The Case for Philly

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I'm skipping the Know Your Enemy thing this week because we know Dallas so well. I will have a strategy and matchups post on Friday.

Philadelphia at Dallas on Sunday should be a good game. I think both teams are capable of winning. There are all kinds of trends to study and you can frame an argument for either team. Rather than cover everything at once I decided to start with the argument for why the Eagles will win. Tomorrow I'll cover the Cowboyz.

The Eagles are the hottest team in the NFC, having won 6 games in a row. During the 6-game winning streak the Eagles have played good football. They aren't overachieving in a way that makes you nervous. Some teams play at such a level you know they can't sustain it. That isn't the case right now. Heck, we've yet to see the Eagles really play a complete game.

The Eagles have owned Dallas in late season games and re-matches in this decade. Dallas won in 2005. That's it. And even in that game the Eagles had to gift-wrap the win and give it to Dallas. You may (nightmarishly) recall McNabb throwing a pass to the right side that Roy Williams picked and ran back for the winning score. Still, Mike McMahon almost got the Eagles back into FG range to win. Unfortunately the receiver dropped the pass.

Tony Romo has really struggled in re-matches with our D. The obvious reply to that is that Jim Johnson is no longer running things and that changes the situation entirely. I don't fully buy that. Sean McDermott is running the same basic scheme with many of the same players. It isn't like we shifted to the 3-4 or Tampa 2 or anything.

In the first meeting the Eagles gave the game away. Dallas won 20-16, but 10 of those points came off turnovers. The other TD came on a long pass when several defenders made a mistake at the same time. The OL was still being shuffled quite a bit at that time. That helped the Cowboys get pressure on McNabb. We also made a ton of mistakes, especially the rookies.

Jeremy Maclin was still figuring things out back then. He had 22 catches in 7 games leading up to Dallas. Jeremy's worst game of the year was Dallas. His early bobble/drop/deflection was picked off and set up a short TD drive. He had another pass thrown his way that was picked off. He committed a penalty when trying to make the tackle on that play. Jeremy's caught 27 catches in the 5 games since then. Several of those catches have come on game winning drives. He isn't dropping passes or making dumb mistakes. This isn't the same guy they saw in November.

Role players have really emerged. Tracy White has really come on in the last month. He's become a good Nickel LB. Darren Howard has played better recently. Alex Smith has become a good blocker for us. Mike Vick and the Wildcat package have become an effective weapon. We're still not 100% sure if he'll play.

We had only played one close game prior to the first Dallas meeting. We lost that at Oakland. Since then we've won 3 close games. We've shown the ability to come from behind in the 4th Qtr and make clutch plays on offense and defense.

Make things simple if you want. We've won more games on the year. We've got a longer winning streak. We're the number three scoring team in the league. We have an elite offensive and STs weapon in DeSean Jackson. We have a QB who tends to win in December and January. We have a good FG kicker. We have a coach who knows how to win.

We're the better team right now.


ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

When logic fails, get creative. More reasons we'll win...

* Victor Abiamiri and Jason Witten have the same number of TDs, 1. When our Nickel DT can score as well as your stud TE...you're in trouble.

* Dallas hasn't beaten a team with a winning record in more than 10 days. We have.

* Andy Reid could clearly win a belly-bucking contest with Wade Phillips. Big Red would dominate him.

* Joe Banner did a cost analysis of the situation and found out it is better financially if we win. We all know that Joe secretly runs everything.

* Bunk and Patt were promised an extra pork chop if they shut down the Dallas running game.

* Eldra Buckley is "Mr. January".


PRO BOWL STUFF

I had no major problems with any of the Eagles selections.

DeSean Jackson
Leonard Weaver
Jason Peters
Trent Cole
Asante Samuel
David Akers

Peters didn't have a great year, but he played pretty well after the first couple of games. There weren't great OT choices in the NFC this year.

I know a lot of people wanted Sheldon to make it. He had a good year, but I'm still mad at him for biting on the fake vs DAL in November.

The Pro Bowl is more of a popularity contest than anything. It still means something to the players, but plenty of talented guys get snubbed. You need to play on the right team and in the right scheme.

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