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Morning After Week 12 - Signature Win: Achieved!
Dallas survived a huge early Philadelphia lead and then fought back in an awesome battle.
Bob Sturm
Nov 24, 2025
“Just keep playing.”
It is why gloom and doom serves no purpose to those who perform on the highest athletic stage possible. There is nothing to gain from assuming everything is bad. What drives you to the next challenge or through the current storm is this belief that if you dig hard enough and fight long enough, you will be rewarded by good things happening.
Whether it as the 2025 season or just this game, you can now see the payoff of continuing to battle.
The season was dead in the water a short time ago and that game was surely doomed less than one hour after it started. Your best intentions go horribly wrong and you are tempted to go do something else. But, if you are in the uniform and on the field, you must just keep playing because maybe you can help turn things around.
And amazingly, that happened yesterday as the Cowboys beat the Philadelphia Eagles in what would tie the biggest comeback in franchise history (21 points) and allow them to perhaps claw back into a position to play relevant football on Thanksgiving Day. They fought and battled and experienced enormous amounts of failure before finding just enough success to pull the game out in the end against the defending Super Bowl Champion (Alleged).
It was far from perfect and definitely ugly at times, but boy is this the win that a new coaching staff can use as proof of concept moving forward. And it all comes back to whether or not you believe in the mantra, “Just keep playing.”
They did and now they still have a heartbeat in 2025.
This game was 21-0 within an hour and felt dead and gone. Dallas was making mistakes and channeling whatever they did in their last home playoff performance where every member of the organization was unable to do anything right.
A miss on a fourth-down throw on the first possession. Then your defense gives up a touchdown on an incredibly soft coverage idea where DaRon Bland offers AJ Brown outside leverage and forces him to no help whatsoever and a wide open target for his QB and you are down, 7-0.
Then, your offense meekly punts. The defense actually stands tall and forces a punt, but Ryan Flournoy is called for a roughing the kicker penalty (wrongly) and the coach decides a challenge is not going to be successful, so he opts against it. I will jump in here and say on change of possession plays, if your player is swearing he tipped the football and you need to challenge it – as he did – then you might have to trust him and take a shot. Flournoy could not have been more demonstrative that he got a piece, but whether there was ever going to be sufficient evidence is a wild guess.
So, of course, the Eagles go right down and score again. This time with a wildly annoying QB draw out of empty, which is a Hurts calling card and somehow the Cowboys linebackers seemed shocked and then both missed a tackle opportunity. 14-0.
Now, the Cowboys are feeling the pressures and tightness that go with big games at AT&T Stadium and the ghosts of many failures in the past. This team has this infectious illness where they all start tripping over their own feet at the same time. It is sort of the exact opposite of rising to the occasion. Losing, they say, is a disease.
So, third possession, and on consecutive plays you have a near fumble followed by a real fumble where KaVonte Turpin trips over his own feet and hits the back of Tyler Guyton’s leg which knocks the ball right out of his hands and to the Eagles. Then, shortly after a bomb to DeVonta Smith, the Eagles tush-push in another one and it is 21-0, with 11:35 left in the first half.
In three possessions for each team, the Cowboys have accomplished as much as a middle school would against the mighty Eagles. Three mistakes on offense and three touchdowns conceded for the defense.
The final death blow, it seemed, was Dak throwing an interception in the end zone on a forced ball to CeeDee Lamb. Javonte Williams was a much better choice, but Dak was trying to hit a 3-run home run with the bases empty. It happens when things start snowballing and now bad is worse with 5:07 left in the half.
Pain. Misery. Failure. Cowboys football, 2025.
I am not sure when I started repeating the mantra for this season that this team can go as far as two guys can take them – Dak Prescott and Brian Schottenheimer.
I think I started saying it right after they traded away their best defensive player and the season has obviously taken some twists and turns.
One of those twists that we could never have dreamed – as recently as two weeks ago – is that the Cowboys would be able to drastically change the identity of their defense while in-season. Playing back to back opponents who had the world’s best college RB of 2024 and the world’s best pro RB in 2024 in your first two tests of the Quinnen Williams era were going to provide some insight about the new realities around here. And we have great news to report. The employers of both Ashton Jeanty and Saquon Barkley decided the best results are probably achieved by not challenging the Cowboys between the tackles a whole lot. We expected the Raiders to concede the trenches, but the Eagles?
Barkley attempted 3 inside runs on Sunday and was able to gain exactly 3 yards.
It is possible that the Cowboys were able to secure one of the most valued pieces in the NFL – the guy who is so good at destroying opposing plans, teams don’t even challenge him. If you measure a player on counting stats, you might miss the boat on Quinnen Williams (although 8 QB pressures from a DT is beyond what Dallas would normally get in a month), but if you understand the concept of force multipliers, you know that his effects are everywhere right now. Including the premise of making Osa Odighizuwa and Kenny Clark look like new men as they now line up right next to him.
