Morning briefing: 5-Nov-24 - 79% of Eagles fans polled expressed ‘no confidence’ in head coach Nick Sirianni

NFC East linksBlogging the Boys Distractions and a lack of paying attention to details wreck the Cowboys in Atlanta The Cowboys have a lot of problems right now and many of them aren't even what is happening on the actual field.

The Dallas Cowboys are a mess in almost facet of football, and that includes on and off the field. Their 27-21 loss to the Atlanta Falcons demonstrated just how far this team has fallen, and no matter how they try, they can't seem to get out of their own way. They lost the battle and likely the war, falling to 3-5 and four games behind the Washington Commanders in the NFC East. Adding injury to the insulting performance of Sunday is Dak Prescott suffering a hamstring injury that will keep him off the field for some time, as well as an apparent shoulder injury to CeeDee Lamb. Prescott was forced out of the game, giving way to Cooper Rush. Meanwhile, Lamb was obviously uncomfortable for most of the game's closing stages, and his injury status is murky. The Cowboys are riddled with injuries, but that's not the primary reason why this team looks almost unrecognizable.

Assuming Prescott is out for a while and goes on injured reserve, the team needs to send a series of messages, if not just one, if the team responds to the first: Cut Ezekiel Elliott. Countless metrics and statistics have shown that he is a bottom-tier runner in the NFL. His lack of explosiveness and elusiveness capsizes the offense that has to fight desperately for ever blade of synthetic grass from down to down to stay ahead of the sticks. He has the lowest success rate of his career as a runner and offers nothing as a receiver. Off the field, he hasn't been able to be relied upon to report to work on time and not miss meetings, which has been revealed this week. Elliott's presence is a beacon of misplaced fellowship between him and the front office that offers a negative outcome in the locker room and on the field. By severing ties with Elliott, hopefully, for good, it informs the team that there are no more favorites and everyone is on notice for the remainder of the year.

If the team fails to respond to Elliott's dismissal, fire Mike McCarthy. 36 wins over the last three years is fine, but the standard in Dallas has always been more than NFC East banners. On several occasions, his team has been ill-prepared for postseason games where the team is lethargic at home during playoff games, especially last season against an upstart Green Bay Packers team. His team is flat, and they're making several mistakes that he and his coaches are failing to correct.

The Athletic (paywall) Dak Prescott's injury hurts Cowboys, but they are forced to confront tougher reality Are the Cowboys — the team with the third-worst point differential in the NFC — floating right now?

That's the issue. The Cowboys were already sinking with a healthy Prescott at the helm. Prescott was not having a good season by any standard, let alone the lofty one he has for himself or his contract imposes on him from the masses. But Prescott's struggles are down the list of Cowboys' issues this season.

Will the 31st-ranked rush offense suddenly start running wild? When Rush went 4-1 in 2022, the Cowboys averaged 128.4 rushing yards per game during that five-game stretch. Up until Sunday's 137-yard rushing total, the Cowboys hadn't rushed for 128 yards in a single game this season. Sunday's performance helped get them out of the NFL's basement in the rushing yards department, boosting their average to 82 yards per game.

This year, the Cowboys' defensive EPA of -42.34 ranks 30th — only the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Carolina Panthers are worse. During Rush's five starts in 2022, the Cowboys' defensive EPA was 34.32, which was top-five in the league in that stretch. Even if the Cowboys get Micah Parsons and DaRon Bland back soon, the defense is in no shape to carry the load. In those five games in 2022, the defense was giving up 21.4 points per game. This season, the Cowboys are giving up 28.1 points per game. Even before the rash of key injuries hit in Weeks 4 and 5, the Cowboys were giving up 26 points per game through their first four games.

The support of a running game and a sound defense are best friends of any quarterback — but especially a backup quarterback. The Cowboys aren't just bad in those departments — they are among the worst in the league. That's before you begin on the cast around Rush, which includes a shoddy offensive line, a No. 2 receiver (Brandin Cooks) who is on injured reserve, a No. 1 receiver in CeeDee Lamb who is playing through a shoulder injury. There is not much behind Lamb, in terms of standout talent in the passing game.

Blogging the Boys Why the Cowboys should be sellers at the trade deadline, and they have one top candidate to move The Dallas Cowboys need to highly consider being sellers during Tuesday's trade deadline.

The right player could be DaRon Bland. The team's All-Pro cornerback is coming off a great season where he led the league with nine interceptions, five of which were returned for touchdowns. He has been out with a foot injury this year but is set to return real soon.

