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Sports Illustrated
It’s going to be hard for the Giants to stick with the status quo in two weeks
I still believe Brian Daboll has a high ceiling as a coach, and the same goes for Joe Schoen as a GM. But the team I saw Sunday looked disengaged and lifeless, and it’s been that way far too often since the Giants last won a game. And while I know John Mara doesn’t want to blow it up again—if he fired those two guys, he’d be into his fifth head coach and third GM in less than a decade, which is unbecoming of the NFL’s Tiffany franchise—the facts are the facts, and narratives have slowly become reality.
If Daboll and Schoen make it to next season, they’d very clearly go in fighting for their jobs, and in a market where the environment has already gotten toxic. You saw what that looked like with Matt Rhule (Carolina Panthers) in 2022, and Dan Quinn (Falcons) and Doug Marrone (Jacksonville Jaguars) in 2020. It rarely works out.
Pressure’s on. Every other story from January to Week 1 is about job security. The coach struggles to get through September intact.
So these are the tough conversations that Mara has to have: Realistically, what’s the upshot of staying the course? And if you do stay the course, what sort of changes can you make to give the current regime some semblance of a shot at breaking through in 2025?
Philly Voice
Handing out 10 awards from the Eagles-Commanders game
Jalen Hurts has a concussion, the defense got undisciplined, and hope for the Eagles capturing the 1 seed is pretty much gone.
3) The ‘Sloppy’ Award : The Eagles, as a team
The unsportsmanlike penalties aside, the Eagles just made too many uncharacteristic mistakes against the Commanders. The worst example was a play in which Isaiah Rodgers exited the game, and both Darius Slay and Kelee Ringo came onto the field. Slay realized that the Eagles had 12 men on the field and tried to hustle off, but also probably left Olamide Zaccheaus wide open deep down the field as a result.
“Just sloppy,” Nick Sirianni said. “Sloppy with penalties, sloppy with too many men on the field, sloppy with our fundamentals. And when you play a good football team like we played today, and you’re sloppy regardless of how many turnovers you force, it’s going to be hard to win… That’s always going to be on me as the head coach.”
I would also add that the special teams units — notably the kick coverage team — also stunk.
7) The ‘Not Again!’ Award ♂️: DeVonta Smith
In the Eagles’ Week 2 loss to the Falcons, Barkley was wide open for a game-sealing catch and first down, but he dropped a perfectly thrown ball from Hurts.
Against the Commanders, DeVonta Smith had a chance to all but put the Commanders away if he had made a catch for a third-down conversion. But, OH NO!
DeVonta Smith on the crucial drop in the 4th quarter –
“I just dropped the ball, there is nothing I can do about it now. I was calling for the ball… when Kenny put it in my hands I have to make the God d**n play.” pic.twitter.com/1ATToYdtfR
— Ashlyn Sullivan (@ashlynrsullivan) December 22, 2024
The Eagles would be 14-1 without those drops from Barkley and Smith. Of course, they also wouldn’t be 12-3 without them either.
Bleeding Green Nation
Eagles vs. Cowboys in Week 17 has a new start time
NFL schedule flex update.
The Philadelphia Eagles’ Week 17 home game against the Dallas Cowboys at Lincoln Financial Field has a new start time.
Originally set to kick off at 4:25 PM Eastern, the two teams will now face each other starting at 1:00 PM. The action will be airing on FOX.
The Eagles-Cowboys game got switched with a higher stakes NFC North matchup between the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings.
Blogging the Boys
Cowboys day after thoughts following Buccaneers win: It is okay to be happy about wins
Imagine if you knew in July that the Dallas Cowboys would enter Christmas week having won four of their last five and that at that point the San Francisco 49ers would already be mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. We would have been levitating.
Obviously the Cowboys were eliminated at the same time that San Francisco was, and the recent winning has done nothing to help that. The recent winning also hasn’t undone the bad that preceded it, conversations that we already had and will certainly continue to have, but the thing about the recent winning is that it is recent winning.
If someone wants the Cowboys to have a higher draft pick and feels as if these four wins have damaged that cause, it is understandable. But on the other side, we have learned so much about players like Marist Liufau and Brock Hoffman in this little run. We have even learned a whole heck of a lot about leaders/cornerstones like CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons. Winning has been the catalyst for all of that and the opinion here is it was totally worth the drop in draft position.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions. But the Cowboys have ensured that they have been winners 80% of the time through the winter holidays and in the process proven that they are not the exact frauds that we may have thought them to be.