This should lead us to similar conclusions with George Pickens and CeeDee Lamb. The combination of two elite WRs is what put Vic Fangio’s defense in a bind at times on Sunday and while Lamb disappointed quite often – as he notably did in the other meeting with Philadelphia this year and now has 6 drops against the Eagles and just 2 drops against the rest of the league – the combination of the two makes them both more effective than they have been individually. That is how football works, often enough. No, I am not trying to replace Lamb with Pickens on the payroll because the cap might be tight. I want the force multiplication of having teams trying to deal with both of them. That is how you win on both sides of the ball.
So, if we may, back to this 21-0 problem.
Clearly, there are two major issues with being down three touchdowns. The biggest one is how are you going to go get that many scores in short order. But, the other one seems the problem with the 2025 Cowboys – at least what we had grown accustomed to – is that keeping the Eagles from growing that lead as they pound Dallas into a fine powder is where the math gets pretty hard.
And that is why it is important to not the following about the beleaguered Matt Eberflus defense: in the final 41 minutes and eight possessions, the mighty Eagles were able to score zero points and had zero drives that made it deeper than the Dallas 38-yard line. They made it to the very edge of field goal range twice, but once it was missed by Jake Elliott early in the fourth quarter and once was fumbled by Saquon Barkley when Sam Williams made the play of his life punching the ball free so it could be recovered by Kenneth Murray with 7:28 to go in a 21-21 tie.
And this is when it is time to reconsider George Pickens and the amazing season he is having where he is now well over 1,000 yards at 1,054 (with six games to go) and has pretty much equalled what every single Pittsburgh Steelers WR has combined (1,082) and given how much that city slandered him in the summer, I think placing his season against his replacement, DK Metcalf (signed by the Steelers at 5 years, $150 million contract) is appropriate:
The man is different and his way of complimenting the presence of CeeDee Lamb is starting to get figured out. Trust me, if you can work over the Eagles for nearly 500 yards, you can handle your business in this league with anyone. I am guessing Pittsburgh saw flashes of Lynn Swann on that 4th Quarter moment to scream at.
What is wild about that catch is that it might not have been the most important catch of his night as the one that happened a bit later actually ended up being the play that set up the game-winning field goal.
But, either way, you saw Lamb getting double-teamed much of the night and in the past, the operation was halted. Especially if you had a premier corner like Quinyon Mitchell to single Pickens and then double Lamb and let the Cowboys figure out how to beat you with WR4 or just the running game. We have seen it so much against the premier defenses and people complain that the QB isn’t good enough. Well, sometimes, playing on an offense with the appropriate weapons would be nice. Adding Pickens to Lamb was always a dream and now we are seeing why. If people want more from Lamb against the biggest rival, I admit that would be nice. But, hopefully those folks would admit that Lamb has a credibility that should be able to withstand a night where he brought in one of the biggest catches of the night, too. That 48-yarder against Cooper DeJean was plenty huge.
The point to all of this is that up and down this roster, you saw a team fighting its tail off in a game that was miles from perfect. But, for me, I thought they badly needed a signature win that could show them what was possible and no amount of wins against the Jets and Giants (and Raiders) of the world would accomplish that. They had to stand in the ring with the heavyweights and prove that there was not much margin of difference between them. Now, they have played 120 minutes of football and Dallas has been outscored 45-44, but they probably feel that having big Quinnen in both games might make up that slightest of margins.
They did not wreck the Eagles season and they probably did not save theirs. But, overall, I loved the fight, the relentlessness, and the willingness to take the game to the trenches and stand tall after three hours of fights. This team may have lost some identity over the last few years and my biggest compliment to Brian Schottenheimer is not that he makes every decision perfectly (I definitely kick a field goal at 21-21 with 3:36 to go), but he believes in his guys and gives them a chance. When the offense let them down, the defense got a huge stop with Odighizuwa’s sack on that next 3rd and 2 and they were rewarded.
At the moment of truth, they put the last drive together with yet another big play to Pickens and get a win that might just change everything. Yesterday, it wasn’t just coach and QB. Literally everyone pitched in from Kavonte Turpin to Javonte Williams to Alijah Clark and Trent Seig.
Beating the Eagles might be the high-water mark of 2025, but also, it might put them into a place where they are full of belief and ready to play another champion on Thursday. The point to all of this is to now say that this organization has much needed wind in its sails and its future seems full of promise and potential again.
There is nothing like beating a rival that thought the game was over by 4:30 and sending them home with a good humbling. We are most interested to see where it leads from here, despite the damage being too much to overcome in 2025. But, we do know this – the Cowboys seem to have hired the right head coach and I am very anxious to see with where they go in the months still to come.
Cannot wait to look at the film in the next few days on both sides of the ball.
