The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Cowboys-Eagles Week 1 TNF recap

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

And with that, the 2025 NFL season is officially underway. Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman recap the Eagles' 24-20 season-opening win over the Cowboys on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/sPp5md3BSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show⁠Apple⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠YouTube⁠Host: Robert MaysCo-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave HelmanExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Dave on X: @davehelman_Theme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Well, that went about how we all expected to go, right? Starts with a spitting ejection to kick off the game from the best defensive player on the Eagles. And then we have an hour-long rain delay. A little bit of everything in the season opener there, David. You are just flying high right now, though. You look like a million bucks. I'm dragging a tiny bit post-rain delay, but you're absolutely crushing it right now. I'm cheesing, man.

I'm so, ah, it really was. Obviously, nobody wants a weather delay. And you'd rather not see one of the best young defenders in football get kicked out before the game even starts. But other than those things, like, ah, what else could you want? Like, it was a competitive game. I think the, the Cowboys made a good showing of themselves. The Eagles did their Eagles thing. Seekoine Barkley made a couple jaw dropping plays. Jalen Hertz looked good. I would have loved for the ending to be a little more cinematic. you know, C.D. Lamb left a couple plays out there. One really, really egregious one there at the end that could have changed the whole thing. So, yeah, I mean, like not a perfect game by any stretch, but just what a, what a welcome back to the NFL. Like we got some offense. We got some drama. It was, it was really fun. It was great. So I, because of the Jalen Carter thing, like, I almost didn't feel like the game had like actually started and the NFL was back for the first like couple of minutes for the game. It did not settle into me that we were fully back until like when Dak hit the corner route to C.D. Lamb, I was like, okay, this is actually what like real like an NFL like flow feels like. The whole game getting disrupted at the beginning like completely threw my rhythm off. I don't even know where to start with this game.

There's so many different things that we could dig into. I think what I probably would want to kick this off is just the idea that I don't know. I'm encouraged by how the Cowboys looked in this game. It didn't end up winning the game, but I think that there's a decent amount to feel good about if you're a Cowboys fan after what has been admittedly a weird week. You trade your best player and I think it kind of casts into doubt what this season is supposed to be and what you think you can accomplish. And we'll get to the defense a little bit later, Derek. But we talked about this a little bit over the course of the off season, just what this Cowboys offense would look like under Brian Schottenheimer with Clayton Adams as their offense. coordinator. And that first

couple drives, they were running the ball pretty consistently. I thought some of the designs in the run game. It was a lot of stuff that I had seen at training camp. There was a play they ran a couple different times where they had Jake Ferguson kind of going like a little yo-yo motion. And they ran like a little split zone where he would kick out the M&A

line of scrimmage going back the other way. They hit a couple of those in that game. I remember vividly watching them run that in training camp and the amount of motion that we were seeing, the amount of Kavante Turpin that we were seeing. there were elements of the Cowboys offense in this game where I was actually really encouraged by how dynamic it looked

and I'm actually really looking forward to what this can be over the course of the season and then you get two or three really backbreaking CD Lamb drops at crucial moments in the game and that ends up being the difference but even the Cowboys losing this game to play as well as they did on the road against the Seagulls team Derek I actually feel pretty good about what I saw from Dallas tonight. I think the starting silver lining for me is like CD Lamb is not going to do

that every week? Like he is a much better player than that. Like I'll give him a week one pass. Obviously, it kind of cost him this game in some ways, but that is not going to continue to happen. And so given that the offense still looked the way that it did despite that happening, I thought was impressive. Like you mentioned some of the run game stuff. Like, I think our favorite play that everyone kind of tabbed for what the Cardinals were doing last year with Clayton Adams was like pulling the center in the front side guard out. The Cowboys did that a number of times this game. And they kept tagging it with like Kavanta Turpin swinging out to the other side, like kind of tagging it with an RPO look. They did that a number of times.

Even on the big Miles Sanders run, the 54 yard or whatever it was, they were doing exactly that. And by the way, on that play, Terrence Steele coming over from the backside and completely taking out reblankenship, like that's why the play pops is like Steel just completely is able to get over there. And so I think you definitely saw more pop

in the run game. I thought the interior of their offensive line, both in the run game, and for the most part in past protection looked good. Like there were a couple. It helps when J. when Carter's not out there. That's true, but like Jordan Davis is a good player. Jomo is a good player. They have other guys. And like other than Tyler Booker kind of having the oopsie on when Nolan Smith kind of had

a twist and he was a little bit late to pick it up. Like other than that, I thought the interior kind of acquitted themselves pretty well for a young unit. So I just like almost every part of this offense I thought looks cool. And then the last thing is you mentioned Turpin. They were using him a lot in motion on some of that swing stuff like I was mentioning. But they were also using him just to get indicators on like, what are they going to do with Dejean?

