In front of a national audience on Sunday Night Football, the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys played something that sort of resembled football. We laughed, we cried, and in the end, the Eagles ended up with 23 points, while the Cowboys only had 9 points, so I guess the Eagles win. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Anyway, win, lose, or tie, as always, we hand out 10 awards.
1) The ‘Eager To Give’ Award: Carson Wentz
The Wentz household must not have gotten any trick or treaters Saturday night, because Wentz came into this game eager to give. In the first 33 minutes of this game, Wentz surrendered four turnovers to a team that had three takeaways in their first seven games.
Wentz has committed at least one turnover so far in every game, and he now has 16 on the season.
| Carson Wentz | INTs | Fumbles lost | TOTAL |
| Week 1 – Football Team | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Week 2 – Rams | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Week 3 – Bengals | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Week 4 – 49ers | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Week 5 – Steelers | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Week 6 – Ravens | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Week 7 – Giants | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Week 8 – Cowboys | 2 | 2 | 4 |
That puts him on pace for 32 turnovers this season, or one fewer than Jameis Winston infamously had in 2019. And there’s really nothing unlucky about them. They have mostly been well-earned, via inaccurate throws, bad decision-making, or simply carelessness with the football. When exactly will the turnovers stop?
2) The ‘Thank You For Being You’ Award: Ben DiNucci
If the Cowboys had Dak Prescott in this game, there’s almost no way the Eagles win with the way that they played. Thankfully, the Cowboys were forced to start Ben DiNucci, a seventh-round rookie making his first NFL start.
There was some debate as to whether the Eagles would be better off facing Andy Dalton, a veteran quarterback who hadn’t played well in relief of Prescott, or DiNucci, an unknown quantity. What would this young DiNucci have up his sleeve?
Oh, that. Yeah, the Eagles were better off facing him. Long term, the Eagles don’t have to worry about DiNucci becoming the next Tony Romo.
3) The ‘Legit’ Award: Travis Fulgham
We’re now five games into the Travis Fulgham experience, and clearly the kid can play. His numbers in his first five games with the Eagles:
| Travis Fulgham | Rec | Yards | YPC | TD |
| Week 4 – 49ers | 2 | 57 | 28.5 | 1 |
| Week 5 – Steelers | 10 | 152 | 15.2 | 1 |
| Week 6 – Ravens | 6 | 75 | 12.5 | 1 |
| Week 7 – Giants | 5 | 73 | 14.6 | 0 |
| Week 8 – Cowboys | 6 | 78 | 13.0 | 1 |
| TOTAL | 29 | 435 | 15.0 | 4 |
Extrapolate those numbers over a 16-game season, and Fulgham would be on pace for 93 catches for 1,392 yards and 13 TDs.
4) The ‘Also Legit’ Award: T.J. Edwards
In relief of Nate Gerry, Edwards made the most of his opportunity to start, as he racked up 12 tackles, and the game-sealing sack-fumble that led to a Rodney McLeod TD.
Edwards’ promising rookie season was not a fluke. He can play, and should clearly be starting over Nate Gerry going forward.
5) The ‘On the Road To Double Digits’ Award: Brandon Graham
Graham has been a really good player for a long time, but you wouldn’t know it if you just looked at his sack totals over the years. Through eight games, Graham already has seven sacks, one of which sealed a win, Super Bowl-style, over the Giants Week 7. For the second week in a row, he created a turnover in a big moment:
Graham has been the best player on the Eagles’ defense this season, with apologies to Darius Slay.
6) The ‘Congrats’ Award: Jalen Reagor
Reagor scored his first professional TD Sunday night, when he bounced off a Cowboys defender, switched the ball from his right hand to his left, and reached it over the pylon for the score.
Ultimately, Reagor only had three catches for 16 yards, but we got our first glimpse of what could be a good WR combo in Fulgham and Reagor. They could be fun.
7) The ‘QB Controversy’ Award: Jalen Hurts
Hurts is just sort of there, lurking, and Doug Pederson has already begun facing fair questions about the possibility of Wentz being benched. That’s unlikely to happen anytime soon, but the calls are only going to get louder the more Wentz has games like he had Sunday night.
8) The ‘What Are We Even Watching Anymore’ Award: The Cowboys’ bloop free kick
Down 12 deep in their own and facing a 4th and 22, the Cowboys decided to purposely take a safety, and attempted a bloop free kick, that almost worked, if not for two Cowboys players running into each other:
You do have to hand it to the Cowboys. They have come up with some very entertaining onsides kicks this season. Remember this gem against the Falcons Week 2?
If the Cowboys spent as much time working on their offense and/or defense as they do their onsides kicks, they wouldn’t need to use onsides kicks as much. But we’re richer for having watching them.
9) The ‘Best of the Worst’ Award: The Eagles, in this awful NFC East
Let’s go ahead and update the NFC East standings:
| NFC East | W | L | T | Div | GB |
| Eagles | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2-1 | – |
| Football Team | 2 | 5 | 0 | 2-1 | 1 |
| Cowboys | 2 | 6 | 0 | 1-2 | 1.5 |
| Giants | 1 | 6 | 0 | 1-2 | 2 |
Pathetic. The Eagles will head into the bye this week, and they’ll have a chance to get back to .500 Week 10 when the play the Giants again. In any other division, they’d be cooked already. In the NFC East, they’re the the cream of a wretched crop. They’ve leaped all the way to -250 betting favorites in the division,according to TheLines.com.
10) The ‘Who’s the Big Winner?’ Award: Eagles fans
They don’t have to watch this team during the bye week. Instead we can all focus on the presidential election, which is sure to be an orderly, uncontroversial event, with proponents of each candidate respecting the views of their neighbor, and accepting whatever the results may be. (Puts hand over heart and hums the National Anthem.)
This content and the links provided are sponsored by thelines.com and playpennsylvania.com, PhillyVoice.com’s Official 2020/2021 Betting Odds Partner, independently created by PhillyVoice.
Follow Jimmy & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @JimmyKempski | @thePhillyVoice
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports
Add Jimmy’s RSS feed to your feed reader
