*(same intro every day) Right before the new preseason starts, I like to go back and re-read our Week 1 reports from the prior season...just for fun and for seeing what our first reactions to the new season were--what did we see that we would soon regret, what was revealed that we were wrong about all preseason (last preseason), and where we were on the money for the season about to unfold...were we more right than wrong about the first reactions to 2025 going into it.
So, I'm going to post one a day for 16 days leading right up to the 2026 HOF game that kicks off the preseason. I'm not adding any notes or trying to explain or make excuses or let you know we figured it out the next week. It's just here to read...open source, not behind the paywall. Judge it how you like to judge it if you're a nonsubscriber--I'm not going to try to whitewash anything or give extra explanations. This just some reading material from what is the single most important thing we do each year--watch and scout the games each week and report out our findings and make FF reactions to them. Every week, it's a new week to make adjustments to. This is just every team's Week 1 as we wrote it. Enjoy...or don't.
What I like is some of the memories of Week 1 that comes rushing back when I'm reading these a year later...on top of seeing what we were seeing right off the bat.
The Eagles handed this game on a silver platter to the Cowboys, but in the end...the Cowboys pushed the plate offering away, and said ‘no thank you’, and did what the Cowboys of this era do -- are bland and come up short.
The Eagles took Jalen Carter away from themselves before we even started...they extended Dallas drives with penalties that converted into scoring drives early...two of the Eagles’ 5 starting offensive linemen, two of the best in the league, were hobbling around half the game and one of them (Dickerson) had to leave early. All the gifts/most all the breaks went to Dallas and yet they couldn’t seize the moment as CeeDee Lamb dropped pass after pass on easy catches or hard catches that a #1 WR (like Lamb supposedly is) has to make in critical times. Dallas just is not good enough in this current era. They’re not terrible, they’re just not a serious threat for a title...or probably for the playoffs...or for hitting above a .500 record.
Dallas, with months to prepare for this big event, knowing they were an underdog going to the defending champ’s house for the NFL opener -- and they brought not one thing interesting to the table for play calling or a game plan wrinkle. This game demanded/begged for Dallas to get clever with guys like KaVontae Turpin and Hunter Luepke sprinkled in as curveballs...this game needed Lamb to be more of a decoy to set up some George Pickens home run shots when being covered by Adoree Jackson...this game needed less/no Miles Sanders. But what did Dallas/Schottenheimer’s offspring do? A second-play-of-the-game basic jet sweep with Turpin and then not much/no cleverness at all the rest of the entire night...the game got coached by the book...Schotty was a good little soldier and did what he thought the teacher wanted, what coaches from the 1970-80s would do...and he got a rightful loss.
Jalen Hurts is exponentially better than Dak Prescott.
Saquon Barkley is exponentially better than Javonte Williams.
The Eagles O-Line is exponentially better than the Dallas O-Line.
The Eagles defense is exponentially better than the Dallas defense.
All those obvious disadvantages, and you’re (the Cowboys) playing at the home of the defending champs on the night they ‘raise the banner’ -- and you do nothing unique at all to try to seize the game? You play it safe like the thousands of coaches/teams who have come before you, and you get a little early lead and try to sit on it...you try to win a refs decision/you try to not get knocked out in a fight...you got pipes and bottles and rocks all around you to try to defend yourself from a bigger, better street fighter...and you just try to use conventional punch exchanges and hopeful evasiveness. It’s so utterly embarrassing how most all NFL teams play...playing not to lose.
Dallas kept it close...had chances to win...so this feels like ‘a win’ (morally) for Schottenheimer and Jerry Jones, but it should’ve been a wakeup call. They didn’t get knocked out in the 1st-round/beaten by 20+ points, so give them a nice pat on the head and for the ‘effort’. Dallas is now (2-5) in their last 7 games vs. Philly.
How Dallas doesn’t look at their situation, after this game and last two seasons, and think -- we’re nowhere near as good as the Eagles nor the Commanders, nor about 15-20 other teams in the NFL, so let’s trade off pieces and start the rebuild process, let’s not waste everybody’s time going forward with this group. But they won’t think that. They’ll be happy to try and stay on the fringe of the 7th seed/wild card spot much of the season...conning themselves that they’re ‘good’. Dallas just doesn’t have ‘it’...they don’t/won’t play to win, they play not-to-lose...they play to not get criticized for being daring. They don’t have the talent to be vanilla. Enjoy a 6–8-win season...at best.
The schedule for the next 5 weeks is a gift for Dallas (NYG-CHI-GB-NYJ-CAR), but I don’t know that they can take advantage of it...then after Week 6, the schedule is going to pile drive them into oblivion.
Philly has ‘it’. They can play it straight because they have all the talent. This Cowboys team doesn’t faze them at all.
OK, let’s talk about the players...I don’t want to think any more about how meekly Dallas played this game and wasted a super opportunity.
Player Notes...
-- Javonte Williams (15-54-2, 2-10-0/3) was the somewhat ‘surprise’ star of the game, for FF. Two rushing TDs...out-PPR-scoring Saquon Barkley (18-60-1, 4-24-0/5) by a hair. Javonte is the current #1 scoring RB in FF 2025.
I thought Javonte looked fine/OK, but...in the final analysis...it was another sub-4.0 yard per carry rushing game for Javonte. Last season, in the six games JW had 10 or more carries in a game, he averaged 3.96 yards per carry. This game...3.60 yards per carry WITH Jalen Carter booted from the game before the defense got started.
The question becomes, for all of us who jumped on Javonte as a great value depth RB in the middle+ rounds of a redraft -- is this week the perfect time to ‘sell high’? I think the question warrants consideration.
The goal of trading him would NOT be...’I heard SELL HIGH, so now I’ll go into overdrive to complete the task on my FF-to-do list and ditch him’...but you just end up SELLING him off instead of SELLING HIGH. The game here with Javonte after this scoring spike game -- is can you get someone to overpay you/pay up for Javonte because of JW’s nice FF scoring here and your trade partner got beat Week 1 and their RBs floundered, so they go into panic mode after one result?
Javonte is going to be a nice #3-4-5 RB for you as the clear lead back for Dallas, but he’s not that great, and he won’t score 2 TDs every week. It may be peak Javonte value for FF 2025, right now. But don’t sell it just to sell it...like you’re avoiding a time bomb. Make a sale count. Squeeze some desperate owner...or walk away. 40% of Javonte’s value in a trade this week is his nice FF scoring tally/game on national TV. 60% of his value will be an owner who loses Week 1 with a crappy RB performance/depth chart who becomes desperate for RB satisfaction. The ‘My RBs are Killing Me’ person is out there, but we’ll have to wait until after SUN/MON to see who those prime trade targets are.
Javonte is not going to get touch count pressure from Miles Sanders (4-53-0). Sanders got lucky on a 49-yard run, but looked slow as death doing it...but that suckered Brian Schottenheimer into thinking he had a sudden star on his hands, and instead of taking Sanders out after a 49-yard sprint and giving him a quick break/breather, he gave him the ball the next play for a useless 3-yard run...then 4 plays later, Schotty went back to his NEW star RB, to watch him get blown up behind the line of scrimmage and stripped of the ball. You can blame CeeDee Lamb for this loss, but I would say Schottenheimer getting suckered into more Miles Sanders, leading to this massive turnover in the red zone was probably the turning point of this game...and it should’ve never happened, but they just had to keep going with Sanders.
Dallas will likely compound the Sanders error, by reducing his touches further (which is a good thing) and pushing Jaydon Blue into the mix hoping he might have a pop...but Blue is ‘fool’s gold’.
All roads are slowly, quietly leading to Phil Mafah getting a chance at some point due to the lack of talent/inefficiency Dallas has at RB across the board. They just didn’t have the money for Derrick Henry last year, gosh darn it. Who cares about that old guy RB anyway?
The Cowboys continue to implode from within...they are dying at the hands of Jerry Jones’ decisions, even though the Micah Parsons deal was smart...it’s all the other ones that are stacking up on them that is killing them.
-- I didn’t think Dak Prescott (21-34 for 188 yards, 0 TD/0 INT, 1-3-0) looked very good here. Not bad. Not terrible. Just...the game is passing Dak by. What was once a top 10 NFL QB is now a for-sure bottom half of the league QB talent.
Yes, Lamb let Dak down. Yes, Dak had a couple decent throws (all to Lamb, who dropped almost all of them). Dak is still plausible. But Dak is showing signs of being/becoming a fading QB. His throws are not a bunch of crisp throws attacking/picking apart the defense...putting the defense on their heels. He’s floating passes down the field a lot and he is using CeeDee as a crutch. Jalen Hurts doesn’t use A.J Brown as a crutch just flinging everything to his #1 hoping for something to happen. Dak is on the verge of becoming too predictable and teams are gonna sit on Lamb trying to get picks...and Philly missed a pick-six off of a Lamb completion by inches midgame...not to speak of all the volleyball sets/ricochets that Lamb put at risk clanking the ball off his hands and straight up into the air half the night.
