Biggest Takeaways From Cowboys' Week 7 Win Over Injury-Ravaged Eagles

The Dallas Cowboys finally broke through with a win on Monday night, beating the Philadelphia Eagles, 38-21.

This was the perfect opponent for the Cowboys, as the Eagles were absolutely ravaged by injuries coming into this game and simply didn't have the horses to run with Dallas for a full four quarters.

Even still, the Eagles hung tough and ran nearly even with Dallas for three quarters before the Cowboys managed to pull away in the fourth.

Now, a look at the biggest takeaways from the Cowboys' Week 7 win over the Eagles.

Offense bounces back

The Cowboys scored 38 points on Monday night, which was nine more than they scored in the previous two games combined. It was a much-needed showing after Dallas struggled recently.

Dak Prescott had some bad throws, so it wasn't all good through the air, but he threw three dimes on his trio of touchdown passes. Dallas' offensive line also had solid protection upfront to give him time to get rid of the football.

George Pickens, CeeDee Lamb and Ryan Flournoy all finished north of 50 yards, and Lamb scored twice and Pickens had a touchdown, also.

Javonte Williams had the biggest bounce-back game, as he ran hard and showed great patience and vision behind an offensive line that had one of its best run-blocking showings of the year.

Williams finished with a career-high 155 yards on 25 carries and scored. He averaged 6.2 yards per carry after coming into the contest averaging just 3.4 yards per tote.

Uninspiring defense

We would normally be thrilled with the Cowboys giving up just 21 points after how bad this defense has played in 2026, but context is important here. Dallas' unit was bad in the first and third quarters, but was good in the second and fourth.

The Cowboys are extremely fortunate the Eagles' offense is as banged-up as it is because this game could have ended much differently.

If Saquon Barkley was healthy, he might have run for 150 because he was picking up solid gains at will when he was able to stay on the field, which wasn't often. Barkley ended up exiting the game early for good.

Dallas' pass defense wasn't great, either.

A signal-caller more competent than Tanner McKee with better weapons than the likes of Hollywood Brown, Darius Cooper and rookie Makai Lemon would have picked Dallas' secondary apart like we have seen quarterbacks do all season.

Head-scratching coaching decisions

Head coach Brian Schottenheimer's decision not to call a timeout after a 14-yard catch by CeeDee Lamb late in the second quarter proved to be a bad one. Dallas ended up kicking a field goal to finish off the half, and they did so on third down and with one timeout in their pocket.

Then, before Aubrey's second field goal in the fourth quarter, Dallas had a third-and-8 at Philly's nine-yard line and Schotty decided to call for a handoff to fullback Hunter Luepke, for whatever reason.

That was his second give-up play of the game. The first white-flag play came on the second-to-last drive of the first half, when the Cowboys were deep in their own territory and didn't even attempt to throw a pass on third down and instead surrendered by handing it off to Williams. Luckily, the Cowboys' defense made a stop on the following series.

Christian Parker will make his weekly appearance here, also. The Cowboys defensive coordinator just will not adjust and blitz more, which is especially egregious when he's facing a backup quarterback he should be challenging.

Nothing about this game gave us more confidence in Schottenheimer and Parker.

Too many first half penalties

The Cowboys had a whopping seven first half penalties and shot themselves in the foot on both sides of the ball.

Dallas did clean things up in the second half, but they're going to pay the price against better teams if they have more halves like the one on Monday night.

— Sign up for the Cowboys Daily Digest newsletter for more free coverage from Dallas Cowboys on SI —