Cowboys-Eagles megapreview: Jalen Hurts’ task, George Pickens’ role, bets I like, prediction and more

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Week 1 of the NFL season has arrived and we get to wet our beaks with a Thursday night NFC East rivalry matchup between the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles and the spotlight-hogging Dallas Cowboys.

Last year, the Eagles stampeded their way to a title behind a dominant defense and explosive (though at times inconsistent) offense that blew the Kansas City Chiefs out of the water in New Orleans. Philly’s offense returns essentially everyone but a guard and an offensive coordinator. (Kevin Patullo has been promoted from pass game coordinator to replace Kellen Moore, so I expect the Eagles to keep playing the hits.)

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The Cowboys stumbled their way through an injury-laden season and now enter 2025 with a new head coach and defensive coordinator, and their best player now playing for the Green Bay Packers. Oh, and a bunch of former first-rounders and George Pickens on the roster now, too.

This week, I previewed this classic matchup and what to expect out of the new and old faces littered throughout it.

Jalen Hurts was up and down the last time he faced a Matt Eberflus defense, but there are answers for Eagles

The only time Jalen Hurts faced a Matt Eberflus-coached defense (Week 15, 2022), he had a wonky day in the middle of his second-team All-Pro season, finishing the outing rushing for three touchdowns on 17 (!) attempts and throwing for 315 yards, but also with two interceptions and a dropback success rate of 38.1% (around 45% is a typical league average mark).

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Eberflus has always preferred zone coverages that rotate from a quarters shell, and he was no different in this game. Something notable was how often Eberflus did dial up blitzes, particularly Cover 0 looks. Eberflus can be an aggressive play-caller on third downs, but that was the highest rate of all-out blitzes he called all season. And when your defense loses Micah Parsons, the NFL leader in pressures generated, perhaps Eberflus starts the season out with a bang, at least on passing downs, in an attempt to throw a wrench into the Eagles’ offense that can start steamrolling and overwhelming defenses at a moment’s notice. Hurts can still be inconsistent against the blitz, but he was much better last season after a tumultuous ending to 2023 that culminated in a wild-card round playoff exit at the hands of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the knuckleball-throwing Todd Bowles.

In that 2022 game vs. Eberflus, 45.9% of Hurts’ pass attempts traveled over 10 air yards, a rate of deep balls that he hasn’t surpassed in a game since. And Hurts hit a few of those deep excursions (typically go balls down the sideline) but he wasn’t efficient on a down-to-down basis. Cowboys cornerback Trevon Diggs has been recovering from a knee procedure, but projects to play in this game. Opposite of him, the Cowboys are starting former Bills first-round draft pick Kaiir Elam, who could never quite stick in Buffalo and should be a frequent target of Hurts’ outside attempts. And it doesn’t matter if it’s A.J. Brown or DeVonta Smith, both should have a sizable advantage whenever matched up against Elam, which I think Hurts is going to test throughout the evening.

Despite Cowboys’ trade to stop the run, Eagles should still find success against them

The Cowboys, of course, jettisoned one of the best defenders in the league in Parsons last week, with a consistent message about improving against the run being a part of the decision to trade a three-time Pro Bowler entering his fifth year in the NFL. The Cowboys got defensive tackle Kenny Clark in that exchange. Clark played through injury last season and can still be disruptive, but he has a tendency to go rogue in his hunt to make a big play. A defender not consistently staying with his assignment and “gap sound” can leave the defense vulnerable to big plays on the ground against disciplined offensive lines and run games. And a disciplined offensive line and run game is exactly what the Eagles have.

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One of the issues with the Cowboys’ messaging about stopping the run is that I still don’t think they did much to improve it, even if they added a former Pro Bowl defensive tackle. While Clark was ninth in stuff rate among qualifying DTs over the past two seasons, he is not the block-eating, down-to-down defensive plugger this defense has desperately needed since Johnathan Hankins left for Seattle two years ago. Clark’s run stop rate (a stop is a tackle that resulted in an unsuccessful play for the offense) was only 8.8% over the past two seasons, ranking 21st out of 25 qualifying defensive tackles since 2023, just above his new Cowboys teammate Osa Odighizuwa, who is an excellent gap-shooting defensive tackle but lacks size to hold up against double-teams. And Mazi Smith has been an entire non-factor in his NFL career.

It feels like the Cowboys put a 10-gallon hat on top of a baseball hat in terms of stopping the run, especially with a defensive scheme that typically aligns their front four in a traditional way. Putting together a couple of gap-shooting defensive tackles with more pass rush-first defensive ends is a scary recipe to be concocting.

The Eagles’ jumbo-size offensive line (the heaviest in the NFL, per Trench Warfare’s Brandon Thorn) will trot out a new guard on the opposite side of Landon Dickerson, who has recently returned from a training camp injury. Tyler Steen has been a member of Jeff Stoutland University for a few seasons and has worked at a few spots along the offensive line. He finally gets his first chance at starting full-time at right guard. While he might be the main area to attack for defensive coordinators, he’s insulated by the rest of the talented Eagles group. Their offensive line is one of the best units in the game, and now Dallas doesn’t have Parsons to create edginess. The Cowboys might be talking about being better against the run, but I think the Eagles are going to be able to run physical rushing plays that create strong double-teams (like the duo run concept) and get Saquon Barkley in space on the Cowboys’ linebackers time and time again.

