The first game of the 2025 NFL season is in the books. As expected, the Philadelphia Eagles walked off the field with the win.
But it was much closer than expected for sure.
The Cowboys have areas of concern to address after the loss. But they also had some bright spots to build on.
One thing is for sure, Thursday’s game was one of the strangest season openers in Cowboys history.
A player got injured on the opening kickoff. While said player was being attended to, another player decided to get ejected from the game before playing a single snap for spitting on an opponent.
Then the weather said, nah, y’all don’t want to go to bed early tonight, and caused a 1:05 delay late in the third quarter.
Spit Gate
I’m not sure what Jalen Carter was thinking when he spit on Dak Prescott on Thursday night before the first offensive snap of the game.
It’s likely he’ll have plenty of time to consider it though. And he’ll be a little lighter in the wallet too.
Social Media erupted with “Spit Gate” as NBC showed a video of Prescott stepping out of the huddle, toward Carter, and spitting on the ground. Prescott then smiled and said something to Carter.
Carter stepped forward, Prescott stepped forward, and with an official standing right there, Carter let fly with the costliest loogie in history.
Been watching football since the late 1960s. I’ve never seen that before.
Philadelphia dodged an absolute bullet by escaping with a 24-20 win over Dallas.
The Cowboys’ biggest concern on offense was dealing with Carter.
Once he was gone, they were able to attack the Eagles with the running game effectively.
Yet, somehow, they settled for two touchdowns and two field goals. The Cowboys’ defense gave up three touchdowns and one field goal.
And those four points was the ball game.
Speaking of missing persons in the season opener…
Maybe You Needed Micah, Jerry
In the first game of the post-Micah Parsons era, the Cowboys had a non-existent pass rush until after the one-hour-long weather delay.
By then, the Eagles had the lead.
The defense managed just one sack of Hurts for the game. Before the weather delay, Hurts was running free for first downs, and two touchdowns, when forced out of the pocket.
They will need to clean this up, especially with some solid quarterbacks on the schedule ahead.
Kenny Clark was in on the sack, but the Eagles still had 158 yards rushing. That too, needs to be cleaned up.
The End Of Mazi?
Mazi Smith was inactive on Thursday. Leading Chris Collingsworth to remark: “That’s as close as you can get to being cut.”
The Cowboys were thin at DT and leaving Smith on the bench isn’t a good sign for the 2023 first round pick’s future in Dallas.
This Is The Way
Dallas had leads of 7-0, 14-7, and 17-14, on Thursday because they were pounding the ball with the run game.
Javonte Williams had a strong game with 54 yards and two touchdowns on 15 carries. Miles Sanders had 53 yards on four carries.
But 49 of those yards came on one run.
The turnover that may have cost Dallas the game came on his next run.
Sanders fumbled the ball away as Dallas was driving and down 24-20 with just under five minutes to play. The Cowboys had more chances after, but never made it anywhere close to scoring range after the fumble.
Much will be said about CeeDee Lamb’s drops, especially the two late in the game.
But that fumble was brutal.
If Jaydon Blue is healthy, Sanders needs to be third string. Then he needs to be gone when Phil Mafah returns.
Prescott’s Solid Return
Prescott had a good game overall. He was 21-for-34 for 188 yards.
He should have had one interception late in the game. He nearly had two others on deflections off of his receivers.
Prescott had one run for three yards.
He also made a touchdown-saving tackle on Sanders’ fumble that could have given the Eagles a 31-20 lead going into that weather delay.
A score there, and it might have been all but over for Dallas.
After missing nine games last year, Prescott looked solid in his return.
The All-Time Record
Dallas is now 74-59 against the Eagles and have lost the last three meetings between the teams. Philadelphia improved to 34-31 against the Cowboys when playing at home.
The loss drops Dallas to 41-24-1 all-time in season openers, and 23-13 when opening the season on the road.
The 24-20 final was the 10th game in Cowboys’ history to end in such a score. Dallas is 4-6 in those games.
Agree the fumble was “brutal”. Sanders should be third string. On his long run, he made a nice cut to pick the hole and was clear by quite a lot but got caught from behind by a linebacker. That’s bad.
Also agree DP could/should have been picked off but had nice game and had them in contention. Overall, team looked better than expected and going forward they may make some noise, when all the talking head had them buried. Hopefully.
Ok–real story of the game: Ceedee dropped 4 key passes that killed drives and stopped the chance to win the game. All 3 of the supposed near interceptions were caused by Ceedee who had 2 perfect passes bounce off his hands and then short armed a 50/50 ball on the sideline. It is now becoming clear that Ceedee will not fight for a contested ball. The pass rush was actually good as it chased Hurts all over but lost contain in doing that allowing Hurts to run through gaps. The run defense improved over the game. The game was lost by Ceedee and Sanders who did not hold onto the ball.
Agree the fumble and drops cost the game. That late deep post route hit CD right in the hands. If he catches that ball, they had a good chance of scoring a go-ahead TD. Defense did tighten up late. The shame is they could have won that game.
ITs NevER DaK’s faULt!!!