Dallas survived a huge early Philadelphia lead and then fought back in an awesome battle.
Bob Sturm
Nov 24, 2025
“Just keep playing.”
It is why gloom and doom serves no purpose to those who perform on the highest athletic stage possible. There is nothing to gain from assuming everything is bad. What drives you to the next challenge or through the current storm is this belief that if you dig hard enough and fight long enough, you will be rewarded by good things happening.
Whether it as the 2025 season or just this game, you can now see the payoff of continuing to battle.
The season was dead in the water a short time ago and that game was surely doomed less than one hour after it started. Your best intentions go horribly wrong and you are tempted to go do something else. But, if you are in the uniform and on the field, you must just keep playing because maybe you can help turn things around.
And amazingly, that happened yesterday as the Cowboys beat the Philadelphia Eagles in what would tie the biggest comeback in franchise history (21 points) and allow them to perhaps claw back into a position to play relevant football on Thanksgiving Day. They fought and battled and experienced enormous amounts of failure before finding just enough success to pull the game out in the end against the defending Super Bowl Champion (Alleged).
It was far from perfect and definitely ugly at times, but boy is this the win that a new coaching staff can use as proof of concept moving forward. And it all comes back to whether or not you believe in the mantra, “Just keep playing.”
They did and now they still have a heartbeat in 2025.
This game was 21-0 within an hour and felt dead and gone. Dallas was making mistakes and channeling whatever they did in their last home playoff performance where every member of the organization was unable to do anything right.
A miss on a fourth-down throw on the first possession. Then your defense gives up a touchdown on an incredibly soft coverage idea where DaRon Bland offers AJ Brown outside leverage and forces him to no help whatsoever and a wide open target for his QB and you are down, 7-0.
Then, your offense meekly punts. The defense actually stands tall and forces a punt, but Ryan Flournoy is called for a roughing the kicker penalty (wrongly) and the coach decides a challenge is not going to be successful, so he opts against it. I will jump in here and say on change of possession plays, if your player is swearing he tipped the football and you need to challenge it – as he did – then you might have to trust him and take a shot. Flournoy could not have been more demonstrative that he got a piece, but whether there was ever going to be sufficient evidence is a wild guess.
So, of course, the Eagles go right down and score again. This time with a wildly annoying QB draw out of empty, which is a Hurts calling card and somehow the Cowboys linebackers seemed shocked and then both missed a tackle opportunity. 14-0.
Now, the Cowboys are feeling the pressures and tightness that go with big games at AT&T Stadium and the ghosts of many failures in the past. This team has this infectious illness where they all start tripping over their own feet at the same time. It is sort of the exact opposite of rising to the occasion. Losing, they say, is a disease.
So, third possession, and on consecutive plays you have a near fumble followed by a real fumble where KaVonte Turpin trips over his own feet and hits the back of Tyler Guyton’s leg which knocks the ball right out of his hands and to the Eagles. Then, shortly after a bomb to DeVonta Smith, the Eagles tush-push in another one and it is 21-0, with 11:35 left in the first half.
In three possessions for each team, the Cowboys have accomplished as much as a middle school would against the mighty Eagles. Three mistakes on offense and three touchdowns conceded for the defense.
The final death blow, it seemed, was Dak throwing an interception in the end zone on a forced ball to CeeDee Lamb. Javonte Williams was a much better choice, but Dak was trying to hit a 3-run home run with the bases empty. It happens when things start snowballing and now bad is worse with 5:07 left in the half.
Pain. Misery. Failure. Cowboys football, 2025.
I am not sure when I started repeating the mantra for this season that this team can go as far as two guys can take them – Dak Prescott and Brian Schottenheimer.
I think I started saying it right after they traded away their best defensive player and the season has obviously taken some twists and turns.
One of those twists that we could never have dreamed – as recently as two weeks ago – is that the Cowboys would be able to drastically change the identity of their defense while in-season. Playing back to back opponents who had the world’s best college RB of 2024 and the world’s best pro RB in 2024 in your first two tests of the Quinnen Williams era were going to provide some insight about the new realities around here. And we have great news to report. The employers of both Ashton Jeanty and Saquon Barkley decided the best results are probably achieved by not challenging the Cowboys between the tackles a whole lot. We expected the Raiders to concede the trenches, but the Eagles?
Barkley attempted 3 inside runs on Sunday and was able to gain exactly 3 yards.
It is possible that the Cowboys were able to secure one of the most valued pieces in the NFL – the guy who is so good at destroying opposing plans, teams don’t even challenge him. If you measure a player on counting stats, you might miss the boat on Quinnen Williams (although 8 QB pressures from a DT is beyond what Dallas would normally get in a month), but if you understand the concept of force multipliers, you know that his effects are everywhere right now. Including the premise of making Osa Odighizuwa and Kenny Clark look like new men as they now line up right next to him.
