PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) -- Welcome to Dallas Week.
Although the television audience won't see 70,000 screaming Eagles fans filling Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday night, the stakes remain familiarly important. The team invading South Philadelphia wears a big, blue star on their helmet that is despised by fans of the players in midnight green.
To make things more interesting — the 2020 Dallas Cowboys, currently 2-5, are in disarray following a 25-3 road loss to Washington on Sunday afternoon.
“I learned that the Cowboys are in the worst trouble that I’ve seen them in, maybe ever,” Merrill Reese told KYW Newsradio Monday morning. He's in his 44th season as The Voice of the Eagles.
Reese said that included some bad seasons from before they drafted Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman in 1989. And they were even 1-15 in Aikman’s rookie season. But that’s going back three decades or so.
Since capturing Super Bowl XXX in the mid-'90s — their third in four seasons — the Cowboys have won four playoffs and haven’t made it past the divisional round of the playoffs.
Various Cowboys teams can be described as underachieving, dysfunctional, mediocre and flat-out awful. Reese says this one might very well be the worst since the late '80s.
None of that means anything if the mystifying, yet respectable, 2-4-1 Eagles — the momentary leaders of the combined 7-20-1 "NFC Least" — don’t take care of business this weekend.
“The Eagles have to go into every game as if they’re in a playoff situation. Every game,” Reese said. “They ... in first place, which in itself is remarkable, but they can’t say, ‘Oh, well, we should walk through this one,' because it’s when you have that frame of mind that you get hit over the head with a board.”
The Eagles will face a Cowboys team that allowed 208 rushing yards to Washington over the weekend, while compiling only 142 total yards themselves. They allowed more big plays, including a 52-yard touchdown reception from quarterback Kyle Allen to wide receiver Terry McLaurin.
“We’re not doing the basics,” first-year Dallas Head Coach Mike McCarthy said postgame. “Let’s quit candy-coating it.”
Another topic of discussion at their press conference: the Cowboys' immediate reaction to another player injury.
Like the Eagles, they have suffered many this year — most notably to starting quarterback Dak Prescott, who suffered a devastating right ankle compound fracture and dislocation two weeks ago. Veteran Andy Dalton stepped in for Prescott, but he was forced to leave Sunday’s game after Washington linebacker Jon Bostic laid a vicious helmet-to-helmet hit on him.
Dalton, who was diagnosed with a concussion, had his helmet knocked off by the hit and needed help off the field. He was replaced by third-string quarterback Ben DiNucci.
“He doesn’t really remember what happened,” DiNucci said postgame. “I think that’s the first concussion that he’s had, so he was just kinda asking me what had happened."
There were also questions afterwards about the immediate reaction of Cowboys players, and whether they were angry enough at Bostic, who was disqualified from the game, for that hit.
“We speak all the time about playing for one another, protecting one another, so it definitely was probably not the response that you would expect,” McCarthy said.
“I honestly can’t really remember the situation that well or what exactly happened, but if you’re asking that question, I guess I do wish we would’ve acted stronger,” said running back Ezekiel Elliott.
According to a Dallas spokesperson, Dalton was alert and in good spirits afterwards, as noted by DiNucci, who — by the way — is a rookie seventh-round draft pick out of James Madison University.
“Guys are just bigger (in the NFL) than what I’m used to. ... You don’t see guys like (Washington defensive lineman and former Ohio State standout) Chase Young every day, but the bottom line is football is football, and it’s the same game that I’ve been playing since I’ve been in seventh grade.”
Dalton’s status throughout concussion protocol will be something to follow this week.
And despite the record of all four teams, the NFC East will be something to follow through the rest of the season, because no team has found a way to run away with first place -- or play well enough to be considered a legitimate contender.
“It’s the weakest division in football, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the division you’re in,” Reese said. “So, it’s competitive right now, and thank goodness it is, because that keeps every body interested. And when you have the playoffs as a possibility, it keeps the season interesting throughout.”