eagles eliminated again from the playoffs, this gives the Cowboys a chance to continue writing a positive history book. They play the Vikings next week, a team that led by arguably the greatest quarterback that the NFL has ever seen in Brett Favre. He’s also the childhood hero of Tony Romo’s. I mean the guy grew up in Wisconsin so I’m sure it’s been kinda hard not to root for Brett if you’ve lived there for the past 20 years or so.

With the Cowboys win, this gives them a new label as “legit Super Bowl Contenders” and the Eagles 0-3 record against the Cowboys this year and STILL without a championship, this could give them the new label “the team that just can’t do it.”

Here’s some interesting numbers from the game that back up my thinking about the Cowboys and Eagles:

As far as last night’s game goes, here’s a few numbers that stood out to me.

First Downs: Cowboys 27, Eagles 17
3rd down efficiency: Cowboys (9 for 16), Eagles (2 for 11)
Total Yards: Cowboys 426, Eagles 340
Rushing Yards: Cowboys 198, Eagles 56
Turnovers: Eagles 4, Cowboys 1

And for the regular season, I got numbers for that too.
Completions: Tony Romo 347, Donovan McNabb 267
Completion Percentage: Tony Romo 63.1 %, Donovan McNabb 60.3 %
Passing Yards: Tony Romo 4,483, Donovan McNabb 3,553
Touchdown Passes: Tony Romo 26, Donovan McNabb 22
Passer Rating: Tony Romo 97.6, Donovan McNabb 92.9

Offensive Production:
Yards Per Game: Cowboys 399.4, Eagles 357.9
Rushing Yards Per Game: Cowboys 131.4, Eagles 102.3

Defensive Production:
Yards Against Per Game: Cowboys 315.9, Eagles 321.1
Points Against Per Game: Cowboys 15.6, Eagles 21.1
Rush Yards Against Per Game: Cowboys 90.5, Eagles 104.7