That notion sure ended on Sunday night.
Jalen Hurts threw two touchdown passes and the Eagles’ offense put up more points than any other team against the vaunted Dallas Cowboys defense in the 26-17 win. Dallas is full of dominant defensive players. It’s something that, even after the game, the Eagles coaching staff understood.
“They’re really good players. They made it hard for us, but every time I have confidence going out there just because of who we have in that huddle.” Nick Sirianni said after the game.
Eagles silenced the NFL’s top defender
Part of the reason for the team’s success on Sunday came by limiting Micah Parsons. The front-runner for the defensive player of the year award in just his second season, Parsons has been the lone reason for Dallas’ success once Dak Prescott went down with his broken hand.
Coming into the game Sunday, Parsons had a forced fumble, six sacks, and 12 quarterback hits.
After the Eagles won the game, Parsons had…six sacks, 12 quarterback hits, and a forced fumble. Philadelphia kept a potential player-of-the-year candidate off the stat sheet in a major way on Sunday night.
Philadelphia put Parsons in a blender as a pass rusher and ultimately limited what the Cowboys could do defensively. It showed early in the second quarter.
Leading 7-0 in the second quarter, Hurts and the Eagles made Parsons the key on zone read passes and RPOs that made it almost impossible for the Penn State standout to impact the game in the way he usually does. It happened with the AJ Brown touchdown below.
That kind of play happened throughout the contest.
The way the Eagles offense put Parsons out in space and made him guess incorrectly on every option play frustrated the Cowboys’ defense so much that they were called for three unsportsmanlike conduct penalties late in the game.
To Nick Sirianni, putting Parsons out in space was part of the game plan but doesn’t want to make that as the only reason for the Eagles limiting the star.
“Sometimes it’s like, you can’t block them, read them. I’ve said that before. And our guys did a good job blocking them in the run game, there is no doubt.” Sirianni said. “How many sacks did he have today? So, they did a good job in the pass pro as well. I felt like they put some pressure on us at times, which is going to happen with a good rushing team. We’re reading them at times, and we knew he had a groin that he was recovering from as well.”
The three pressures Parsons had in the entire game came when Lane Johnson left with a concussion in the first half. Even with three pressures, he did not record a hit on the quarterback and showed just how good a job the Eagles did at scheming against the Parsons problem.
AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez
