Can Eagles' ‘leaky' run defense slow down Cowboys?

They should be better. With their personnel? They should be a lot better.

Five games into the season, the Eagles are unbeaten, and their defense is No. 7 in points allowed and No. 4 in yards allowed.

But their run defense has been leaky at times, especially Sunday in Arizona.

The Eagles are allowing 5.0 yards per rushing attempt, and that’s tied for 25th-best in the league and a full yard per carry more than they allowed last year. If that held up over the full season, it would be the worst in franchise history.

Now, the weird thing is they’re actually 10th in rushing yards allowed per game at 105 but that’s mainly because they’ve had big leads in four of their first five games, which leads opposing teams to throw more than they want to. Teams are only running 21.2 times per game against the Eagles. Only the Chiefs have defended fewer rushing attempts (20.6).

But with the Cowboys coming to town this weekend, it’s an area that needs to get better.

With Dak Prescott out and Cooper Rush now at quarterback, the Cowboys have become a run-heavy team built around Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard. The Cowboys’ backs ran for 164 yards in their upset win over the Rams on Sunday – 86 on just eight carries for Pollard, 78 yards for Elliott – and there’s no reason to think they’ll alter that formula Sunday night at the Linc.

While the Cowboys were hammering the Rams on the ground, the Cards were banging out 124 yards and 4.8 per pop on the Eagles despite losing James Conner during the second quarter.

Part of this is philosophical. Jonathan Gannon doesn’t believe teams can beat the Eagles running the ball, and he’ll gladly give up a few five-yard runs in the middle of the field in exchange for better coverage in the back end.

And despite that ugly 5.0 average, the Eagles aren’t giving up big runs. They’ve only allowed one run of at least 20 yards, and that was D’Andre Swift’s 50-yarder on the first play of the season. The longest run against them since Week 1 has gone for 17 yards (Jalen Reagor, Conner).

But considering how deep the Eagles are up front and how active their linebackers have been and how much their d-backs like to come and support the run, you’d think this would be one of the league’s top run defenses.

And it hasn’t been.

“I think we are pretty good,” Gannon said Tuesday. “We've had some runs that have popped. (And) you always have to clean those up because you don't want explosive runs to hit you.

“I think we've been pretty good. I think we can always clean up. We probably got a little leaky at times Sunday, which you would like to think that three-yard run that's going for six, you would like to get it down for three, but that's always a work in progress.

“That's one of the things I talk about us getting better. That's always one of the things on our guys' minds is how can we get these runs down a little bit better? I don't know the stats about that, but you don't want teams to be in second and two all day running the ball on first down and that's what Dallas does a really good job of.”

What do the stats say?

The Eagles are allowing the 8th-most rushing yards on first down at 4.8, and the 9th-most on second down at 4.9. Which has a lot to do with opposing teams converting 45 percent of their third downs. Which is also eighth-worst in the league this year.

It all starts with run defense. Turn those five-yard runs into four-yard runs and you'll make things tougher for offenses on third down.

Especially against the Cowboys, who make a living running the rock.

“They're not playing the game in 3rd-and-long,” Gannon said. “They're not. You watch the L.A. game, and it's 2nd-and-2 all day. It's tough. That's a tough way to go on defense. Our guys will know that, and we're up for the challenge.”

This is not a high-powered Cowboys offense. They’ve only scored seven TDs in five games, and their offense is averaging only 17 points per game.

They want to win with ball control and defense, and so far it’s working. They’ve allowed only five TDs all year, although the five offenses they’ve faced are ranked 17th, 19th, 21st, 26th and 29th.

“We’re going to have to do a good job,” Gannon said. “We have to put our guys in position to make some plays and not always have tough downs. We have to have population to the ball and tackle because these backs, they break tackles when they're 1-on-1. So we have to have more than one hat to the ball.

“They are doing a really good job in the run game, and it's not just because they're calling a lot of runs. They're efficient and then create explosives with their runs.”

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