Cowboys Race to Halftime Lead over Eagles

ARLINGTON, Texas – The Eagles defense had their first turnover of the season and it was good for a touchdown when Fletcher Cox recovered the strip-sack fumble forced by Javon Hargrave from Dak Prescott in the first quarter of Monday night’s game.

And that was it for any Eagles highlights through the first two games in this matchup of NFC East rivals, as the Cowboys built a 20-7 lead at halftime.

Zeke Elliott scored a pair of rushing touchdowns and Dak Prescott through another one, this from 19 yards to tight end Dalton Schultz, who had four catches for 47 yards working against an outmatched linebacker unit.

Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts threw his first interception of the year, underthrowing badly to Jalen Reagor at the 1-yard line, where Anthony Brown picked it off o the team's first possession of the game.

That was what led to the Eagles’ lone score to even the score at 7-7with 9:57 to go in the opening quarter.

Other than that, the Eagles’ offense struggled, with Hurts looking too nervous or too jacked up playing in the state where he grew up.

Hurts threw behind Zach Ertz a couple of times and into traffic at other times. His legs weren’t able to find any footing, either, with the Cowboys’ athletic linebacker/defensive end Micah Parsons outrunning Hurts to the sideline on one occasion.

Hurts was 7-for-12 for 102 yards and a passer rating of 51.4 in the opening half. He had three yards on three rushes.

The Cowboys ran wild against the Eagles' defense, piling up 118 yards on the ground on 25 rushes. Elliott had 60 yards on 11 carries and Tony Pollard added 56 yards on 11 runs.

The Eagles had 121 total yards to Dallas’ to 261 while Philly couldn’t convert a first down on four third down tries. The Cowboys were 4-for-6 on third down to run up a time of possession edge 20 minutes, 21 seconds to the Eagles’ 9:39.

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Eagle Maven and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglemaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.