The silence in the postgame locker room was deafening.
The aftermath of the Eagles‘ 38-21 loss to the Dallas Cowboys on primetime gave way to the hush of a locker room that’s now lacking familiar voices and familiar goals.
It was Saquon Barkley to address the team in the moments that preceded reporters swarming into the locker room, and Barkley who explained just how rare it has been for him to be the one called upon to do so with Jalen Hurts on injured reserve, Lane Johnson retired, and the hopes of this team rounding into form withering away.
“I know that I gotta take more of a a role of being vocal, using my voice,” Barkley said. “I’m more of a lead-by-example type of guy, but it happens when you have guys banged up, and a guy like Jalen, who’s really basically the vocal leader. It’s gonna take me and Jordan [Mailata,] all of us to kind of fill that void.”
The void was plenty big on Monday night. After turning in arguably the worst defensive performance of Vic Fangio’s three-year tenure, both Jalen Carter and Riq Woolen declined to address their role in the mishap with reporters afterward.
“Nah, y’all have a good night,” Carter said. “You get home safe.”
Jordan Davis and Arnold Ebiketie were the only defensive linemen to speak with reporters about the group’s inability to contain the Cowboys’ unheralded run game to go along with the staggering absence of a pass rush from a group that required heavy investment to assemble.
The Eagles allowed 204 rushing yards to the Cowboys, who ranked 27th in yards per attempt coming into the game. Javonte Williams’ 155 rushing yards in the game is the highest total the Eagles have allowed to a single rusher in 11 years. According to TruMedia, Monday night was the worst game in terms of EPA/drive that the Eagles have allowed since Fangio took over in 2024.
“It starts up front and it bleeds into all three levels,” Davis said. “We didn’t play good enough against the run and it kind of opened up their whole playbook and you see the result of that.”
In the pass game, the Eagles recorded zero sacks, zero quarterback hits, and zero tackles for loss. Carter, who signed a four-year, $152-million contract extension before the season, registered zero solo tackles and zero pressures, according to Next Gen Stats.
It wasn’t just Carter who went anonymous (although the 25-year-old was one of the few un-accountable afterward). Moro Ojomo logged just one pressure Monday night. Jonathan Greenard and Jalyx Hunt were just as ineffective, although the edge-rusher duo at least have the excuse of playing through apparent injuries to point toward.
“You’ve seen those guys be disruptive,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said when asked about Carter and Davis. “You’ve seen those guys make quite a bit of plays. Obviously tonight we’re all going to want plays back from tonight and moments back from tonight. When you give up yards rushing like we did today, it’s not just one thing.”
The Eagles secondary wasn’t much better than the front. The Cowboys picked on Woolen throughout the game, including on a 16-yard touchdown pass to CeeDee Lamb in the third quarter and a more-damning slant-and-go to Lamb for a chunk gain in the first half. Cooper DeJean also struggled against Lamb, conceding a first-quarter touchdown after failing to locate the ball as the Cowboys star wideout broke toward the sideline and hauled in an eight-yard touchdown catch.
The lack of presence up front may have been the most back-breaking for the Eagles considering the stakes of the game, though. Barkley, Hunt, Greenard, and a handful of other key contributors on the Eagles roster clearly played through injury Monday night with the hopes of salvaging what’s left of the season while there was still a chance to do so. Barkley said he suffered a compensatory back injury on his first carry of the game, a result of trying to reach top speed despite dealing with a hamstring injury that he was willing to rush back from before being 100%.
But even with Barkley’s gutsy performance helping Tanner McKee and the Eagles offense keep pace with Dallas for the better part of three quarters, the absence of a pass rush or reliable run defense eventually gave way to the Eagles dropping to 2-5 with five consecutive losses.
It’s unfamiliar territory for the Eagles, who haven’t had a losing streak this long since 2016, although Sirianni acknowledged the team was 2-5 midway through the 2021 season before making a push into the wildcard round of the playoffs in the second half of the season.
“The way we finished that year,” Sirianni said. “It propelled us into the future Eagles that we’ve been the last four years. And so growth is important. … Football is going to deal you some tough hands at times, but can you get up and keep fighting? Life is going to deal you some tough hands at times. … We’ve got 10 more games, and then we’ll see after that.”
It’s true that losing streaks both in 2016 and 2021 gave way to Super Bowl berths the following season, but this year seems much more likely to mark the end of an era of Eagles football rather than the foundation for something new.
