The NFC East was nearly decided on Sunday afternoon. With a 17-9 Philadelphia Eagles win over the Dallas Cowboys, the Eagles took the frontrunner position for the division. Per Football Outsiders, the Eagles now have a 69.2% chance of winning the NFC East, compared to 30.8% for the Cowboys. For the Eagles, it’s simple: beat the New York Giants next week and they’re in the playoffs.

This game wasn’t officially won until the final drive but the Philadelphia advantage started before the game did and little decisions throughout the contest made just as much impact as the plays on the field. Eagles-Cowboys was decided by coaching and there was no bigger mismatch between the two teams on Sunday.

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Knowing Strengths

Philadelphia came into the game with virtually no productive wide receivers on the roster. Last week’s hero, Greg Ward, is a converted quarterback and still only had 18 career receptions before Sunday. He was the No. 1. J.J. Arcega-Whiteside is a promising rookie, but he has only seen the field because of injuries and he had yet to be productive on an NFL field. He was the No. 2.

So, of course, the Eagles were going to work in the running backs and tight ends into the passing game. This, apparently, came as a surprise to the Dallas defense. Though even if the Cowboys did know that type of attack was coming, it wouldn’t have mattered. Dallas came into the week ranked 28th in DVOA against opposing tight ends this season, per Football Outsiders. The Cowboys did use cornerback Byron Jones on Zach Ertz and Ertz was held to just four receptions and 28 yards on six targets but the Eagles were able to make an adjustment to their other options.

The Dallas defense has also allowed the most Expected Points Added on defense against screens, per Sports Info Solutions. 62% of screens run against the Cowboys this season have produced positive EPA, which is easily the highest mark in the league. The next worst defense is the Seattle Seahawks, who have allowed positive EPA on 56% of screens. The best offense on screens this season, the Minnesota Vikings, only create a positive play on 60.4% of their screens.

Still, the Cowboys had little defense for Eagles receivers out of the backfield. Miles Sanders was worth 0.96 EPA per play on six targets with an 83% success rate and 67% first down rate, per nflscrapR data via the Baldwin Boxscore.

Sanders had two huge plays in the passing game. One a 29-yard swing pass on perhaps Philadelphia’s best designed and executed drive of the season to set up a touchdown in the first quarter.

 

 

In the fourth quarter, he had a 24-yard gain on a well-designed screen that turned around linebacker Sean Lee (50) with play-action that opened up the middle of the field.

 

 

With Ertz the only opposing player the Cowboys had a plan against, Philadelphia’s biggest threat in the passing game was Dallas Goedert. Goedert picked apart the Dallas defense with short 6-yard gains throughout the game and picked up a 46% first down rate on 13 targets. The Cowboys switched between allowing Goedert to sit down in the middle of an empty zone or worse, cover him one-on-one with safety Jeff Heath.

 

 

On the other side of the ball, the Eagles’ weakness was in the secondary, especially the outside corners but the Cowboys didn’t try to attack that deep until too late in the game. Amari Cooper is one of the league’s best receivers on double moves — third in EPA among receivers on double moves through Week 15 — but Dallas mostly stayed away from trying to get Philadelphia’s corners out of position, the way other opposing offenses have found success throwing against the Eagles. Cooper had some post-game thoughts on the lack of shots:

 

Fourth Down Decisions

This is an area where Doug Pederson and the Eagles have maybe the biggest advantage, though Pederson hasn’t been as aggressive on fourth downs this season as he has been in the past. He didn’t really need to be on Sunday, though, since Jason Garrett was able to swing the advantage toward Philadelphia on his own.

There were two big fourth downs decisions Garrett chose poorly. The first was a 4th and 3 from the Philadelphia 31-yard line early in the second quarter with Dallas down 10-0. EdjSports had this call as nearly a coin toss with the Cowboys only losing 1.3% pre-snap win probability with the decision, but it’s still a call that cost Dallas win probability in a game where field goals clearly weren’t going to be the answer.

The biggest was a 4th and 1 from the Dallas 33 at the start of the fourth quarter, down 17-6. It started going downhill with the third-down play call, a rollout pass to a tightly covered Amari Cooper. 3rd and short is one of the few times rushing is more efficient than passing and Ezekiel Elliott had just rushed for nine yards on the previous play. For as much as the Dallas ground game did struggle, it’s hard to imagine the Cowboys couldn’t have picked up one yard in two tries. Instead, the Cowboys elected to punt, which severely cut down their chance to win the game.

 

Later, the Cowboys were forced to go for it on a 4th and 9, kicked a field goal on a 4th and 4 (which still put them down by eight points), and had to go on a 4th and 8 on the final drive, which brings us to…

The Final Dallas Drive

There was no bigger example of coaching a team out of a game than what the Cowboys pulled on their final offensive drive. Dallas had a fairly good drive to get into scoring position — 69 yards on eight plays before the two-minute warning. Then everything went downhill.

It started with 2nd and 4 from the Philadelphia 19. Dak Prescott took a sack from Vinny Curry, while looking for something to open up down the field. Prescott, though, had Elliott open for a check down and a likely first down.

 

 

That brought up 3rd and 8, which turned out to be a rushed throw that fell short in front of a clearly covered Cooper.

 

 

After the play, Cooper was taken off the field. Cooper not being on the field shouldn’t be as big of a deal as it was made out to be after the fact. Even if Cooper wasn’t hurt, as the Cowboys have said he wasn’t, he was massively ineffective. He had just four catches for 24 yards on 12 targets with a long of six yards. He cost the Cowboys over three-quarters of an expected point per target (minus-0.77 EPA per play) with a 25% success rate and an 8% first down rate.

Instead, the biggest mistake was not having Randall Cobb on the field for the final fourth down. Cobb was on the field for the third down play, but was taken off with Cooper for a 12 personnel grouping that also featured Tavon Austin.

Cobb was the best Dallas receiver in this game — 0.93 EPA per play with a 77% success rate — and he already had two big catches on the drive, both on 2nd and 10. The first was a 21-yard gain when Cobb found a hole in the Eagles’ zone.

 

 

The other was an 18-yard gain as Cobb created separation with a move off the line from the slot. This probably should have been the fourth down play, or at least an option on it.

 

 

But the final 4th and 8 call from the 23-yard line was a contested throw to Michael Gallup broken up by Sidney Jones that never had much of a chance to be completed.

 

Dallas head coach Jason Garrett said they got the look they wanted, but if a low percentage shot to the end zone is what they wanted, there’s the problem. With over a minute remaining and three timeouts left, the Cowboys didn’t have to take a shot to the end zone. They could have worked the middle of the field with Cobb or one of the two tight ends they apparently had to have on the field for that play.

It was a wild decision with the game on the line that ultimately cost the Cowboys a chance at the playoffs. Doug Pederson and the Eagles were ahead of Jason Garrett at every step and even if they weren’t, Garrett was more than willing to take steps backward himself.