The NFC East finds itself in a strange place heading into Monday Night Football: the Cowboys and Eagles are both 2-4, but the energy around each team couldn’t feel more different.
Dallas has the look of a team trying to force its way out of a mess. The passing game has been productive under Brian Schottenheimer, but the ground attack has been among the league’s weakest, with just 456 rushing yards through six games and a dead-last 122 rushing attempts on the season.
Defensively, it has been just as rough. Christian Parker’s unit ranks 23rd against the pass, 32nd against the run, 30th in total yards allowed and 25th in points allowed.
The slide has gotten bad enough that Jerry Jones and company brought in former Browns head coach Mike Pettine as a senior defensive assistant in an effort to steady things.
Philadelphia, meanwhile, arrives with a different kind of chaos. Jalen Hurts’ blood clots have been one of the biggest NFL stories in October, and the roster around him has thinned out fast.
Lane Johnson retired, Cam Jurgens was traded to the Baltimore Ravens, and the Eagles tried to get by with Tanner McKee in Week 6 against the Carolina Panthers. That didn’t bring much relief.
Sean Mannion’s offense stayed stuck in the mud and Philadelphia dropped to 2-4 without much resistance.
So now the first of two scheduled meetings in 2026 lands on the Monday Night Football stage, even if it probably looked a lot better on paper when the schedule came out. The big question is simple: who actually takes control?
One of the cleanest paths for Philadelphia is through the run game, even if that department has been a problem itself. Nick Sirianni teams have typically leaned on the ground attack, and the Eagles were the NFL’s top rushing offense in 2021.
They stayed in the top eight every year after that until 2025, when they slipped to 18th after Saquon Barkley piled up 1,140 yards. This season, though, the Eagles rank 29th in rushing yards, mostly because they’ve only run the ball 28th-most times in the league.
In Weeks 5 and 6, they barely committed to it at all, with just 18 carries against the Jaguars and 13 against the Panthers.
There are reasons for that, of course. Philadelphia spent a lot of those snaps chasing the game, and the offense has been pieced together with backups.
Dameon Pierce was the lone running back still on the 53-man roster who played in Week 5. Even so, if McKee is going to be the long-term quarterback, the Eagles need a real identity, and that starts with hammering the ball on the ground.
The matchup is there for it. Dallas has been just as bad running the ball as it has been stopping the run.
If Barkley is available, the Eagles should lean hard into a 50-50 run-pass split to make life easier for McKee. If Barkley can’t go, Pierce still could be in line for close to 20 carries against a defense allowing 4.7 yards per rush.
That kind of workload would also force the Cowboys to load the box and could open up chances downfield for Makai Lemon, Darius Cooper and Hollywood Brown.
The Cowboys, though, do have a path of their own. If they want to win, they likely have to do it through Dak Prescott’s arm.
Only the Los Angeles Rams have thrown more, and Dallas is sixth in passing yards with 1,603 while sitting 15th with 15 passing touchdowns. That volume has been unavoidable because the Cowboys are last in rushing attempts and haven’t shown much interest in using the ground game to build an offense.
Still, there is a lane for Dallas if it chooses to take it. The Eagles are 19th in rushing yards allowed, but that number comes on the fifth-fewest rushing attempts faced in the NFL, and every opponent they’ve played has reached at least 100 yards on the ground.
Philadelphia is giving up 4.0 yards per carry, which is just a tick above what the Cowboys are averaging this year. If Javonte Williams can hold up his end, it would take some pressure off Prescott and keep the Eagles from pinning their ears back.
The issue is whether Dallas will actually stay disciplined enough to do that. Schottenheimer hasn’t exactly inspired confidence in terms of sticking with a plan, and if the Eagles can create a couple of early three-and-outs, the Cowboys could drift right back into relying on Prescott to bail them out against a defense that plays much better when it gets rolling.
At full strength, the Eagles are still the better team. But this is not a full-strength roster, and that matters.
DeVonta Smith is out for Monday Night Football, and so are Nolan Smith, Dontayvion Wicks and Michael Carter II. McKee is set to start unless something changes through injury, benching or a trade for another quarterback.
The talent edge has shrunk, the mood is shaky, and the Eagles don’t exactly look like a team eager to empty the tank for one regular-season game.
Dallas, on the other hand, has made win-now moves like the trade for Joey Porter Jr. and can’t afford to keep letting these chances slip. At 2-4, another loss would be a major hit, and Jerry Jones has every reason to keep the pressure on Schottenheimer to deliver.
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