Nov 23, 2025; Arlington, Texas, USA; Dallas Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens (3) catches the ball while being defended by Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Cooper Dejean (33) in the fourth quarter at AT&T Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images Kevin Jairaj
There are no words.
Sunday afternoon, the 8-2 Philadelphia Eagles jumped out to a 21-0 lead over the 4-5-1 Dallas Cowboys and their notoriously leaky defense.
Then the wheels fell off the wagon. Then the wheels exploded. Then the wagon itself exploded.
The Cowboys put up 24 unanswered points and capped off their comeback with a 42-yard walk-off field goal by Brandon Aubrey. The Eagles fell to 8-3 with the loss.
Here are a few takeaways from Sunday's abject humiliation.
Undisciplined might not even be strong enough of a word. Try sloppy. Careless. Haphazard. Lackadaisacal. Slovenly.
The yellow hankies were flying all over the place Sunday, and the Eagles racked up 14 penalties for a grand total of 96 yards. Prior to Sunday's game, the Birds' season high for penalties in a single game was nine, a mark they'd reached three separate times.
The Eagles finished last season with a total of 103 penalties through 17 games. This season, they're on pace to reach a staggering 130 penalties. That's not a Super Bowl champion pace. That isn't even a division champion pace. It would probably completely take them out of the running, if not for the ineptitude of the other NFC East teams.
To make matters worse, multiple penalties took important Eagles plays off the board. On the first drive of the second half, Dallas Goedert converted a 2nd and 2 by taking a pass for a 20 yard gain, but an illegal formation penalty wiped that out. The Eagles ended up punting, and Dallas gained even more momentum. DeVonta Smith got flagged for pass interference in the fourth quarter, and that took another Goedert chunk play off the board.
The defense wasn't exempt, either. During a third quarter Cowboys drive, Quinyon Mitchell and Kelee Ringo were both called for costly pass interference penalties. Cooper DeJean was also called, but the Cowboys declined the penalty:
Jake Elliott simply could not believe that this PI call went against Cooper DeJean. pic.twitter.com/WfQILCEW5x
The Cowboys (namely CeeDee Lamb and his three drops) attempted to hand the game to the Eagles numerous times, and instead of seizing the opportunity, the Eagles treated it like a game of hot potato and handed it right back to Dallas.
The Birds came out of the gate swinging today. In their first drive, the Eagles went 50 yards on seven plays in just 3:10, and the drive culminated in this A.J. Brown touchdown grab:
A.J. Brown puts the Eagles up early in Jerry World!
(@Eagles) pic.twitter.com/oL6bxX3KPd
Then Jalen Hurts took the ball into the end zone on each of the next two drives:
Hurts fights his way into the end zone💪
(@Eagles) pic.twitter.com/tylts8ceEU
His second rushing touchdown came on the much-maligned Tush Push:
92% of the time, the Tush Push works every time!
(@NFL) pic.twitter.com/Lq1O61fquZ
So the Birds scored three touchdowns on their first three drives. The offense traveled 192 yards on 25 plays and ate up 12:28 off the game clock. That's pretty great, right? They were cruising.
Then, as has happened all season, they stalled. Maybe they rested on their laurels, maybe they didn't, but the Eagles couldn't get a thing going on offense. Jeff Stoutland's offensive line was uncharacteristically sloppy, so the run game was never established, and the passing game wasn't much better. Excluding the end of the first half, the Eagles' next seven drives resulted in five punts, a fumble and a missed field goal.
The combined stats from those seven drives? 33 plays. 106 yards.
192 yards on the first three drives, compared to 106 yards on the last seven.
That's not winning football. Games aren't won by jumping out to a quick lead and then phoning it in. Which brings me to...
Jeffrey Lurie, are you listening?
Your team was just completely and utterly humiliated by your biggest rival on the national stage. A 4-5-1 team just made your reigning Super Bowl champions look like bumbling fools.
Although the offense was the main culprit of the loss, there were questionable performances across the board. All three phases bear some responsibility. Vic Fangio's defense gave up 473 total yards of offense to Dak Prescott and the Cowboys. A few key injuries – namely Reed Blankenship – certainly didn't help matters, but the unit finally came back down to earth in a big way after lighting the world on fire for a few weeks.
Special teams also had some miscues, namely this ill-advised Xavier Gipson punt return that turned into an Eagles turnover:
Eagles fumble the punt return! THIS GAME.
PHIvsDAL on FOX/FOX Onehttps://t.co/HkKw7uXVnt pic.twitter.com/FCOggcPhpi
It was questionable to return that punt in the first place, instead of just letting it bounce into the end zone for a touchback. But turning the ball over in that spot was inexcusable.
Back to the offense for a moment. Clearly, Kevin Patullo is not the answer. Firing him may not be a realistic option – apart from Sean Desai in 2023, the Eagles don't have a tendency to demote coordinators in-season – but Nick Sirianni can take the play calling reins. His decision-making may not be much better than Patullo's (as evidenced by Sirianni's horrible end-of-game clock management Sunday), but something has to change.
The Eagles play the 8-3 Chicago Bears on Black Friday in just five days. It would be a quick turnaround, but Lurie's not usually one to get kicked in the teeth and let it slide.
This Eagles team has been surviving by the skin of their teeth all season long. Especially in the past few weeks, the defense has dragged the offense, kicking and screaming, to victory. But this week, there's no hiding behind 'well, we won, so it doesn't matter.' That ship has sailed.
The Cowboys put every single ugly weakness on full display for the world to see. How the Eagles organization responds is up to them.
They'd better do something, though, before this season completely devolves into a collapse of 2023-esque proportions.