They were constantly just trying to get answers there. And I think for a quarterback like Dak, that is extremely helpful. If I can be honest with y'all, like I've rolled my eyes a good bit at the Kavante Turpin discourse over the last few years because I don't think he's that good of a receiver. Like he, like his hands aren't that great. I don't know if his route tree is incredible. And also the Cowboys have just never gotten him overly involved. I mean, tonight, he touched the ball four times,

but it's so valuable having a guy with that type of speed that you just have to honor him. And he can be very useful for you in so many ways without even really needing to touch the football because he does have that type of speed to where everybody knows if you don't account for him, he can change the game. That was really fun. But I do want to reiterate Robert's point that

without trying to rain on anybody's parade too much, pardon the weather delay pun, I got to see this one or two more times. Like with Jalen Carter literally not playing a defensive snap, I am encouraged, but I cannot be excited until I see it when a gravitational player is not there. Because yeah, you're not going to have Jalen Carter in the middle of every defense you play, but you're going to have a talent like Jalen Carter on the field a lot over the course of a season. So I am intrigued, but I can't get too excited too quickly.

You mentioned that twist, Derek, that No one Smith had on that play where he beats Tyler Booker inside and disrupts the play. I believe that was the third down. And they were having to kind of turn up some of the pass rush games and the pressures on that drive because they weren't getting home. The previous play, I believe it was a second down. They sound like a simulated pressure where Bond comes unblocked off the edge. But they were having to tap into some creative stuff because they weren't really able to affect the pocket when they were rushing four over this game. We'll hit on that. I think some of the concerns potentially about the Eagles and what they looked like in week one or

absolutely worth digging into. The turban part of this is funny because Derek knows this. All of last season, there are two things I've wanted more of from the Cowboys offense over the last, like, multiple years. One is just being more dynamic overall. Like, what sort of wrinkles are we seeing? The idea of getting answers from motion and just being that sort of offense, that's not what the Cowboys have been for the most part over the last three or four years.

It's been a very static operation. I think it part because that's probably how Dak wants to play. There are those quarterbacks who like to see the picture. they get answers that way. But seeing this version of it, even little things, like the huge CD completion on the first drive, having CD in like cut split and being able to play with leverage a little bit, I just liked a lot of the things I saw from the Cowboys offense.

And I agree with Derek where it's, we're not going to have those moments from CD Lamb. I think one of the weaknesses relatively of his game compared to some of the other really elite receivers in the league is probably his physicality at the catch point. Like this is something where he's not going to be Jamar Chase in these moments, but he's never going to be this bad. I mean, there were three or four plays in this game.

He had the one in the first half where it was a slant on like first and ten that he drops, and they end up having two more incompletions after that having to kick a field goal. And then that dagger on third down, it's kind of bang, bang, because Turpin doesn't fully clear it out from the inside. But at the same time, Citi's got to hang on to that. And obviously the post is like a game swinging play. So the fact that there were three of them in this game, that's not normal, but I will say that is the small.

gap for me that kind of separates him from the best receivers in the league. The dig one was at least like right after, or not right after, but shortly after Ferguson like got his head taken off. So I can imagine why he was maybe hearing the footsteps a little bit. Yeah, that wasn't holding back on those. No, those balls getting ripped into some pretty tight windows in this game, which I guess we should have just come to anticipate at this point. Yeah. It's not, it's not my goal to spout off a hot take here. And CD will be fine. But I can't. give him a pass or hand wave that.

Like, that's egregiously bad from a $34 million. Catch the ball. Catch the ball, man. And I love that you brought up the dagger because Chris Collins, it was so funny. Chris Collinsworth was talking about. And he made the same point as you where it's like, oh, Terpen got jammed up by the safety. He didn't clear it out as much as you prefer. And then in real time, Collinsworth saw the replay of the ball just splitting CD's hands.

And he just, he was like, all right, well, Turpin. might have not been great, but it went right through your hands. Like, I got nothing. I don't know what I'm supposed to say here. It's egregious. And it's other than the Miles Sanders fumble, it's the single biggest reason why the Cowboys didn't pull this off. And I mean, it sucks.

