The Dallas Cowboys: Striving for Mediocrity in a Topsy-Turvy World

by 24USATVNov. 12, 2018, 3:45 p.m. 211
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[Read: What We Learned in N.F.L. Week 10]

The Cowboys are now 4-5, same as the Eagles, whose championship nine months ago has apparently produced a recent spike in babies born around the Delaware Valley and in parents regretting naming their children after Coach Doug Pederson. Coming off a bye, after trading for the former Pro Bowl receiver Golden Tate, and having had two weeks to strategize for Dallas, the Eagles flopped. Not unlike how the Cowboys, in those same circumstances, performed last Monday against Tennessee.

Through 10 weeks, the best — or rather, leading — team in the N.F.C. East gave up 501 yards to Tampa Bay on Sunday and won. That would be 6-3 Washington, which last won the division title in 2015, and before that in 2012, since teams in the East never, ever repeat as champions — at least not since Philadelphia did, from 2001-04.

The Cowboys ruled the East in 2016, when across a full season Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott muffled opponents much how they did to Philadelphia, by controlling the clock and avoiding turnovers and gashing a tired defense with long runs and timely throws. By winning Sunday, they did not so much validate Jones’s professed faith in them, in Prescott and Coach Jason Garrett and his beleaguered staff, as prove that they were not inferior to the Eagles, who were not penalized once and who averaged more yards per play and, yet, still lost.

As such, it might be a disservice to mediocre things everywhere — grape juice, Smarties, the color beige — to characterize the Eagles in those terms. Barring unanticipated developments — stopping the run, for instance, or scoring a first-quarter touchdown — their reign is poised to end within the next seven weeks. A punishing second-half schedule includes a visit next week to New Orleans, which has scored roughly eleventy billion points the last two games, and a trip to Los Angeles to play the Rams, who have lost as many times this season as the Eagles did on Sunday — which is to say, once.

“It’s not going to be easy,” said tight end Zach Ertz, who scored both of Philadelphia’s touchdowns in the second half. “But we have to believe, despite the evidence.”

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