Cooper Rush and 3 Cowboys teammates to blame for embarrassing loss to Eagles

With Dak Prescott sidelined with a hamstring injury that will seemingly cost him the rest of his season, the Dallas Cowboys' offense as a whole was obviously going to suffer against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.

But while some struggles had to be expected, this was just a lifeless effort that featured bad play-calling, horrific quarterback play, and terrible turnovers — five of them, to be exact, the most ever surrendered to the Eagles at home. On that note, the Cowboys are now the only team in NFL history to trail by 20 or more points in five consecutive home games. So, there's that.

As for the Dallas defense, that unit didn't look much better, although it was great to see Micah Parsons back in action. And he certainly made some great plays and forced a turnover of his own, not that the offense did anything with it.

Trust us; we could sit here and run through a list of about 20 players who deserve blame for this embarrassing defeat. But we'll ease back a touch and just take a quick run at the obvious ones.

1. Cooper Rush

Remember when Cooper Rush went 4-1 when he stepped in for Prescott a couple years back? Yeah, he didn't look anything like that guy on Sunday afternoon. Well, that's not exactly true, as the lone loss he took in 2022 came at the hands of the Eagles, a game in which he committed three turnovers.

Picks were the problem in that game, as he threw three of them. Rush was interception-free this time around, but it's also difficult to throw many interceptions when you average about two yards per pass attempt.

No, the issue for Rush on Sunday was hanging onto the football.

On the first play of the Cowboys' second offensive possession, the Central Michigan alum was lined up in the shotgun and simply took his eyes off the ball on the snap, thus resulting in a fumble that Philly recovered at the Dallas 17-yard line. The Eagles scored four plays later to take a 7-0 lead.

Rush's second fumble occurred in the third quarter, as he failed to see Bryce Huff bearing down on him. Things got more embarrassing when Cowboys offensive lineman Terence Steele and fullback Hunter Luepke crashed into one another while attempting to recover the football, which neither did, of course. The game was already over at this point, but the Eagles did extend their lead to 31-6 off this turnover.

That was the last straw, as Rush, who miraculously threw for just 45 yards despite throwing the ball 23 times, was replaced on the next possession by Trey Lance, who didn't fare much better and joined the turnover party with an interception.

2. Ezekiel Elliott

Seriously, why is Ezekiel Elliott still a thing with this team?

After missing last week's loss to the Atlanta Falcons due to disciplinary reasons, Zeke was back on the field against Philly and once again struggled, rushing for just 22 yards on six carries. Take away the one decent eight-yard run he had, and he averaged just 2.8 yards per carry.

Some of that, of course, has to be put on the Cowboys' struggling offensive line, but it's clear that Elliott is all but done. His worst offense on Sunday, of course, was his fumble near the goal line late in the first half.

After the Cowboys had marched 77 yards down the field, easily their best drive of the day, Elliott took a handoff on 1st & Goal from the Eagles' six-yard line and quickly had the ball knocked from his hands, ultimately resulting in a touchback. Dallas was only down 7-3 at this point, and a touchdown may have given America's Team a little momentum. But that obviously didn't happen.

3. Mike McCarthy

Mike McCarthy obviously deserves a lot of blame for a lot of different things — both in this game and for the entire season as a whole — but we'll stick to his play-calling for the purposes of this piece.

It's easy to sit here and bash Cooper Rush for throwing two-yard passes time and time again. But who do you think is telling him to do that? Rush obviously doesn't have Dak's arm, but it's not as if he can't throw the ball down the field.

And McCarthy's decision to give the ball to Elliott in the situation mentioned above is just inexcusable.

Earlier in that same drive, Rico Dowdle went right up the middle for 19 yards. And just three plays before Elliott's fumble, he had another five-yard run going to the left. But, yeah, let's give the ball to Zeke down by the goal line. That seems like the smart move.

But it's not as if anything is going to change, as Jerry Jones has already said that he has no plans to fire McCarthy during the season. So, Cowboys fans can expect much more of this nonsense over the final eight weeks of the year.

4. The Cowboys' defense

As there are just too many players from the Dallas defense to blame for their contributions (or lack thereof) in this loss, we just have to pick on the entire unit as a whole.

As stated above, Parsons played pretty well in his highly anticipated return, notching a pair of sacks and forcing a fumble, which the Cowboys only turned into three points, as the offense could only gain three yards on three plays before Brandon Aubrey came on for a 23-yard field goal.

If one were only looking at the stat sheet, it might look like DeMarvion Overshown had a great game, as he recorded a team-high 11 tackles and two sacks of his own. And he certainly deserves credit for that. But he also missed quite a few tackles that he should have made, including one on Saquon Barkley on a key third down on the drive that ultimately resulted in the Eagles' first touchdown.

Overall, the defense played well in the first half and was the only reason Dallas was able to stay within striking distance. But the second half was a completely different story, and by the end of the day, Mike Zimmer's unit had surrendered 348 total yards.

The Cowboys have been one of the worst teams in the league against the run this season, and they proved why on Sunday, allowing the Eagles to rush for 187 yards, only 66 of which came from Barkley. So, it's not as if they couldn't stop just one guy; they couldn't stop anybody.

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