News Eagles Team Notes

[Philadelphia Eagles]

NFL Week 1 odds: Eagles favored to beat Cowboys

The last Sunday without NFL football until February is now behind us.

Week 1 is here!

And for the Philadelphia Eagles, that means they’re in the bright spotlight of the NFL Kickoff Game after winning a second Vince Lombardi Trophy.

Their opponent: the dastardly Dallas Cowboys.

The team with the longest streak of failing to merely appear in the NFC Championship Game will bear witness to the Eagles raising their Super Bowl LIX banner at Lincoln Financial Field on Thursday evening.

The Birds are currently entering this NFC East rivalry matchup as 7.5 -point home favorites, according to FanDuel.

That’s just slightly more than the Kenny Pickett-led Eagles were favored (-7) against the Cooper Rush-led Cowboys in Week 17 last season.

Unlike in that game, Dallas will have Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb available for them this time. As such, the Cowboys’ offense figures to provide much more of a challenge. In addition to dealing with that duo, the Eagles also now have to account for offseason trade acquisition George Pickens. Philly’s shaky CB2 situation will be put to the test.

Of course, it remains to be seen if the Cowboys can properly protect Prescott. There are multiple question marks on their offensive line and the Eagles have some promising young defensive linemen who could be poised to take advantage.

When it comes to the Cowboys’ pass rush, they have an elite edge defender by the name of Micah Parsons. Just kidding. Dallas unwisely decided to trade the best player on their team to the Green Bay Packers for a relatively meager return. Looking at the Cowboys’ updated depth chart, there just aren’t players who should strike fear into the Eagles (via Ourlads):

The Cowboys are apparently banking on Kenny Clark, who turns 30 in October, being able to help them stop the run. Yeah, I’m sure that’s the key to slowing down Saquon Barkley.

Cornerbacks Trevon Diggs and DaRon Bland have logged top-notch ball production in the past but the former seems unlikely to suit up on Thursday and the latter is coming off a down year. The Cowboys could find themselves pretty thin at corner, where they’re already dealing with a number of injuries.

The 2025 Eagles will tell you themselves they’re not the 2024 Eagles. It’s a new season. But it’s hard not to feel good about the Birds in this moment.

The Eagles don’t regularly beat Prescott with ease, so, taking the points could be tempting. But, what are you, a coward? I’m leaning Eagles at -7.5.

What say you?

Source: https://www.bleedinggreennation.com...fl-week-1-odds-eagles-favored-to-beat-cowboys

 

[Philadelphia Eagles]

Eagles Injury Report: Landon Dickerson and Andrew Mukuba upgraded to full participation

The Philadelphia Eagles issued their second official injury report in advance of their Week 1 home game against the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night.

The Eagles listed one player under DID NOT PARTICIPATE: Tanner McKee.

McKee has yet to be seen throwing a football since he suffered a fractured thumb injury late in training camp. Thus, Sam Howell will be the top backup quarterback behind Jalen Hurts on Thursday night.

The Eagles listed four players under FULL PARTICIPATION: Landon Dickerson, Andrew Mukuba, Joshua Uche, and Jalen Carter.

Dickerson returned to practice on Tuesday after sitting out on Monday. Nick Sirianni confirmed Dickerson’s knee injury wasn’t the reason for his absence; it was instead the listed “back” issue. Now again practicing in full, Dickerson is primed to start on Thursday night. Good news for the Eagles’ offensive line outlook.

Mukuba was upgraded to full participation after being listed as limited on Monday. The rookie safety figures to be a backup to Sydney Brown … but it’s not impossible that he’s starting. It’s also possible we could see Mukuba rotate in. He lined up as the sixth defensive back in dime packages this summer.

Uche was upgraded to full participation after being listed as limited on Monday. He’s poised to rank third in edge rusher snaps behind Nolan Smith and Jalyx Hunt.

Carter is ready to play.

