Eagles-Cowboys players matchups to watch in Week 14

Eagles-Cowboys players matchups to watch in Week 14 originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

The Eagles (10-2) will travel to North Texas to face the Cowboys (9-3) in a huge NFC East battle with major playoff implications.

Here are some key matchups to watch:

Bradley Roby vs. CeeDee Lamb

The Eagles were able to beat the Cowboys back in Week 9 before their bye week but they couldn’t prevent CeeDee Lamb from having a huge game. He went off in that one. Lamb was targeted 16 times and had 11 catches for 191 yards. Lamb is second in the NFL in receiving yards this season with 1,182, behind just Tyreek Hill (1,481).

“We've got to do a better job of getting around him too,” Eagles DC Sean Desai said. “He had a lot of catch and run yards on us, underneath stuff and catch and run stuff. Make sure there's bodies underneath that can help us. We did a good job overall in terms of limiting them in the red zone and keeping points off the board, but we've got to do a better job earlier and just get around him a little bit more.”

Here’s how Lamb’s big day in Week 9 broke down vs. coverage, per PFF:

vs. Darius Slay: 7 targets, 4 receptions, 62 yards
vs. Eli Ricks: 3 targets, 3 receptions, 65 yards
vs. Sydney Brown: 2 targets, 2 receptions, 35 yards
vs. Reed Blankenship: 2 targets, 0 catches
vs. Kevin Byard: 1 target, 1 catch, 20 yards
vs. Zach Cunningham: 1 target, 1 catch, 9 yards

As you can see, it’s going to take a full team effort to try to slow down Lamb but the Eagles will have Bradley Roby in this game and that ought to help. Roby was still out with shoulder injury at that point. That nickel spot is important because Lamb plays 56.6% of his snaps in the slot. He was right on that mark against the Eagles in Week 9.

Kevin Byard vs. Jake Ferguson

While it wasn’t surprising to see Lamb go off against the Eagles in the first matchup, it was a little surprising to see Jake Ferguson have the best game of his two-year career with 7 catches for 91 yards and a touchdown.

The Eagles have been up and down against tight ends this season. Through 12 games, the Eagles have given up 59 catches for 588 yards and 6 touchdowns to opposing tight ends.

In recent weeks, the Eagles have been allowing Byard to man up on some tight ends while replacing him with Sydney Brown on the back end. There’s some danger in that against Dak Prescott and this offense, especially because the Cowboys are using WR2 Brandin Cooks much more now than they were the last time these teams played.

We’ll also see what linebackers the Eagles put out there against the Cowboys. That will determine quite a bit in this game too.

Eagles DL vs. Good Cowboys OL

The Eagles sacked Prescott five times for 41 yards back on Nov. 5. That’s most sack yardage Prescott has lost in a game this season but it wasn't like the Eagles dominated. That’s a good Cowboys offensive line with two of the best guards in football in Zack Martin and Tyler Smith and left tackle Tyron Smith, who is still playing at a very high level. The Cowboys have the No. 5-ranked offensive line in the NFL, according to PFF.

But the Eagles’ strength on defense is their defensive line. After playing 95 snaps against the Bills a couple weeks ago, the Eagles’ DL seemed a bit gassed against the 49ers after the first couple drives. If the edge combo of Haason Reddick and Josh Sweat can get after Prescott, it would really help in this game.

The Eagles are tied for 12th in the NFL with 34 sacks this season. Last year, they had 70 to lead the league. They had 15 more than the next closest team.

Jordan Mailata vs. Micah Parsons

Parsons had 1 1/2 sacks against the Eagles in the first meeting between these teams and stopping Parsons is always a huge key when you face this Cowboys defense. He’s an outstanding player and rushes from both sides of the line so both Johnson and Mailata have to be ready to deal with him on Sunday. But in that first meeting, Parsons lined up over Mailata way more. Mailata is expecting that to be the case again in this game.

On the season, Parsons already has 11 1/2 sacks, 26 quarterback hits and 13 tackles for loss in 12 games. He’s well on his way to another Pro Bowl and All-Pro nod this season.

This is always a fun matchup because it’s good on good. Johnson just shut down reigning Defensive Player of the Year Nick Bosa. This week, it's Mailata's turn.

A.J. Brown vs. DaRon Bland

There’s no question that Bland is having a great year with 8 interceptions and an NFL-record five pick-6s. But he can be had and we saw that last week against the Seahawks on Thursday night.

Seahawks star D.K. Metcalf was targeted 4 times with Bland in coverage and had 3 catches for 108 yards and 2 touchdowns.

After having a couple down games with 8 yards against the Chiefs and 37 yards against the Bills, Brown had a big game against the 49ers with 8 catches for 114 yards on Sunday afternoon. Brown had 7 for 66 and a touchdown the last time these teams played.

D’Andre Swift vs. Cowboys’ run defense

This week, head coach Nick Sirianni admitted that the Eagles need to work to get their running game back on track.

“We know we have to establish the run game and we have to be better in the run game,” Sirianni said on Monday.

Now, we just have to see if they actually do it.

Because of the flow of the 49ers game, Swift actually ended up getting out-snapped by Kenny Gainwell, who is the Eagles’ 2-minute and 4-minute running back. Swift ended that gave with just 6 rushing attempts for 13 yards. It was his fewest rushing attempts in a game since Week 1 against the Patriots when Gainwell was still the No. 1 running back.

Swift is too important to get just eight touches in a game like he did against the 49ers. The Eagles seem to know that during the week. Let’s see if they remember that on Sunday.

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