Bland's stock is high and he will enter the final year of his rookie contract next season. It will be difficult for the Cowboys to find the financial resources needed to give him a second contract, especially after giving Prescott and Lamb new deals this offseason and the looming extensions that Parsons and Smith will receive. In brass tacks, he's only likely to remain with the Cowboys for one more season, so why not get something in return?

There are contending teams out there who need cornerback help and who will overvalue Bland's ability. The Cowboys have Diggs and the rookie Carson, so moving on from Bland doesn't cripple them at cornerback. They could bring back Jourdan Lewis for cheap and have another draft to help strengthen the position, making Bland an asset they can live without.

Trading away a player like Bland isn't fun to talk about, but if the Cowboys want to be smart, these tough decisions are necessary. And with the 2024 season in bad shape, looking ahead is the best option.

The Athletic (paywall) Are Eagles figuring it out? Consider, for a moment, the Eagles' last 21 months. They suffered a heartbreaking Super Bowl loss in February 2023, then started the next year 10-1 only to crumble down the stretch, losing six of their final seven. They replaced both coordinators after getting routed in a playoff loss to the Bucs, weathered reports of friction between coach Nick Sirianni — whose seat seemed to be warming by the minute — and star quarterback Jalen Hurts, all while rumors swirled about the team's interest in luring Bill Belichick to town. Then, in the spring, they signed one of the best players in football.

Good thing they did. Because Barkley continues to show why he's one of the rare talents in this league.

Saquon Barkley is putting together an All-Pro season — complete with iconic moments — in his first year in Philadelphia. (Mitchell Leff / )

Even with Barkley in the fold, the Eagles' 3-2 start to 2024 didn't seem all that encouraging — this was an uneven team still plagued by some of the issues that led to last year's late-season collapse. Too many turnovers from Hurts. Defensive breakdowns. Odd coaching decisions. Making matters worse: Sirianni was caught jawing at his own fans on the sideline after an ugly win over the Browns in Week 5. It was a bad look for a team that seemed to be underachieving.

At that point, there were far more hints of discord than harmony.

And yet, three weeks later, the Eagles are starting to look more like a contender than a team regressing — this despite some more curious decisions by Sirianni in Sunday's 28-23 win over the Jaguars. Barkley is a highlight-waiting-to-happen every week. DeVonta Smith made one of the prettiest catches of the year. And the defense closed out the team's fourth straight win with a Nakobe Dean interception.

The Eagles and Sirianni needed it — a 22-0 game midway through the third quarter had become a 28-23 one late in the fourth. Blowing this one would've been a considerable setback for a franchise loaded with talent and desperate to keep pace with the Commanders in the NFC East.

Outside of a pair of games against Washington, the Eagles will see just two teams the rest of the way with winning records at the moment (Baltimore and Pittsburgh). Perhaps Barkley will prove the difference down the stretch the Eagles sorely missed last winter.

Bleeding Green Nation Nick Sirianni's decisions can't always be bailed out by the Eagles' superior talent The Eagles beat the Jaguars thanks to superior talent and in spite of their head coach.

Sirianni seems to make the wrong call more often than not.

Of all the Super Bowl contenders out there, the Eagles' head coach is the one that could ultimately cost his team a playoff game more than any of the others. For the previous three weeks, Sirianni's decision making was just fine, but time after time on Sunday, he hurt his team's chances of beating one of the worst teams the Eagles are going to see this year.

Against an awful Jacksonville team, the talent won out. In the postseason, against a team like the Lions, Commanders, Packers, Vikings, Falcons or 49ers (I'm not ready to say Cardinals yet), there's less room for error and the talent gap won't be there to save Sirianni from detrimental in-game decisions.

Big Blue View What Dennis Allen's firing by New Orleans Saints means for New York Giants NFL firing season has commenced

Giants co-owner John Mara recently expressed confidence in Daboll and GM Joe Schoen, but that was not a guarantee that changes won't be made at season's end. Daboll is now 17-25-1 as Giants head coach. Allen was 18-25 with the Saints.

The Giants are in the midst of a second straight awful season after Daboll won Coach of the Year in 2022 for leading the Giants to the playoffs, and a playoff victory, in his rookie season of 2022.

The second is that it is noteworthy that the final straw for the Saints with Allen was Sunday's 23-22 loss to the also 2-7 Carolina Panthers — the team the Giants play in Germany this Sunday.

The Giants play the Saints Week 14 at MetLife Stadium, so there are head-to-head implications.

The Saints, Giants and Panthers are three of the seven teams tied with league-worst 2-7 records. By strength of schedule, the Giants are currently No. 7 in the 2025 NFL Draft Order. So, everything from here on out has draft implications.