I'm sure he'll be fine, but he deserves to wear that for a week. That's it. I mean, those, the couple drops and that turnover would ultimately swing this game in the Eagles favor. Looking at the Eagles defense, I mean, it's hard to make any sort of grand proclamations, when your best player arguably does not play in the game. But I do think that coming into this, somebody asked me on our Discord,

plug our Discord today, if you guys want to hop in there, encourage you to do so, we'll have a link in the description here. But somebody asked me this morning, like, is there any path forward for the Cowboys in this game? And it's like, yeah. Like, I think the Cowboys' offense

might be a good unit in this game. And we have some real questions about some of the personnel on the Eagles defense. Like that cornerback two spot, I believe Tony Dungey talked about it during the rain delay, like Vic Fangio told him during training camp, he was losing sleep over it,

and justifiably so. You combine that with the pass rush when Jalen Carter is not in there. And I do think that overall, this is just a different sort of group when you comes to the horses on that Eagles defense, Derek. And I'm not going to be overly alarmist after one week, but it definitely was a slightly troubling showing

from this group on a couple different fronts in week one. Yeah, like the cornerback two spot, mean, that one we could have predicted, right? Like it looked about as bad as it could, but at least that going in, I think that we kind of knew that that was going to be an issue. The pass-rars thing, without Carter being there, that is another one I'm going to want to wait and see a little bit. I mean, I will say coming into the year, I was worried that they wouldn't have enough

size off the edge, which I do think was a little bit of an issue in this game. Like, they could not collapse the pocket, I think, the way that they used to be able to. And so I think that was a little bit of an issue, especially against a quarterback like deck where he's going to kind of want to hang in there and throw it in those tight pockets. And so if you can really crush them on him, sometimes you'll get him to make some really dumb throws. So the fact that they couldn't do that, I think was concerning. I almost wonder if, like you said, as the game went on, they started to tap into more of

some of their simulated pressures, some of their actual pressures. I wonder, you saw Jahad Campbell a little bit roll down to the line of scrimmage on some of those. I wonder if that's just, I mean, he literally used to be a pass pressure before he got converted to linebacker. So I wonder if that's just something they, to get some size. on the edge start to tap into a little bit more as the year goes on. But we'll see.

It's funny because they used him in some of those five-man looks on rundowns, but I actually thought his best moments today, and there were several of them, was in coverage. Dude. Like not having him play in coverage is probably not something you want to do based on what we saw in week one. Obviously, there's the play where he's running the pole in cover two, but there were multiple plays in this game where he's getting underneath vertical

routes. And so a guy with his just like stick of dynamite skill set already showing these sorts of flashes and coverage one week into the season. I know it's very early, but I know I don't have to convince you on the Jahad Campbell propaganda, Derek, but that's a pretty good opening salvo from a guy that

has all the talent in the world. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what this is over the course of the season. That was, I'm not kidding, him running the pole there. That was my favorite play of the game. Like, that was, I was waiting for that moment all off season and for him to do it against a quarterback is really good at throwing

the scene like that. I was like, this is literally perfect. This is such a stupid movie poll, but have either of you ever seen 10 cup, the Kevin Costner golf movie? Of course. Derek, of course I have. Of course, Derek. If it's a movie question, just ask Robert and just like Robert. It's a movie about golf from the 90s. Derek has not seen 10 cup. Derek, there's a movie called 10 cup where Kevin Costner's a golfer and he keeps hitting the ball in the water. And every time, instead of just laying up and playing from where he hits it in the water, he's like, give me another ball. I'm going to hit this shot if it takes me all day. That was Dak throwing those seam balls in that sequence. It was like the most electric part of the game.

And the Eagles were up to the challenge every single time. Like Campbell made that incredible play. I thought one of them you might call an underthrow, but Zach Bonn had a great breakup on one of them. And then you get the Ferguson ball that maybe you call it a hospital ball. Maybe you say Jake Ferguson catch the damn ball, man. I mean, he bobbled it before he got hit. You could at least secure it and make the safety jar the ball loose.

I struggle to call that a drop, but I would have liked to see Jake Ferguson make a little better play on the ball. Either way, Dak was like, I'm hitting one of these seam balls and there's nothing you can do about it. And the Eagles were like, watch us. It was just, ah, it was electric. It was great. Let's get to the other side of the ball.