PHILADELPHIA EAGLES INJURY REPORT (TUESDAY)​

DID NOT PARTICIPATE

QB Tanner McKee (right thumb)

FULL PARTICIPATION

DT Jalen Carter (shoulder)
OG Landon Dickerson (back)
S Andrew Mukuba (hamstring)
EDGE Joshua Uche (groin)

---

DALLAS COWBOYS INJURY REPORT (TUESDAY)​

The Cowboys’ Tuesday injury report is identical to Monday’s version.

It seems like starting cornerback Trevon Diggs might be able to play, though that much has yet to be confirmed.

Starting left tackle Tyler Guyton is tracking to play.

Rotational defensive tackle Perrion Winfrey will not be suiting up.

DID NOT PARTICIPATE

DT Perrion Winfrey (back)

FULL PARTICIPATION

CB Trevon Diggs (knee)
OT Tyler Guyton (knee)
TE Brevyn Spann-Ford (ankle)

Source: https://www.bleedinggreennation.com...-andrew-mukuba-upgraded-to-full-participation

 

[Philadelphia Eagles]

The ‘Pickle Juice Game’ changed everything in the Eagles-Cowboys rivalry

25 years ago today, the Eagles’ rivalry with the Cowboys and positioning in the NFC East changed forever. In Week 1 of the 2000 season, the Birds headed down to Texas Stadium for a Week 1 matchup with Dallas.

The Eagles were in the second year of the Andy Reid-Donovan McNabb era. 1999 was a little rocky with the team going 5-11 in the duo’s first year in Philadelphia. McNabb was now the franchise guy though and expectations were being thrust upon him as the No. 2 pick in the previous year’s draft. The offensive line and defense were talented. Improvement was on the horizon.

Dallas, across the field, had a new head coach in Dave Campo. The 1990s had belonged to the Cowboys, who won three Super Bowl titles during the decade, but the franchise was on the downslide from that previous peak. Dallas last won a championship in the 1995 season. They lost in the Divisional Round in the ‘96 playoffs, missed the postseason entirely in ‘97 and then had back-to-back Wild Card losses in ‘98 and ‘99. Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith were still out there, but these were not the same Super Bowl-winning guys they once were.

As the two teams were going in opposite directions, they met in the 109-degree heat. That’s brutal! That advantage would typically go to the home team who may be more used to such extreme early season conditions, but the Eagles had a plan up their sleeves of the briny variety. The Birds drank pickle juice on the field to stay hydrated and prevent cramping. I can’t speak to the scientific veracity of that, but if it even simply helped them from a psychological standpoint to think they were feeling better, it was a worthwhile endeavor for the Birds.

The Eagles also cooked up something special from the jump: an onside kick to begin the game. David Akers executed it perfectly, the Eagles recovered the kick and never looked back. McNabb would throw a touchdown on that drive to break things open, but the star of the day was Duce Staley. The fourth-year running back totaled 201 yards on the ground, plus a touchdown for good measure. Third-year linebacker Jeremiah Trotter, on the way to a First-Team All-Pro nod, added a pick-6 to the mix, too. When all was said and done, it was a 41-14 Eagles romp in Texas.

The balance was shifting between the two teams. Nature was healing.

The Eagles would make their first playoff appearance since 1996 that season and would win their first postseason game since ‘95. McNabb would finish second in MVP voting. The following year would begin a stretch of heights previously unseen for the franchise, as they made four-straight NFC Championship Games, including a Super Bowl berth in the 2004 season. While Reid would never win the big one in Philly, the Eagles reached the playoffs nine times under him. The organization rubric of building through the trenches continued on in the front office with Howie Roseman after Reid and the Eagles parted ways. It became the pillar of their success over the last decades that includes Super Bowl wins of their own. They own the NFC East now.

Life has never been better for Eagles fans. It may also never have been worse for Cowboys fans.

They went 5-11 in 2000, beginning a streak of three consecutive absences from the postseason. Campo didn’t work. Bill Parcels didn’t work. Wade Phillips didn’t work. Jason Garrett didn’t work. Mike McCarthy didn’t work. Brian Schottenheimer now? Well, you can guess how that’s going to turn out as well. Micah Parsons has been traded in embarrassing fashion. All Jerry Jones and the Cowboys have to show for it in the 21st century is a self-indulgent Netflix documentary series. Even Washington, once a laughingstock franchise in their own right, has leapt them in the divisional hierarchy. They haven’t even reached an NFC title game since the ‘95 season.