This should lead us to similar conclusions with George Pickens and CeeDee Lamb. The combination of two elite WRs is what put Vic Fangio’s defense in a bind at times on Sunday and while Lamb disappointed quite often – as he notably did in the other meeting with Philadelphia this year and now has 6 drops against the Eagles and just 2 drops against the rest of the league – the combination of the two makes them both more effective than they have been individually. That is how football works, often enough. No, I am not trying to replace Lamb with Pickens on the payroll because the cap might be tight. I want the force multiplication of having teams trying to deal with both of them. That is how you win on both sides of the ball.
So, if we may, back to this 21-0 problem.
Clearly, there are two major issues with being down three touchdowns. The biggest one is how are you going to go get that many scores in short order. But, the other one seems the problem with the 2025 Cowboys – at least what we had grown accustomed to – is that keeping the Eagles from growing that lead as they pound Dallas into a fine powder is where the math gets pretty hard.
And that is why it is important to not the following about the beleaguered Matt Eberflus defense: in the final 41 minutes and eight possessions, the mighty Eagles were able to score zero points and had zero drives that made it deeper than the Dallas 38-yard line. They made it to the very edge of field goal range twice, but once it was missed by Jake Elliott early in the fourth quarter and once was fumbled by Saquon Barkley when Sam Williams made the play of his life punching the ball free so it could be recovered by Kenneth Murray with 7:28 to go in a 21-21 tie.
And this is when it is time to reconsider George Pickens and the amazing season he is having where he is now well over 1,000 yards at 1,054 (with six games to go) and has pretty much equalled what every single Pittsburgh Steelers WR has combined (1,082) and given how much that city slandered him in the summer, I think placing his season against his replacement, DK Metcalf (signed by the Steelers at 5 years, $150 million contract) is appropriate:
The man is different and his way of complimenting the presence of CeeDee Lamb is starting to get figured out. Trust me, if you can work over the Eagles for nearly 500 yards, you can handle your business in this league with anyone. I am guessing Pittsburgh saw flashes of Lynn Swann on that 4th Quarter moment to scream at.
What is wild about that catch is that it might not have been the most important catch of his night as the one that happened a bit later actually ended up being the play that set up the game-winning field goal.
But, either way, you saw Lamb getting double-teamed much of the night and in the past, the operation was halted. Especially if you had a premier corner like Quinyon Mitchell to single Pickens and then double Lamb and let the Cowboys figure out how to beat you with WR4 or just the running game. We have seen it so much against the premier defenses and people complain that the QB isn’t good enough. Well, sometimes, playing on an offense with the appropriate weapons would be nice. Adding Pickens to Lamb was always a dream and now we are seeing why. If people want more from Lamb against the biggest rival, I admit that would be nice. But, hopefully those folks would admit that Lamb has a credibility that should be able to withstand a night where he brought in one of the biggest catches of the night, too. That 48-yarder against Cooper DeJean was plenty huge.
The point to all of this is that up and down this roster, you saw a team fighting its tail off in a game that was miles from perfect. But, for me, I thought they badly needed a signature win that could show them what was possible and no amount of wins against the Jets and Giants (and Raiders) of the world would accomplish that. They had to stand in the ring with the heavyweights and prove that there was not much margin of difference between them. Now, they have played 120 minutes of football and Dallas has been outscored 45-44, but they probably feel that having big Quinnen in both games might make up that slightest of margins.
They did not wreck the Eagles season and they probably did not save theirs. But, overall, I loved the fight, the relentlessness, and the willingness to take the game to the trenches and stand tall after three hours of fights. This team may have lost some identity over the last few years and my biggest compliment to Brian Schottenheimer is not that he makes every decision perfectly (I definitely kick a field goal at 21-21 with 3:36 to go), but he believes in his guys and gives them a chance. When the offense let them down, the defense got a huge stop with Odighizuwa’s sack on that next 3rd and 2 and they were rewarded.
At the moment of truth, they put the last drive together with yet another big play to Pickens and get a win that might just change everything. Yesterday, it wasn’t just coach and QB. Literally everyone pitched in from Kavonte Turpin to Javonte Williams to Alijah Clark and Trent Seig.
Beating the Eagles might be the high-water mark of 2025, but also, it might put them into a place where they are full of belief and ready to play another champion on Thursday. The point to all of this is to now say that this organization has much needed wind in its sails and its future seems full of promise and potential again.
There is nothing like beating a rival that thought the game was over by 4:30 and sending them home with a good humbling. We are most interested to see where it leads from here, despite the damage being too much to overcome in 2025. But, we do know this – the Cowboys seem to have hired the right head coach and I am very anxious to see with where they go in the months still to come.
Cannot wait to look at the film in the next few days on both sides of the ball.
