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October 27, 2026

The Eagles' D-line can't be this gutless

The Eagles' defensive front was supposed to be a strength, but it embarrassingly unraveled against the Cowboys.

Eagles NFL
2026-10-27T031417Z_1704328814_MT1USATODAY30195577_RTRMADP_3_NFL-DALLAS-COWBOYS-AT-PHILADELPHIA-EAGLES.JPG Eric Hartline/IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Javonte Williams ran right through the Eagles' D-line on Monday night.

Dak Prescott dropped back with all the time in the world, and Javonte Williams would take handoffs often with a cut into all the space in the world.

The Eagles lost to the Cowboys, 38-21, on Monday night at Lincoln Financial Field, with their defense getting picked apart and their defensive line up front, especially, getting entirely suppressed.

Prescott wasn't sacked at all. The Eagles never even registered a single QB hit on him, and even worse, they never really came close.

Williams, meanwhile, ran for 155 yards and a touchdown, racking up 88 of those yards in the second half to completely unravel Monday night for Philly.

And by a certain point, it looked easy to, because guys like Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, and the other rushers around them couldn't even bring themselves to get into their stance on time, as analyst Brian Baldinger harped on over Twitter the next morning:

By the numbers, it was brutal. The Eagles' D-line had a 21.4 percent pressure rate on Monday night, which was tied for the fourth-worst in the NFL in Week 7. They were one of four teams without a sack during Week 7, and the individual pass rush win rates against Dallas all underwhelmed – Moro Ojomo had a 10.2-percent success clip, Jordan Davis had a 7.5-percent rate, and Carter just a 6.6-percent share, per NFL Next Gen Stats. The floor for a good win rate in the pass rush starts at 15 percent.

By the tape, it was embarrassing. Carter and Davis both signed big contract extensions in the offseason, and the Eagles' pass rush and interior line figured to be a regular force for them from week-to-week and year-to-year for the foreseeable future, yet there they were on Monday night getting reduced to a total non-factor against their greatest and own underachieving rival in primetime.

And by the soundbites postgame, or lack thereof, it was gutless.

Davis, who established himself as a positive and reinforcing voice in the locker room, only has half a sack this season and has barely been noticeable as the run-stuffing nose tackle he emerged as over the past couple of years. And at his locker afterward, he had little answer for what happened to the crowd of reporters around him other than that Dallas was ready to play and they weren't.

"Their coach challenged them, and they took it hard and they ran the ball," Davis said. "Unfortunately, it's not the game that we wanted to play, but we have to answer the call when we know it's coming. It starts from me. It starts from everybody in the room. So that's about it."

Carter declined to speak to the media, per AllPHLY's EJ Smith.

But Davis has a $78 million contract and a captaincy letter on his chest now, and Carter, who already built up his reputation as a game-wrecker with the potential for so much more, got his $152 million contract to make him the highest-paid defensive tackle in football.

Once you're at that level, you're past the point of being unprepared, ineffective, and in the case of Carter, being excused from having to stand up and face the music for it after.

They're the guys the Eagles chose to lean on in the trenches and invest heavily in. They have to show it.

At the least, they have to get into their stance on time, no matter how far south a game like Monday night be going.

*Geoff Mosher contributed to this story


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