NFL league links Most disappointing NFL teams: Cowboys, Browns, Jaguars, Saints With most of Week 9 in the books, the NFL has officially hit the halfway point of the regular season . The league has played 137 of the 272 scheduled games for the 2024 season. If you feel like you can't name more than a handful of teams you trust to be good on a weekly basis, well, you're not the only one.

It might be easier to spot the teams that haven't lived up to expectations, and they each had bad days in Week 9. While the Jets pulled out a victory over the Texans on Thursday night , six teams that have losing records in 2024 after posting winning records last season all lost in frustrating fashion Sunday.

There's only one place to start that conversation, and it's in Dallas, where the Cowboys are quickly fading out of the NFC playoff picture :

Week 9 result: Lost to Atlanta 27-21

While the final score might hint at a close game, the six-point margin dramatically overstates how well Dallas played. Its offense converted just one of its first nine third-down attempts. It failed on two fourth-down attempts, including a fake punt, and wasn't able to attempt a third because it had 12 men on the field. It trailed by two scores for significant portions of the second half before a late touchdown pass from Cooper Rush to Jalen Tolbert made things look close and a failed onside kick ended the game.

Rush was in the game because the Cowboys had lost quarterback Dak Prescott to a hamstring issue . Wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, the other big contract inked during team owner Jerry Jones' "all-in" offseason , suffered a shoulder injury late in the game, although he was able to return before the game ended. If you thought the Cowboys' offense was struggling with Prescott and Lamb, imagine what it would look like without those two pillars.

The most damning thing to say about the Cowboys is that the offensive identity they've had since the Bill Parcells era has been broken.

The defense seems equally lost. In the Dan Quinn era from 2021 to 2023, the Cowboys were one of the most terrifying units in football, leading the NFL in sack rate, pressure rate and interception rate. They could be vulnerable when they fell behind and had to stop the run, but they were able to alter games and influence offensive playcalling with the threat of what they were able to do getting after the quarterback.

The 2024 team hasn't been awful rushing the quarterback, but it's nowhere near what it was over the prior three seasons. It ranks in the top 12 in both sack and pressure rate. It has just four interceptions and six takeaways all season, figures it had already topped by the end of Week 2 a year ago. The splash plays aren't there for this defense.

The defense has fallen apart when it doesn't get after the quarterback. During the Quinn era, when the defense failed to get pressure, it still posted the third-best QBR allowed of any defense. That unit has fallen to 29th in QBR without pressure this season, allowing passers to average a league-high 9.0 yards per attempt in those situations. On Sunday, Kirk Cousins tore the Cowboys apart without pressure, going 11-of-13 for 112 yards with two touchdown passes.

That all leads the Cowboys to their intractable problem: If they couldn't make a deep playoff run with Prescott, Lamb and Parsons making $70 million per season, how do they do it when they're making $130 million per year? Teams need to have their young, cost-controlled players excel, their stars stay healthy, and their coaching staff staying ahead of the game and maximizing the talent they have on the field. Right now, it doesn't feel as if any of those things are happening in Big D.

The Athletic (paywall) Caleb Williams' development at stake as Bears coaching staff searches for answers The hope of putting Williams on a team like this, with a top-five defense and a great trio of receivers, is it would limit games like this. It would prevent him from the rookie turbulence we see across the league and are used to in Chicago.

Facing a Cardinals defense that had struggled should've been a big opportunity for Williams and a plethora of skilled pass catchers, even behind a banged-up offensive line.

The stats, the tape all showed that the Bears offense could move past the Hail Mary mess simply by playing Arizona's defense.

Then came Sunday.

Against a defense giving up a 101.4 passer rating to opposing quarterbacks, Williams posted a rating of 68.9. Against a defense allowing quarterbacks to complete 71.7 percent of their passes, Williams was 22-for-41 (53.7 percent). Against a defense giving up 8.0 yards per attempt, Williams averaged 5.3.

The Cardinals were the worst third-down defense in football entering Sunday. The Bears went 3-for-14. The Cardinals had six sacks combined in their previous five games. They sacked Williams six times.

Front Office Sports Super Bowl Ads Sell Out Three Months Early, at Record Price Ad units were believed to be selling at more than $7 million per 30 seconds. Three months before the Super Bowl, they were all gone.

As part of its fiscal first-quarter earnings report Monday, the Fox Sports parent said its ad units are gone, more than three months before the game.

"We still have a pretty robust football calendar yet to come, culminating with our broadcast of Super Bowl LIX, where we are already sold out and at record pricing," said Fox CEO and executive chair Lachlan Murdoch.