These are not your father’s Cowboys, nor are they your father’s Eagles. As the Eagles raise a banner in Jerry and the Cowboys’ face on Thursday night, soak it all up and remember how this colossal rivalry shift happened: with some pickle juice.

Source: https://www.bleedinggreennation.com...nged-everything-in-the-eagles-cowboys-rivalry

 

[Philadelphia Eagles]

Eagles opposing player to stop, Week 1 edition

CeeDee Lamb has probably been personally counting down the minutes and seconds until the Eagles and Cowboys open the NFL season on Thursday night at Lincoln Financial Field.

The elite Dallas receiver had to deal with Cooper Rush pitching him the ball last season after Dak Prescott suffered a season-ending hamstring avulsion in November 2024 against the Atlanta Falcons. It left Lamb with really no one. The Cowboys will George Pickens opposite Lamb, giving the Cowboys one of the NFL’s most formidable receiver tandems. The Eagles outscored Dallas by a combined 75-13. Lamb only played against the Eagles once, missing the last two regular-season games of 2024 with a right shoulder AC joint sprain. Over his career against the Eagles, Lamb has had 50 catches for 674 yards and has scored five touchdowns in nine games.

Over each of the last three seasons, Lamb is one of two NFL receivers (with Detroit’s Amon-Ra St. Brown) with 100-plus catches, 1,100-plus receiving yards and five-plus receiving touchdowns. He has five-plus catches in each of his past 13 road games and has 100-plus scrimmage yards in each of his four career road Thursday games. Lamb had 11 catches for 191 yards in his last road meeting.

Just imagine Lamb across from Eagles’ free agent corner Adoree’ Jackson. Stellar second-year corner Quinyon Mitchell has the opposite spot and will be a pick-your-poison proposition for Eagles’ defensive coordinator Vic Fangio.

Does Fangio have Mitchell follow Lamb all over the field, or do the Eagles stay pat and whatever side Jackson and Mitchell are assigned, that is where they will stay?

The secondary has been a point of concern throughout training camp for the Eagles, and if Dallas has any chance of stealing the Eagles’ Super Bowl-raising banner night, exploiting that area, given the time, is its best bet. Fangio had no problem moving Mitchell around this summer, which could lead to Fangio trying to lock down Lamb with Mitchell.

According to Pro Football Focus, Lamb lined up in the slot 48-percent of the time (396/of 826 snaps), and lined up wide on 413 snaps, exactly 50-percent. Mitchell is considered an outside corner, where he lined up almost exclusively last season, while Coooper DeJean lined up in the slot.

Here’s the issue the Eagles face: Shut down lamb, and there is still Pickens to deal with. He is considered one of the league’s premier deep threats and his 15 receptions for passes thrown over 20 yards in the air amounted to 515 yards receiving, the most in the NFL last season.

And Lamb and Pickens have Prescott throwing them the ball. Prescott is 9-4 overall against the Eagles, passing for 3,402 yards, 24 touchdowns, against eight interceptions and an average of 7.7 yards a reception.

Making the game a shootout is the only way Dallas has any chance of beating the Eagles, who have beaten the Cowboys four of the last six times the teams played, including three out of the last four. The last time Dallas beat the Eagles at home was Nick Sirianni’s first year as head coach, when he opted to sit his starters in a 51-26 Dallas thumping on January 8, 2022. The Eagles lost to Tom Brady and Tampa Bay in the NFC Wild Card round that season, while Dallas floundered at home in the Wild Card round against San Francisco.

Source: https://www.bleedinggreennation.com...eagles-opposing-player-to-stop-week-1-edition

 

[Philadelphia Eagles]

NFL Week 1 Game Picks

The 2025 NFL season is here!!!