After an offseason of Jalen Hertz discourse, this was the most Jalen Hertz game that has ever Jalen Hertz on both sides. Whatever you want to believe, you can come to that conclusion based on the game that we had from Jalen Hertz today. And I think there will be more nuance and layers to this as we actually see what some of the coverage

looked like on throws he did not make over the course of the game. But the Eagles passing game, for the most part, just didn't get airborne at any point in this game. The Eagles had one completion over nine air yards in the football game. And that was the one deep shots at John Thompson. That was in.

Other than that, it's all under and for the most part, the best plays in this game from the Eagles offense were Seguan Barkley making some people missing space or Jalen Hurd scrambles. And so even if stuff is not there in the rhythm of the passing game, he was still able to consistently make plays with his legs and that end up becoming a backbreaking thing for the cowboys to have to worry about. And so if again, whatever side of this you land on, you could easily make the argument that he's doing what he needs to do.

He willed them down the field on a couple of those drives with his legs. but at the same time, the passing game was not nearly Derek as dangerous, efficient, or consistent as it needs to be if this team is going to want to do what it did last year again. That's exactly where I land. Like, as a runner, he looked as good as he like has in years. Like he was excellent. Electric, dude, especially like the first couple of drives, I was like, I don't know the last time I saw him like striding out that way.

You know what I mean? Like it just doesn't feel like he's had that kind of speed that kind of pop in a while. So that was, I think, really, really good to see. And part of that, I want to be clear that the Cowboys, especially in the red zone, kept fighting, like, for the inside shoulder of the tackle and just giving him the plan was, I still don't understand it. At least they were better in the second half. And even Schottenheimer at halftime was like the Rushland discipline, no good.

So they clearly talked about that and they were better in the second half. But early on, that was just something they were not good at. And if you're not going to throw games and loops and have a spy, you just can't be doing that stuff. And it's a Matt Ibrough loose defense. They just weren't doing a lot of that stuff. In the passing game, it's, again, it was a typical Hertz game where, like, he did, he threw almost no incompletions. And a lot of his incompletions were even throwaways.

So he was doing a good job of getting something. It's just a little. Three of his four incompletions were throwaways in this game. Yeah, like he almost all of them. I can remember. Like, he just, yeah, gets outside of the pocket and throws it away. And so, like, from that end of like getting us something, I think he did a really good job. But again, when your air yards are like, I think it was like five and a half in

this game. 4.9, according to true media right now, was his area yards per attempt on over three seconds in terms of like average time of holding the ball. That is just like you can't play that way consistently. And again, they get away with it in this game because they're such a talented team. But that is one of those things that like if you try to do that against better defenses, even like the eighth, ninth, you know, caliber defenses in the league as opposed to whatever the Cowboys are going to be, I worry about how that's going to end up holding.

It didn't work all the time. because of the rush lane discipline stuff. But a lot of the other elements of the game plan are exactly what you probably should be doing against this passing game. Jalen Hertz had zero pass attempts against man coverage in this game today. Zero. It was all zone all the time.

And so just throwing a lot of that stuff at him and just like all the different layers to it. You know, quarters covered two, whatever it ended up looking like and making them read it out. They gave him no easy answers. And that left, his legs is really the only thing they could tap into when they dropped back. If the rush delay and discipline had been

a little bit better and you don't allow him to do that, then this game looks a little bit different. And I will say the matchups in that area of the game with the Cowboys' edges against the Eagles tackles for a majority of this thing were absolutely brutal. I mean, those guys were yawning Milana and Lane Johnson for like a good chunk of the first half of this game. The Cowboys pass rush, I made this joke in our discord during the game.

Like after four years of seeing Micah Parsons in that uniform doing his thing, they looked like they were running in sand. Like they looked like they're just no explosiveness, no push. They got a little bit better in the second half. Donovan Azaraku had at least one nice rush on Milata in the, I think it was in the fourth quarter after they came back from the rain delay. But in the early going, it just looked hopeless. And I don't think it's a coincidence that they kind of jump started it by blitzing other people

and being like, all right, we got to get somebody involved in this who's not going against these tackles. because that is not working at all. You saw that on those final couple drives. I mean, there's the cornerback pressures, there's some stunting and some games up front on rundowns, just doing what they could to be disruptive. And I will say, especially post-Randley and even into the second half, I did think that the Cowboys interior was holding up just fine

against the Eagles interior. They're getting in the back end of. Yes. And I think Lana Dickerson, I mean, obviously that James Houston play is like the most egregious example. Landon Dickerson comes off after that play because he clearly just was not right in this game. And then even some of the stuff that like Marsha Neelan was doing when they were trying to come a couple of those gap scheme runs

