Eagles face Cowboys in Week 3 matchup on Monday Night Football

The Eagles (1-1) are coming off a loss to the San Francisco 49ers and travel to Dallas to face the Cowboys (1-1), who are coming off a win over the Los Angeles Chargers.

Monday Night Football in Arlington, Texas, should be a fun one.

Here are three storylines to look out for Monday night.

Hurts & Sirianni need to bounce back

In week one, the first-year head coach Nick Sirianni and second-year quarterback Jalen Hurts got off to a fantastic start together. The second game of the season wasn’t as good. Sure, there were good moments in the loss to the 49ers bu the Eagles’ offense put up just 11 points in the 17-11 loss last Sunday.

Sirianni struggled as a play caller, especially on the goal line series. He’s a young head coach and a young play caller but he needs to be better, and he admitted it. It seemed like he took his first loss hard, so he needs to regroup and rebound.

As for Hurts, he had good moments in week two as well but missed on a couple plays and saw his completion percentage fall.

These guys are linked together because they can help each other look good (or bad) against the Cowboys. It’s crucial that they have a good feel for one another if this offense is going to succeed.

Defense needs to keep up

Through two games, the Eagles’ defense has looked pretty good, giving up a total of just 23 points — six to the Atlanta Falcons and 17 to the 49ers. They did give up two 90+ yard drives against the Niners, which is not ideal by any means, but holding a team to 17 points has to be good enough to win.

But now they’re about to go on a stretch against some really good offenses over the next month and that starts with the Cowboys and Dak Prescott. Here’s a look at their next five opponents and where they rank in offensive yards and points:

Week 3: at Cowboys: 4th/15th
Week 4: vs. Kansas City Chiefs: 9th/3rd
Week 5: at Carolina Panthers: 14th/19th
Week 6: vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 13th/1st
Week 7: at Oakland Raiders: 1st/7th

Injuries hurt

Through one week of the season, the Eagles were looking like they put their injuries woes in the past. But then in week two, the Eagles of course lost two of their best and most important players. Brandon Graham is done for the season with an Achilles tear and Brandon Brooks will miss some time with a pec strain the team doesn’t believe to be season-ending.

So now the Eagles have to replace them.

With Graham, it’ll most likely be a committee approach and that approach might change week-to-week. But you can probably assume the combination of Josh Sweat, Derek Barnett, Ryan Kerrigan, and Milton Williams (and maybe even Tarron Jackson) will need to pick up the slack.

With Brooks, the answer is much simpler. The Eagles used the 37th pick on Landon Dickerson and now it’s time to see what he can do. Dickerson was put into action against the 49ers, and it wasn’t a great NFL debut. But it was his first NFL action and he missed all of training camp so maybe that’s to be expected. The next month or so will tell us a lot about Dickerson.