PHILADELPHIA - For one quarter, the Eagles looked like a team that had finally found a pulse. Saquon Barkley was popping runs, the offense was moving, and Philadelphia even jumped in front early.
Then the night turned fast.
Dallas took control behind Dak Prescott and kept pouring it on in the second half, beating the Eagles 38-21 on Monday night and handing Philadelphia its fifth straight loss. The skid is the franchise’s first five-game losing streak since 2016, and the Eagles have fallen to 2-5. Their hopes of winning the NFC East and reaching the playoffs for a sixth straight season are gone.
The defense, which had already been shaky, completely unraveled once the offense started to show signs of life. The Cowboys racked up 212 passing yards and 204 rushing yards, and scored a field goal and two touchdowns on their first three drives.
CeeDee Lamb got to Cooper DeJean for a nine-yard touchdown with 5:37 left in the first quarter. DeJean, who entered Week 7 leading the league with 12 missed tackles, has not played at an All-Pro level this season and continues to struggle in coverage.
Dallas struck again late in the second quarter when George Pickens slipped behind Drew Mukuba in the right corner of the end zone and Prescott dropped in a 21-yard touchdown.
The final blow came in the fourth quarter. Prescott attacked Riq Woolen on a 55-yard drive that ended with a touchdown, and the sequence featured Woolen drawing a holding penalty on Lamb, surrendering a 16-yard catch to Ryan Flournoy, then giving up a 16-yard touchdown to Lamb on the very next mistake. Dallas led 28-21 after that drive and never eased up.
Barkley was the one thing that gave Philadelphia life early. On the second play of the game, he ripped off a 29-yard run.
Two plays later, he finished the four-play, 75-yard march with an eight-yard touchdown. It was the Eagles’ first touchdown in the first quarter this season; through the first six games, they had managed only three points in the opening quarter.
He finished with seven carries for 62 yards before leaving in the second half with a back injury. He had limped through the first half and wasn’t able to finish most drives. Backup Dameon Pierce added 14 carries for 47 yards, and the Eagles finished with 121 rushing yards.
With Barkley in the lineup, Philadelphia at least showed the outlines of a rushing attack. Without him in the second half, the offense faded again.
Tanner McKee had his moments, but the mistakes were costly. He went 23 of 35 for 211 yards and a touchdown, a line that looks solid on paper. The problem came in the biggest spots.
Trailing by 10 with 7:55 left, McKee threw an interception to DeMarvion Overshown. Late in the first half, he missed Darius Cooper low on first down and then threw behind rookie receiver Makai Lemon on the next snap, a sequence that left points on the table before halftime.
McKee did help engineer a long second-half march, though. On the opening drive after halftime, he guided a 17-play, 84-yard touchdown series that lasted more than nine minutes. He completed seven passes for 60 yards on the drive and hit Lemon for a four-yard touchdown.
The Eagles plan to stay with McKee for the next two weeks before the bye, but Joe Milton could eventually push for the job if the spiral continues. McKee has enough arm talent to make things interesting, but his accuracy and decision-making have been too uneven to trust.
Philadelphia also got a boost from having Landon Dickerson and Drew Kendall back in the starting lineup, and the offensive line was able to move Dallas off the ball and open up wide running lanes inside. That just wasn’t enough to offset everything else going wrong.
The bigger picture is brutal: this is a 2026 Eagles team that has already slid into the league’s basement. They’ll be picking at the top of the draft.
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