FRISCO, Texas 鈥 After 242 days of waiting, the 草莓视频下载入口 play football again on Thursday night, opening their season against the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.
With that also comes the return of "Here We Goooo," a weekly dive into the numbers that will decide each matchup of the Cowboys season.
Let's kickoff the 2025 season with three elements of the game that will determine a victor on September 4:
With so much attention going to CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens, the Cowboys will have their opportunities to attack the middle of the field using Ferguson this season. If Prescott and Ferguson take advantage of it, Dallas has a real chance to finish among the top of the league's total offense at season's end, and it all starts on Thursday.
Can Dallas handle the Eagles interior defensive line duo of Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis?
The Cowboys have invest a lot of their recent draft stock in the offensive line. Tyler Guyton, Tyler Smith and Tyler Booker were all first round picks, and Cooper Beebe was picked in the third round to be the team's center. They'll be looking for a big return on that investment on Thursday night.
Why? Philadelphia has one of the best defensive tackle duos in the league in Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis. Two products of the University of Georgia, they measure in at 6'3, 314 pounds and 6'6, 336 pounds respectively.
Last season, Carter had the highest double team rate in the NFL when lined up as a 3-4 technique defensive tackle at 49.2%. He tallied 45 quarterback pressures, 20 of which were quick pressures, for a 9.1% pressure rate and 4.5 sacks on 494 pass rush snaps.
In Davis' case, he played less at 0 technique last year and saw a dip in his production. That said, he still was double teamed on 44.2% of his snaps and was a clog against the run, with 25 stops on 191 run defense snaps.
If the Cowboys want to have success offensively, especially if they want to run the ball as much as Brian Schottenheimer says he does, they'll need the best version of their young, but talented offensive line especially on the interior.
Philadelphia's creativity in the offensive run game vs. Matt Eberflus' attack front
Want to know why Saquon Barkley rushed for over 2,000 yards last season? Sure, a big reason is because he's an incredibly talented player. The other big reason is because he had one of, if not the best offensive line in football.
What makes them so good? Jeff Stoutland in part, because he's had an unbelievable run in terms of developing top-end talent at the position. It's also because he plays to his player's strengths, and that's getting out in space and moving to the second level quickly.
The play outlined in the video above is an excellent example. On the left side of the offensive line, Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson and center Cam Jurgens weight a combined half a ton. As you can imagine, it's not fun to not only try and get past guys that move that well at their size, but then have to bring down a running back like Barkley if you do win against them.
Between the tackles last year, Barkley had the second-most yards in the league with 848 and seven touchdowns to go with it. When he goes outside the tackles, in which the offensive line still needs to either get up field and block for him or move guys out of the way, Barkley added 1,157 yards, 466 over expected.
Matt Eberflus' attack front will have their hands full on Thursday night, and the linebackers behind the defensive line will be equally important in filling their gaps and avoid getting taken out of the play by an offensive lineman getting to the second level.
Re-establishing the Dak Prescott, Jake Ferguson connection
There may not be anyone happier that Dak Prescott is back on the field and starting at quarterback for the Cowboys than Jake Ferguson. In 2023, Ferguson earned a Pro Bowl nod with 71 receptions, 761 yards and five touchdowns to help Prescott finish as the runner up for the MVP trophy that year.
In 2024, both Prescott and Ferguson dealt with injuries that made the season a rocky one. Now, they head into their fourth season together fully healthy and looking to get back to 2023 form.
If the Eagles have any kind of Achilles heel, it's that they have a younger, inexperienced secondary that lost some of their veteran presence over the offseason in the form of C.J. Gardner Johnson and Darius Slay. They're also relatively young at linebacker outside of All=Pro Zack Baun, and that's where the Cowboys are hoping they can attack with Ferguson and Prescott.
There aren't many quarterbacks in the league that throw better up the seam than Dak Prescott. The area between the numbers and the hashes has been a money spot throughout his career, and Ferguson has benefitted largely because of it. The two have connected for 810 yards on seam passes over the course of Ferguson's career, 186 more yards than expected and with a 74.8% catch percentage for Ferguson.
