So I had the Eagles in Survivor, figured it would be a sweat this morning, even the 40-minute edited version, but I hadn’t yet logged into the DAZN app (in Europe they carry the NFL games), and of course there were issues downloading it (no idea why it disappeared from my Apple TV), logging in, and during that process I saw the 24-20 score. So there was no sweat, but I was cool with it because Surviving is the No. 1 priority every week, and I had survived.
The game itself was pretty strange — easy drives up and down the field all first half, nothing in the second. The Eagles never threw outside, the Cowboys only threw to CeeDee Lamb. One thing that surprised me was it was more or less equal at the line of scrimmage — no dominance on either side of the ball by the Eagles.
Dak Prescott looked fine, but it was a terrible fantasy line. He won’t run anymore, either. He should still get his 30-odd TDs by season’s end with Lamb and George Pickens though.
Javonte Williams was solid. Not as fast as Miles Sanders, but he showed good hands and wasn’t the one to give away a crucial fumble. The Cowboys should be happy enough with him as their primary ball carrier for now. Jaydon Who? was inactive.
Lamb saw 13 targets and got his fantasy points, but couldn’t bring in some balls on key plays. They weren’t easy catches, but Justin Jefferson comes down with those. George Pickens saw only four targets, wasn’t really worked into the game plan much. Jake Ferguson caught a bunch of short throws. I wonder how much patience Pickens will have playing next to a target hog like Lamb all year.
Jalen Hurts just did not throw outside, which meant AJ Brown (and DeVonta Smith) had virtually no role in the game. Hurts did make one perfect deep throw over the middle to Jahan Dotson. Dallas Goedert, like Ferguson, saw a lot of short stuff. Of course Hurts had two rushing TDs, and that always pays the bills.
Saquon Barkley was bottled up in the second half, but he made some nice catches, scored a TD and basically looked like the guy from last year. Backup Will Shipley got hurt, so AJ Dillon is next in line if he can’t go.
It’ll be interesting to see how far Brown (and Smith) fall in this weekend’s NFFC drafts. I’d take Brown in the third round, no problem. You get to put his worst game on your bench, and nothing fundamentally changed about his role long term. In fact, you can bet they will get the receivers involved deliberately in Week 2.
Brandon Aubrey delivered as always, but so did Jake Elliott with a 58-yarder of his own.
I didn’t have to sweat it, but that was closer than you prefer in Survivor — if Sanders doesn’t fumble, I think the Eagles score again and win, but the Cowboys were still one play away, and if CeeDee Lamb holds on, it would have been awfully tight. But all’s well that ends well, and now I have the joy of freerolling and rooting for chaos on Sunday.