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Why George Pickens vs. Eagles’ DBs could be a swing factor

Elam isn’t the only second cornerback who could be be a swing factor in this game. While the Eagles’ Quinyon Mitchell is well on his way to being a star in the NFL, opposite of him, primarily playing on the defense’s right, is former Giants cornerback Adoree’ Jackson. Jackson can still be a fine starter — coverage stats are noisy, but Jackson ranked fourth among qualifying CBs last year in coverage success rate as the nearest defender, per NextGenStats — but he is still a step down compared to Mitchell.

For the Cowboys, CeeDee Lamb is still the focus of their passing game, but he’s best used in the slot or off the ball before the snap. And while Lamb will always get his touches throughout the course of a game, especially against a Vic Fangio defense that is fine allowing throws to the underneath areas, the Eagles have another young star in their secondary in Cooper DeJean, who allowed 4.9 years per target as the nearest coverage defender, which was the lowest mark in the NFL, per NextGenStats.

This is where new Cowboys addition George Pickens comes in. Pickens is a true outside wide receiver who can win when aligned on the ball. He’s not a star at the position, but he’s a quality “X” and goes to an offense and ecosystem that fits his skill set and role perfectly. Lamb gets to move around the formation, and Pickens can align outside without being the defense’s primary focus.

Pickens even fits Dak Prescott’s preferred way of attacking defenses, for better or worse. Prescott loves throwing to isolated outside receivers on vertical routes like go routes, back shoulders, and stop routes (which are exactly what they say on the tin can: the receiver attacks vertically and stops at 10-12 yards). These types of routes were a major part of Prescott’s first offensive system when he entered the NFL and he has always been one to throw them. They were more successful when Michael Gallup was healthy, but have become a way less efficient way of throwing the football the past year or two.

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So why do I think these routes will be more successful with Pickens? Since entering the league in 2022, Pickens has the second-most yards gained on routes labeled as “go” routes, behind only Tyreek Hill, per NextGenStats. He has the seventh-most yards on routes labeled as “hitch” routes, the category under which “stop” routes fall. (Prescott has thrown “hitch” routes at the second-highest rate in the NFL over the time since he became a starter in 2016.) The downside of those vertical routes is that it can make the offensive design a bit static, forcing Prescott to win with ball placement and timing as defenders are able to clamp down on the Cowboys’ rigid route trees of the past few years. Prescott targeted receivers with less than a yard of separation on a league-high 21.3% of his passes last season, and again, this is where Pickens and his second-best tight window catch rate come in.

Dak Prescott vs. Vic Fangio’s schemes

Prescott has played against Fangio-coached defenses three times over his career: in 2016 when Fangio was the defensive coordinator with the Chicago Bears, in 2021 when he was the head coach of the Denver Broncos, and in 2023 when Fangio was the defensive coordinator with the Miami Dolphins. He had two good games, with a horrible outing in 2021 against the Broncos sandwiched in between.

Prescott plays how he plays, but the things that stood out the most in reviewing those games was how little Prescott attacked downfield and how much he favored his tight ends. Pickens should help some of the verticality, but also look for Prescott to try and pepper tight end Jake Ferguson with quick hitters like 5-6 yard out routes (aka “stick” routes) or a seam down the middle of the field.

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The Eagles will be unveiling several new starters up front in this game, and the battle between their emerging young faces and the Cowboys’ young offensive line is going to be fun. Defensive tackle Jalen Carter has Defensive Player of the Year potential and can take over the game at any time. Fellow DT Jordan Davis’ name might as well be changed to “Contract Year” Jordan Davis right now. Linebacker Jalyx Hunt went from playing 42 total snaps over the first half of 2024 to averaging 25 snaps per game over the second half and playoffs.

Hunt was supposed to be more of a project-type selection but already showed promise during his extended run as a rookie. He replaces Josh Sweat and already had comparable pressure (9% for Hunt, 9.8% for Sweat) and stop rate numbers (5.8% for Hunt, 4.7% for Sweat). Former seventh-round DT Moro Ojomo replaces Milton Williams, who was signed for big money by the Patriots, and also showed a lot of promise on his limited snaps in 2024.

They will be matched against a Cowboys offensive line that’s been revamped over the past few seasons. It features one of the best linemen (period) in the game in guard Tyler Smith, Cooper Beebe (who looked solid at center as his rookie year went along), and first-round selection Tyler Booker, who is as powerful of a guard as you’ll watch this year.

On the outside, it’s a bit more questionable. Left tackle Tyler Guyton has been injured and inconsistent so far, which matches his rawness as a prospect. If Guyton makes a big leap in his second year under new Cowboys offensive coordinator Klayton Adams (formerly the Cardinals’ offensive line coach), then this offense has a chance to be better than solid, even with [insert Cowboys running back here] taking the carries in the run game. Although the electric rookie Jaydon Blue might make some noise at some point in this game (just hold onto that ball!).

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Eagles-Cowboys prop bets I like

• Jake Ferguson OVER 33.5 yards receiving -125 (over 50 yards is +200, if feeling frisky)

• George Pickens anytime TD +190

• Jalen Hurts OVER 9.5 rush attempts -110

• Jalen Hurts OVER 35.5 yards longest pass completion -120

• Saquon Barkley over 19.5 yards longest rush -150

Eagles-Cowboys prediction

I think the Eagles take control in the second half but the Cowboys hit a backdoor cover.

Eagles 34, Cowboys 27

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