Football is BACK and so are the Bleeding Green Nation writers’ picks. Every week, we’ll predict the winners of every game on the schedule. We’ll tally the results along the way and see who comes out on top at the end of the season. Feel free to post your own predictions or discuss the writer predictions in the comments.

You, the reader, can also join in on the fun by voting for who you think will win the games (scroll down for polls). I’ll tally those results in a “BGN Community” section under our picks table generated by Tallysight. The BGN community finished in first place last year (congrats!), so, you’re trying to go back-to-back just like the reigning Super Bowl champions. The top BGN staff member was Tyler Jackson.

When it comes to this week’s Philadelphia Eagles game, the Birds originally opened as 6.5-point favorites against the Dallas Cowboys but the line has since shifted to Eagles -8.5 on FanDuel. That’s some serious movement. The jump from -6.5 to -7.5 was a result of the Micah Parsons trade but then there was even more to follow. To me, that’s a line that points to the Eagles winning the NFL Kickoff Game. And perhaps quite comfortably.

MAKE YOUR PICKS​

Vote for your picks below.

Source: https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/general/157396/nfl-week-1-game-picks

 

[Philadelphia Eagles]

Eagles vs. Cowboys Week 1: First quarter scores updates

The Philadelphia Eagles kick off their 2025 NFL season by raising the Super Bowl banner in Lincoln Financial Field and then playing host to their NFC East rival, the Dallas Cowboys.

We didn’t get to see many of the Eagles’ starters through the preseason, so it should be fun to see such dynamic playmakers on the field, again. Hopefully the offense is able to continue to build off their dominance from the end of last season, and start games much faster than they did earlier on in 2024.

It’ll also be fun to see the young defense hopefully take a step up together, and to see what rookies like Jihaad Campbell and Andrew Mukuba can do with their opportunities.

Hang out here for updates and to chat, celebrate, vent, and argue in the comments!

The 2024 Eagles season is here! LET’S GOOOOOOO!

---

TWITTER UPDATES​

Note: if the tracker isn’t properly loading for you, you can CLICK HERE.

A Twitter List by BleedingGreen

---

Note: This is an open thread. Discuss the games in the comments below.

Source: https://www.bleedinggreennation.com...arter-scores-updates-game-thread-nfc-east-nfl

 

[Philadelphia Eagles]

A.J. Brown will need to lean into lessons learned from last season

Ahead of the Eagles’ season opener, NFL Films released an interview with WR A.J. Brown. During his sit down with Clarissa Thompson, he talked about how he had to lock in differently as his role in 2024 changed into more of a supporting piece, and how the book, “Inner Excellence” helped on the sideline.

“I was battling a knee injury that I was kind of bouncing back from, and so, I’m in pain, I’m still playing. To be honest, I’m a decoy. And, a decoy and my mindset doesn’t go together. So, in that moment — think I had maybe one catch, and so, I was just trying to stay grounded.”

Brown may need to keep that same mentality heading into 2025 if the Eagles’ Week 1 gameplan was any indication. The wide receiver was targeted only one time in all of his 55 snaps, and his opportunity didn’t come until late in the game. He missed a lot of training camp due to injuries, but he was on the field for 87 percent of the offensive snaps, so it’s not as though he was on some kind of pitch count.

The Eagles passing game was more effective than the run game against the Cowboys, but there were only 19 total catches among seven targeted players. DeVonta Smith and Jahan Dotson both only had three catches each, and the majority of targets went to the tight end (Dallas Goedert) and running back (Saquon Barkley).

Quarterback Jalen Hurts spoke after the game and acknowledged that there’s some areas they need to work on, and noted that they will. He said that there were a lot of unknowns going into this game with the Cowboys having a new DC and head coach and no game film to review, but it was a learning experience. Head coach Nick Sirianni also admitted post-game that they obviously need to get Brown involved more, but games like this happen.

Brown implied during his speech at the Super Bowl parade that he doesn’t care about stats, but eight yards in a season opener against a rival probably isn’t something that’s easy to sit with, either.

Source: https://www.bleedinggreennation.com...ll-need-to-find-ways-to-stay-grounded-in-2025