Eagles vs. Cowboys: Breaking Down Philadelphia's Game Plan

The best advice I could give the Philadelphia Eagles this Thanksgiving is to not turn the football over and give a Dallas Cowboys offense already ranked fourth in time of possession any extra chances. But seeing as Mark Sanchez will be under center for the Birds, such feedback is likely to fall on deaf ears.

Oh well. It was an elementary game plan, anyway.

What Philly could really use instead is some kind of X-factor. With that in mind, it might be about time head coach Chip Kelly finally unleashes the big guy: The Incredible Darren Sproles.

	GMS	SACKS	INT	FL
2014	4	8	6	2
2012	15	34	18	8
2011	16	39	18	8

No doubt, the following is an unpopular sentiment around the Delaware Valley, but the 8-3 Cowboys match up quite well with—some would go so far as to say are better than—the 8-3 Eagles right now, one reason being the quarterbacks. Sanchez is responsible for eight turnovers in three-and-a-half games. Tony Romo, on the other hand, is enjoying a career year.

Something—or someone—has to level the playing field.

I can think of a few things that could swing this outcome the Eagles’ way, but primarily on defense or special teams, and the last I checked (Week 4, in San Francisco), offenses usually need to score points to win. Assuming Sanchez is unable to show some restraint, the Eagles offense may need to score a lot of points to beat Dallas.

And while it may seem like the Eagles are scoring plenty with Sanchez at the helm, the final scores have been a tad misleading. It’s not as if this offense is firing on all cylinders.

	TOUCHES	YDS	AVG	TD
Wins	63	526	8.3	5
Losses	7	50	7.1	0

So what am I driving at here? Well, to begin with, we’ve seen Sproles flat out take over games this season, mostly earlier in the year. The 10th-year back racked 263 yards of total offense on 26 touches—13.0 per game—in Weeks 1 and 2 combined. In eight games since, he has just 44 touches—5.5 per game, or less than half—for 313 yards.

All season long, people have been asking why we haven’t seen more of Sproles. Perhaps Kelly has been saving him for a critical day like this.

Because it’s not merely a matter of Sproles not getting the touches people expect. I’m not the slightest bit convinced we’ve seen this back used in every conceivable role.

I was at every training camp practice this summer, and LeSean McCoy in the backfield with Sproles lined up as a wide receiver in the slot was practically the base offense, with minimal hyperbole. The Eagles also worked on deploying the two out of the backfield at the same time.

Where have these packages been all season?

Elsa/Getty Images

You could argue based on their record that the Eagles haven’t been forced to dig that deep into the bag in 2014. In Dallas, they might. Unless Philadelphia’s defense has an answer for the Cowboys’ methodical offense, the Eagles are going to find Sanchez in another shootout against a white-hot quarterback, same as they did in a 53-20 blowout at the hands of the Green Bay Packers 10 days ago.

If Kelly isn’t willing to pull out all the stops, I’m not entirely convinced Sanchez can win that type of game. Somebody is going to have to help pick up the load, and we’ve already seen that Sproles can be that spark plug—even though we haven’t really seen anything yet.

Crashing Romo’s Thanksgiving Day Party

Michael Perez/Associated Press

Now, onto where I really believe this pivotal division showdown will be won or lost: By Philadelphia’s defense, and specifically the Eagles pass rush.

At this point, you can expect DeMarco Murray is going to get his. The NFL’s leading rusher is ahead of the pack by over 400 yards. He’s been held under the century mark in one week all season long, when Romo was out with a back injury, and even then he hung 79 yards with a 4.1-yard average on the Arizona Cardinals' No. 3 run defense.

Yet as good as Murray has been, games are seldom won and lost on the ground anymore in the NFL. The losing part has certainly held true for Dallas this year, anyway.

	CMP%	AVG	TD/INT	SACKS
Wins	70.9	7.5	20/3	8
Losses	61.5	8.8	2/3	12

In the Cowboys’ lone two defeats with Romo at the helm, the 12th-year signal-caller was taken down in the backfield for a combined eight sacks—three times by the San Francisco 49ers and five by Washington. The total in those two contests alone accounts for 40 percent of the 20 sacks Romo has taken all season.

Dallas was held to 17 points in both tilts. Coincidence? Most definitely not.

The problem is getting to Romo will be no easy task. After investing three first-round picks in offensive linemen over the past four drafts, the unit is rather suddenly and very dramatically improved—probably the best the protection has ever been in Romo’s career. He’s been sacked more than twice in a game on just one other occasion all season, and only once in his last eight starts.

Romo has responded by posting a career year. If the season ended today, he would set new personal bests in completion percentage (68.8), touchdown percentage (7.5) and passer rating (111.4), per Pro-Football-Reference.com. His 8.5 yards per attempt is also a tenth of a yard off his high.

Only Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers is having a more efficient season as a passer than Romo—and as we’ve learned already, the Eagles couldn’t rattle that guy.

GM	QB	SACKS	QB RATING	OUTCOME
Wk 2 @ IND	Andrew Luck	0	89.3	30-27 W
Wk 3 vs. WAS	Kirk Cousins	0	103.4	37-34 W
Wk 8 @ ARZ	Carson Palmer	0	90.3	24-20 L
Wk 11 @ GB	Aaron Rodgers	1	120.3	53-20 L

Philadelphia’s pass rush may be second in the NFL with 38 sacks this season, but as I wrote on Tuesday, they’ve come up small in some big situations. The worst of it was against the Packers in Green Bay, where Rodgers was brought down to the turf one time all day during a 53-20 blowout victory over the Birds.

The Cowboys' passing attack isn’t quite as potent as Green Bay’s, but the Dallas offensive line is better and Romo and Rodgers are similarly slick when it comes to buying time in the pocket. Plus, it doesn’t seem to matter who the quarterback is, if he has time, he’ll carve up Philadelphia’s 30th-ranked pass defense like a turkey.

Rich Schultz/Getty Images

Somehow, some way, the Eagles must get pressure on Romo. Everybody expects the guy to simply implode, but he’s not going to unless he’s hurried, getting hit and generally feeling uncomfortable in the pocket.

Otherwise, the Cowboys should surpass that magic number of 17 points on the scoreboard with ease. As previously stated, if this thing becomes a shootout, I don’t necessarily like Philly’s chances with Sanchez under center.

If the defense can limit scoring and big plays through the air, however, the Eagles can keep the game within striking distance for its offense, which is still capable of putting up some numbers of its own. It all starts with forcing Romo to make mistakes or be just a hair off all day.

Unfortunately, that’s a side of Romo we haven’t seen a whole lot of in 2014.