where he's taking on pullers and just really condensing that space. I actually thought that that group for Dallas, that interior group against the interior of the Eagles, really did play well, especially as the game went on. I think that's why Philadelphia had some trouble running the ball as we got a little bit deeper into this thing. Watching Neeland to me was kind of a funny experience because again, in some of the red zone stuff,

a lot of the other guys were trying to get these inside moves and do something flashy and they ended up destroying the rush lane that they were trying to get. There was one where a little bit earlier in the game where Saquan Barkley, like, salvages a play that should have been dead because the three tech got into the backfield cut it off. And Dante Fowler has like perfect, easy backside pursuit just misses the tackle because he overruns it.

And it's just like all of these guys were making those mistakes. And then every time you watch Marshawn Neeland, he's not doing the flashiest stuff, but like he was condensing the pocket the way that he was supposed he was playing the run really well. So the fact that Neeland was kind of a stabilizing factor for a defensive line that I don't think we have any idea what they're going to be this year, I think was a pretty nice sign. So some big picture takeaways before we get out of here.

I think Dallas on both sides of the ball probably looks a little bit better than most people probably would have expected. I thought the offense would have a gear like this just based on how it was constructed. And so I'm excited to watch what that looks like moving forward. C.D. is not going to have three brutal drops in huge spots. for most of the year. So I think the Cowboys' offense, you can feel pretty good about it.

I think elements of the Cowboys defense probably acquitted themselves a little bit better than we might have expected, but I'm curious whether that says more about the Dallas defense or some of the concerns and the gaps we have with Philadelphia's offense.

The interior of the offensive line, especially if Dickerson's going to be banged up, and I thought that they didn't have a lot of answers in this game. It's the first time we saw Kevin Petuo, and the passing game really did struggle to find its footing, especially as we got a little bit deeper into the game. So I do think that

that's where we landed in this game wasn't necessarily surprising, maybe except for the Cowboys being a little bit better against the run as we got deeper into the game than I might have expected against the Seagulls team. It's impossible to say this 30 minutes after the game ends without looking at it back

or being able to see film angles. But the Cowboys trotted out, Trayvon Diggs in his first real action after a major injury that we all thought might leave him out for part of the season. And Kair Elam, who was a first round pick in Buffalo, who they shipped out of town. And the Eagles receivers, I mean, what?

Devante Smith caught three for 16 and A.J. Brown got his first target with two minutes to play in this game. No idea if that's because the Cowboys' Corners did a good job or because the Eagles were that disjointed. But the fact that it happened, it says something, guys. It says something one way or the other. I don't know which way it is until later on. But that is very interesting to me for some reason.

And I can't wait to get the answer to that as we go. Yeah. Obviously, you don't want to overreact to week one. I think back to this moment last year where the Ravens defense was a total mess. The Chiefs offense looked like the most explosive thing we'd ever seen. And, you know, there are a lot of misguided. There are a lot of misleading moments in week one every single year. But they do think with our first.

glance at both of these teams. There is a decent amount to chew on. Mostly on the Dallas side, just because I didn't think we didn't really know what to expect, but I think a decent showing for that Dallas team and I think is going to be competent and friskey for most of the year. And the Seagulls team, we knew they were going to have some questions based on some of the guys they had to move on from. That includes some of the defensive personnel, includes the offensive play caller.

And I don't think that we've really answered all of those questions heading out of week one. So a weird game, spitting, rain, not typically, you know, a lot of the stuff. you expect as we get going with week one, but a fun, interesting game, nonetheless. That is all we've got for tonight. We will be back on Sunday night.

Right here. Well, not right here. Physically we'll all be together in the studio, but we will be back on this YouTube channel, on Sunday night, breaking down everything from the first Sunday of week one. Very much looking forward to that. Like I mentioned earlier,

if you have not signed up or gotten an invite for the Discord. The link to that should be in the description of this show. I'm sure I'll be tweeting it out tomorrow and letting people know about it. We got a thousand people in the first day. It was a lively discussion throughout the entire game, which I sincerely appreciate everyone being so engaged. And obviously, this is the day we announced pretty much everything. The Discord, the studio, the schedule for this year. Very, very excited about all of that. And very much looking forward to our first Sunday in that space and spending it all with you guys. So until then, appreciate you guys listening.

We will talk to you very soon.