Dallas Cowboys at Philadelphia Eagles
Monday, October 26, 2026
8:15 PM ET, Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, PA (ESPN/ABC)
The Dallas Cowboys are 4.5-point road favorites over the Philadelphia Eagles, and the total is 44.5. My play is Cowboys -4.5 (-110).
Two 2-4 teams, a division nobody seems to want, and a Monday night game that looked like a playoff preview in August. Dallas has scored 29 points in two weeks and is getting roasted for it. Philadelphia has lost four straight for the first time in the Nick Sirianni era, lost Jalen Hurts for what looks like the rest of the season, and learned Wednesday night that its head coach had been hit with a $250,000 fine (on hold for now) for how he treats officials. Only one of these teams has an offense that can exploit what’s across the line from it.
Philly’s offense is running on fumes. Even with Hurts, the Eagles were stuck in the mud. By our count they rank 30th in EPA per play, which measures how much each snap helps or hurts your chances of scoring, and they’re dead last in yards per play. Tanner McKee’s first start against Carolina was gritty and not much more: 215 yards on 45 throws, while the run game scraped together 35 yards.
McKee owned it afterward: “My team needs me to be better. I need to be better.” He also pointed to miscommunication that stalled the first two drives. That’s hard to clean up when Lane Johnson has retired, the starting center was traded, a rookie is playing right tackle, and Landon Dickerson is still trying to get off IR. Philly is scoring 14.5 points a game during its four-game skid and hasn’t covered once at home.
Dallas’s fix happens to be Philly’s soft spot. The talk in Dallas all week has been about balance. The Cowboys threw on 40 of their final 41 snaps at Green Bay, and Brian Schottenheimer admitted afterward that throwing it 54 times “wasn’t the plan” and was “not a good recipe.” Here’s the good news for Dallas: the Eagles have one of the softest run defenses in the league, bottom five in EPA against the run. Javonte Williams already has seven rushing touchdowns. If Schottenheimer keeps feeding him, Vic Fangio can’t sit back in the zone-heavy looks Green Bay used to hold Dak Prescott to 4.3 yards per attempt.
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Dak gets all day, and CeeDee is due
Dallas protects its quarterback better than anyone in the NFL. Prescott gets sacked on just 2.6% of dropbacks, the best rate in the league. Philadelphia, meanwhile, has one of the quietest pass rushes in football, second-to-last in sack rate. A clean pocket is the last thing a shaky Eagles secondary wants to see. CeeDee Lamb has been held to 79 yards over the last two weeks, but he’s still drawing 11-plus targets a game. That kind of volume against this coverage tends to snap back.
Yes, the Dallas defense is a mess. By our numbers it’s the worst in the league against the pass, it has allowed 20 or more points in a franchise-record 13 straight games, and Green Bay converted 9 of 10 third downs in the first half last week. But the second half in Lambeau was different: the Packers managed just two field goals and five first downs after the break. LB DeMarvion Overshown and CB Cobie Durant could both be back. And to burn this secondary, you need a quarterback who can push the ball downfield behind a line that holds up. Philly doesn’t have that this week.
Why this could go sideways
Fangio has the blueprint. Green Bay played zone on roughly three out of four Prescott dropbacks, and Dak threw two interceptions in Packers territory. He has four picks in his last two games, and Dallas is just 1-3 against the spread as a favorite this season. If Saquon Barkley (hamstring, questionable) returns at full speed, Philly has a real answer to its running problem. DeVonta Smith only needs a couple of busted coverages against a defense that gives up 20-yard completions more often than anyone else. And a division dog at home in primetime, with a defense still featuring Jalen Carter and Cooper DeJean, can hang around long enough to steal a backdoor cover. The first practice report lands Thursday and final statuses come Saturday, so keep an eye on Barkley, Dickerson, and Dallas’s banged-up linebackers.
How Monday plays out
Dallas leans on Williams early, Prescott picks his spots against a pass rush that rarely gets home, and McKee keeps moving the chains for a few plays before the drive stalls. Philly gets something late to make it look respectable. I’ve got Cowboys 27, Eagles 20. I’d lay it up to -5.5, but at -6.5 I’m out.
The Pick: Cowboys -4.5 (-110)
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