Dak is still decent, but his passes are no longer crisp and confident, and he looks like a goof trying to scramble out of trouble. He has lost so much speed/quickness/athleticism he used to have due to all his injuries. WRs not named CeeDee Lamb were open all this game, but Dak locks on Lamb too much now.
Change My Mind: I think Dak is the worst QB in the NFC East. He’s still OK, but not better than Russell Wilson...or they are debatable against each other now. Remember, a few years ago, when Russ went from great to mediocre almost overnight? Well, we’re likely in that vortex with Dak...or getting close to it.
If Dak is a part of your SuperFlex or emergency QB depth plan...you need to find a better plan.
Did you know that Dak played in 8 games last season, and had exactly two interceptions in a game in half of those 8 games? The #19 FF PPG QB in the time that he played last season...throwing a ton because they had no run game or defense. Dak is breaking down/melting down in front of our eyes. He’s still competent and capable enough to hang in the league as a solid starter but is not going to be a reliable FF QB or goes-to-the-NFL-playoffs QB. He’s like one-step or so ahead of where Kirk Cousins was at last year, to me...in that slow career death spiral...still not terrible, but the good times are all but over.
The countdown to the Cowboys trading for Shedeur Sanders might be underway, but the next 5 weeks of schedule is so favorable for Dallas...they may convince themselves they are contenders and not make any bold/rebuild moves this season.
I projected the Cowboys for 9 wins this season before the opening game. Today, I’d move that meter to 6-7 wins...8 wins at best.
-- Cowboys WR report...
Investing in CeeDee Lamb (7-110-0/13) for the FF-season ahead isn’t crazy. As we see Dallas spent an entire offseason with their new offensive weaponry, but all Dak cares about is throwing to CeeDee...which is great for him for FF.
A whole training camp, etc., to work with George Pickens (3-30-0/4)...to develop a great 1-2 punch that any QB would love to have, and we get/see nothing but junk targets to Pickens last night. No effort to get him involved early. No balance of working the two nice WRs Dak/Dallas has...it’s just ‘everything possible goes to Lamb’ and then maybe 2nd-read desperation or low probability end zone deep shots to Pickens. This is the best they could do with a whole summer to work on it? It’s the limitations with Dak or a really bad playbook.
Lamb is gonna be the FAR AND AWAY top target for Dak, followed by Jake Ferguson (5-23-0/6)...a.k.a. the guys he knows/is comfortable with...then Pickens is in the picture third for targets, he’ll be a randomly up-and-down #2 target on occasion.
KaVontae Turpin (2-18-0/2, 2-9-0)...the easiest thing to do to help a slow-fading Dak is to make use of the easy tunnel screen option with the weapon of Turpin...but did Dallas exploit/utilize this? Hell no! No screens at all to Turpin to just try and get the ball in his hands...too many wasted rotations of Turpin out of the game so that ‘the great Jalen Tolbert’ (1-0-0/2) could be on the field, wasting time and opportunity. Don’t bring a Tolbert to a gun flight.
Dallas can not be a threat with a bottom half of the league QB, Miles Sanders getting touches, and Jalen Tolbert running routes...all led by ’really nice guy’ but SAWFT, un-innovative head coach Brian Schottenheimer...a guy Jerry can control once again. What else can we conclude from this Dallas Week 1 reveal?
It’s so sad.
-- Not as much to report on for the Eagles main stars of the game...
Saquon Barkley (18-60-1, 4-24-0/5) was fine...got shutdown in the 2nd-half as the Philly O-Line started having injury issues, and Saquon was ‘meh’ within that with 3.3 yards per carry against one of the worst run defenses of the past year or two.
Saquon voted as the #1 player in the NFL just shows how utterly stupid and immature/ignorant the league’s own players are. Philly isn’t winning this game or the recent title without Jalen Hurts (19-23 for 152 yards, 0 TDs/0 INTs, 14-62-2). They could’ve won it without Saquon, but they had no chance if not for Hurts. When the league votes for the top 100 players, the first 10-15-20 should all be QBs...and then offensive linemen. Up to like the top 40-50...then the other positional players can be discussed.
Hurts was masterful here in how he led the offense and team. Hurts didn’t try to force everything to A.J. Brown (1-8-0/1), like Dak does with CeeDee. Hurts is not ‘playing favorites’ or scared of hurting a WR’s feelings. Hurts went after Dallas’s weakness...the linebackers/passes over the middle. Dallas Goedert (7-44-0/7) led the way in a patient, subdued passing game that supported the run game. And when a big play was needed, Hurts didn’t force throws...he ran it himself because the defense was playing back to stop the big play WRs.
Watching Hurts here versus what Dak was doing was so crystal clear for me on the huge difference of where these QBs are at. Dallas is stuck...Dak is too good to ditch/dump, but not good enough to take them higher. Hurts is in his prime.
