Eagles-Cowboys analysis: Backup Birds QBs and Saquon Barkley lead a 41-7 rout to clinch NFC East title

Print the shirts.

After branding Sunday’s matchup against the Dallas Cowboys a “T-shirt game” with the NFC East title for their taking, the Eagles routed the Dallas Cowboys, 41-7, for their 13th win of the season and dressed accordingly in the postgame locker room.

“Winning the division is a special thing,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “Our goals are much bigger from here.”

Locker-room celebrations aside, it wasn’t always as seamless as the scoreline might have suggested against a feisty Cowboys team that knocked Kenny Pickett out of the game and earned a handful of personal-foul penalties and two ejections for skirmishes after the whistle.

The win briefly kept alive the Eagles’ slim chances of earning the conference’s No. 1 seed before the Minnesota Vikings’ win hours later locked Philadelphia into the No. 2 seed.

» READ MORE: Eagles grades vs. Cowboys: Rout was on with Saquon Barkley’s spectacular second half and CJGJ’s two picks

Here’s our instant analysis:

Pickett provided a gutsy performance for the Eagles, making a handful of timely throws despite coming into the game with injured ribs and being forced out of it midway through the third quarter after a few hard hits.

He left after taking a shot from Micah Parsons, the latest in a string of blows the quarterback took that ended in him either hunched over in pain or writhing on the ground. Pickett suffered the initial injury last Sunday against the Washington Commanders in relief of Jalen Hurts and appeared to wear the extra padding he said he tried during the practice week.

“You want to finish it out, of course, I left it all out there,” Pickett said. “I did everything I could to play today and stay in there as long as I could. So I have no regrets or anything leaving the stadium, we got the win, that’s all that matters.”

Before heading indoors with the aggravated injury, Pickett delivered an efficient game with a few impressive moments taking shots downfield. He finished 10-for-15 for 143 yards and one touchdown while also scoring one rushing touchdown on a quarterback sneak. His best throws came to DeVonta Smith, the first of which ended in a 22-yard touchdown after Smith got separation against Dallas cornerback Andrew Booth on a slot fade. Although Smith had plenty of space against Booth, Pickett did well to avoid pressure and deliver a well-placed ball for Smith to run underneath.

Pickett found Smith again late in the second quarter, this time on a go route up the sideline after the wideout blew by Booth for a 50-yard completion that came up just short of the goal line. Pickett scored on a quarterback sneak two plays later.

The 26-year-old from Ocean Township lasted one more series in the third quarter before leaving with the injury, but said it was an emotional moment for him and the handful of family members in attendance to watch him start for his childhood team.

“It’s special, I said out there on the field that I’m sure there’s a kid dreaming about playing for the Eagles and doing things we went out there and did today,” Pickett said. “I had a lot of family here, my dad, especially, he was the one who took me to all the games and we have great memories together watching [Donovan] McNabb and [Brian] Westbrook back when I was really young. It’s pretty cool.”

McKee’s relief stint was similarly efficient. Playing the first regular-season snaps of his NFL career, McKee needed just three passing attempts to log his first career touchdown pass on a well-placed back-shoulder pass to A.J. Brown from 20 yards out.

After Brown secured the pass late in the third quarter, he threw the ball deep into the stands at Lincoln Financial Field in celebration before realizing the significance it would have for McKee. A stadium official recovered the ball from the fan who caught Brown’s pass and Eagles do-it-all security czar Dom DiSandro collected it for McKee a few minutes later.

Also similar to Pickett, McKee found Smith for a big play, hitting the receiver on a slant route that he took 25 yards for his second touchdown of the day. Smith finished with six catches for 120 yards and two touchdowns one week after a costly drop at the end of the team’s loss to the Commanders.

McKee spent most of the second half handing the ball off, but the second-year quarterback out of Stanford once again flashed the upside he previously showed in the preseason. He finished 3-for-4 for 54 yards and two touchdowns.

Amid “MVP” chants from Eagles fans and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” blaring through the stadium speakers, Saquon Barkley took in his latest milestone in a historic season.

With a 23-yard run early in the fourth quarter, Barkley surpassed the 2,000-yard mark on the season and became the first Eagles running back to do so.

“I’m not going to lie,” Barkley said. “Just being a fan of the game and the running back position, to reach a milestone and put myself up there with eight other backs that I respect, some of them I grew up watching, definitely means a lot. But at the same time, I wouldn’t be able to do that without this team.”

Barkley finished 100 yards shy of the NFL’s single-season rushing record of 2,105 yards set by Eric Dickerson in 1984. When asked if he wanted a shot to break the record even if the Eagles don’t have playoff seeding on the line in the regular-season finale against the New York Giants, Barkley said he’d defer to Sirianni.

“I’m not overly trying to go get it,” Barkley said. “I’m not scared of it, I would love to, but at the end of the day, also, we’ve got bigger things that we’re focusing on and we were able to clinch the division right here. Whether we play next week or not and rest, I’m fine with that, because I didn’t sign here and come here to rush for 2,000 or break a record, I want to do something special with the team.

“It’s up to Nick, to be honest. Whatever his decision is, I’m all for it.”

Especially with the quarterback carousel, the Eagles rode Barkley for most of the game. He had 31 carries and 167 yards, wearing down the Dallas defense en route to a handful of explosive second-half runs.

One week removed from getting ejected for two personal-foul penalties against the Commanders, C.J. Gardner-Johnson’s return was even more emphatic than his departure.

The Eagles safety known for fiery play that often can “toe the line” picked off Dallas quarterback Cooper Rush on the Cowboys’ opening drive and returned it for a 69-yard touchdown to get the Eagles on the board. It was the 27-year-old’s first career touchdown and his fifth interception of the season.

“That was really big, it got momentum going early,” Sirianni said. “... What’s so impressive about Chauncey is, when he gets his hands on the football, he finishes. And that’s a special talent that he has.”

His sixth interception came one quarter later, when he got underneath a floated pass from Rush for an over-the-shoulder catch. Gardner-Johnson’s second pick set up a two-minute touchdown drive that gave the Eagles a 24-7 lead going into halftime, with the ball to start the second half.

Gardner-Johnson left with an abdominal injury at the beginning of the fourth quarter and was listed as questionable, and didn’t return with the game out of hand and most of the starters already on the sideline.

In general, the Eagles defense settled back in after a shaky second-half performance against Washington without Gardner-Johnson on the back end. The group held Dallas to just 141 passing yards and 268 total.

Oren Burks went from hero to zero and back to hero again.

The veteran linebacker got his first start of the season in place of an injured Nakobe Dean, but lasted just two series before getting supplanted by Jeremiah Trotter Jr. for the next two drives. It’s unclear whether Burks suffered an injury, was rotated out in favor of Trotter, or was benched temporarily, but he returned for the Cowboys’ fifth series and quickly staked his claim on the job for the rest of the afternoon.

Burks forced a fumble by Dallas tight end Jake Ferguson, the first of four takeaways by the Eagles defense in a bounce-back day for the front seven, two of which came from Gardner-Johnson and the final one courtesy of second-year edge rusher Nolan Smith.