ESPN
NFL Week 16: Biggest questions, takeaways for every game
Cowboys
What does a win mean with the playoffs out of reach? The cynic will say it only hurts the Cowboys’ draft positioning, but the players and coaches play and coach to win games. Mike McCarthy deserves credit for having his players in the proper mental space after learning only hours earlier that they were officially out of the playoff chase following the Washington Commanders’ victory. The Cowboys won without their leading tackler, linebacker Eric Kendricks, because of a calf strain. The Cowboys won with wide receiver CeeDee Lamb extremely limited in the second half because of a shoulder injury. The Cowboys won despite rushing for just 31 yards. They have won four of five and are now 7-8. It’s all too late to mean something for a postseason run, but a team that is down so many starters and key players is continuing to fight.
What we learned about the QB on Sunday: Cooper Rush can get the ball down the field. He entered the game averaging just 5.7 yards per pass attempt. In the first half, he had 226 yards, averaging 9.4 yards per attempt. His 226 yards were not only the most he has had in a half in his career but the fifth most he has had in a game. The Buccaneers’ blitzing didn’t faze him, either. He went 7-of-11 for 148 yards against pressure in the first half. For a good portion of the second half, he did not have Lamb, who reinjured his right shoulder in a 100-yard first half. Rush also didn’t have wideout Jalen Tolbert, who had a touchdown reception but injured a finger on his left hand near the end of the first half.
Most surprising performance: Running back Rico Dowdle entered Sunday coming off three straight games with 100 yards rushing, and as a team, Dallas ran for 122, 156 and 211 yards in those tilts. It came to a halt against Tampa Bay. Dowdle finished with 23 yards on 13 carries and did not have a rush longer than 5 yards. The Cowboys had no success between the tackles (hello, Vita Vea) or to the edges. The longest gain was 12 yards by wide receiver KaVontae Turpin, who lined up at tailback twice. Given the roll Dallas had been on running the ball, it was a surprising season-low finish. (The Cowboys’ previous low was 51 rushing yards versus Baltimore in Week 3.) — Todd Archer
Eagles
What’s the significance of Jalen Hurts’ injury? Hurts exited in the first quarter because of a concussion. Time will tell if he clears protocol for next week. The No. 1 seed is a long shot after the Eagles lost and the Lions won Sunday. According to ESPN Analytics, the Eagles would have a 80% win probability versus the Cowboys and an 84% win probability in the regular-season finale against the Giants with Hurts playing. That drops to 66% against Dallas and 72% against New York with Kenny Pickett as the starter.
Eye-popping stat: Saquon Barkley rushed for 109 yards and a pair of touchdowns in the first quarter, highlighted by a 68-yard TD scamper down the left sideline late. He is the first player with 100-plus rushing yards and two-plus rushing touchdowns in an opening quarter since the Vikings’ Adrian Peterson in Week 14 of 2012. Peterson won MVP that season.
What we learned about the QB on Sunday: Pickett had a roller coaster of a day. He helped cap off a touchdown drive on the series Hurts was injured on a 4-yard strike to wideout A.J. Brown then threw an interception that led to a Commanders score. Overall, it was a grind, with some misfires and streaks of low productivity mixed in with some positive plays. — Tim McManus
Giants
Are the Giants going to win another game this season? The Giants have lost their past two games by a combined 48 points against the Falcons and Ravens. They will be heavy underdogs at home against the Colts and on the road against the Eagles. There is nothing to suggest their season won’t end with 12 straight losses. It might not be the worst thing given the situation. They came into Sunday with a 37% chance for the first overall pick, according to ESPN Analytics. Losing out will only help those odds.
Describe the game in two words: Record futility. That makes it a franchise-record 10th straight loss for the Giants. Their last victory was Oct. 6 in Seattle. They haven’t even been competitive in a good chunk of games. They have lost three of their past five games by more than 20 points, which is contrary to general manager Joe Schoen’s bye week claim they were close to winning games.
Eye-popping stat: After throwing two pick-sixes against the Falcons, quarterback Drew Lock has now thrown three pick-sixes in three starts. That is the second-most pick sixes this season despite his limited playing time in the Giants’ offense. Only Tennessee’s Will Levis (four) has tossed more. — Jordan Raanan