Every single football analyst and 99% of the fans were trying to replace Hurts from the moment he started playing for Philly. Who was it that led the Hurts bandwagon in the face of all that...who kept the faith from day one? You’re reading his work right now. But I am guilty of underselling him for FF 2025 a bit vs. the Allen-Burrow-Lamar-Jayden tier that Hurts is in, but I always have him 5th among them. He may be the #5 among them for FF but closer to the Big 4 than I give credit.
-- Eagles WR report...
Credit to A.J. Brown (1-8-0/1) who didn’t flake out about his lack of targets here...so far. He did not become a distraction on the sidelines. Maybe he was reading books instead. Brown will be/wind up where we projected him to by season’s end -- a #10-16 type of PPR WR. He just wasn’t a WR that I was all that interested in for the season, so I’m not going crazy to buy him low this week. People won’t be giving up on AJB yet. If he has another week like this, then panic will go to ‘11’ going into Week 3, and then I start to get interested. Ditto DeVonta Smith (3-16-0/3).
Jahan Dotson (3-59-0/3) got a little more work here. Hurts took what was there...and this is another example. I have no FF-interest in Dotson.
-- The Eagles DST didn’t look that great to me here. There wasn’t a lot of crowing about Vic Fangio’s masterful play calls or about the defense he built from the game commentators...they were instead fixated on the greatest defensive player ever, since Micah Parsons, Jalen Carter.
No Jalen Carter on the field hurts Philly, but it shouldn’t wreck them...but this defensive group otherwise looked ‘human’. It didn’t look like a stone-cold killer defense. No sacks...1 QB hit...they were a Miles Sanders not fumbling and CeeDee Lamb’s inability to catch passes away from getting beat and giving up 27-30+ points in the game. But they didn’t. Kudos to them.
The subtle genius here from Fangio potentially was thinking -- we’re not that great, just yet, and we just lost Jalen Carter...so let’s try and contain Dallas, let them try to make plays and eventually they’ll do stupid things...and if they’re gonna be vanilla, then our vanilla is better than their vanilla. Like Jalen Hurts, Fangio/the defense didn’t panic...the had the talent to subdue the Cowboys not playing their best game.
-- HOW COULD YOU TAKE Brandon Aubrey (2/2 XPs, 2/2 FGs) SO HIGHLY! Everyone in any draft I am ever in or observe says. I mean...I shouldn’t have to explain myself on this anymore. You either have Aubrey, or you don’t/you take your chances. It’s hard to beat ‘best in class’.
-- IDP Report...
Jalen Carter (DNP) got kicked out, and he was, and is, stupid...it just comes with his package...but re-looking at that event and seeing that it was Dak ‘spitting first’, I wonder if Carter gets 1-2 games and Dak might get one? Spitting on people needs to be addressed. But it is possible Carter missing this whole game will be the end of it. My bet = Carter 0-1g suspension, Dak zero...no chance Dak gets suspended for his mild/dumb action.
Adoree Jackson (7 tackles, 1 PD) was getting burned quite a bit playing a lot as the #2 CB. Jakorian Bennett (3 tackles) was active when he was in but barely played. Cooper DeJean (5 tackles, 1 PD) was working some as the #2 CB when Dallas went two-WR sets.
Jack Sanborn (6 tackles, 1 TFL) started...not Marist Liufau (3 tackles). Sanborn was fine/nothing special.
Kenny Clark (5 tackles) is just what the doctor ordered for Dallas. He helped plug up that middle. Hurts running free on the outside is what killed Dallas, not Saquon.
Former 1st-round pick for Dallas, DT Mazi Smith was inactive this game. He is on the verge of being cut.
Dallas kept my man James Houston (2 tackles, 1 TFL) on the 53-man roster and between him and a returning Sam Williams (5 tackles, 1 TFL)...Dallas has pass rushers.
Marshawn Kneeland (3 tackles, 1 sack) got the game's lone sack. He looked great tonight for Dallas.
Dallas has some nice defenders overall...they played a nice game against a top offense...and Matt Eberflus is a top 5-10 defensive coach. The Dallas D isn’t terrible...and they get NYG, CHI, GB, NYJ, CAR the next five games. It’s an option for streaming.
Snap Counts of Interest:
50 = Saquon
08 = Dillon
05 = Shipley
47 = Javonte
11 = Sanders
08 = Luepke
28 = Turpin
27 = Tolbert
42 = Adoree Jackson
07 = Jakorian Bennett
63 = Ken Murray
48 = Sanborn
42 = Damone Clark
06 = Liufau
