There are no days off in pro football. Even on weekends with no games to play, players' eyes are on TV screens watching their divisional foes, and rarely from a fan's perspective.
Cowboys tight end Jason Witten watched the late Sunday afternoon game against the Seattle Seahawks and Philadelphia Eagles "a lot" on his day off to study them.
"Yeah, I mean, I was watching thinking I'm going to play them next week," Witten said Tuesday at Children's Medical Center in Dallas as part of a holiday outreach event. "Find an edge and try to get some good things against them. They're good. They're really good."
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones also saw Seattle's 24-14 victory in Philadelphia, but was more impressed with the way the Eagles played against the Seahawks."
"I saw a Philadelphia team that played really doggone good against Seattle in that first quarter," Jones said on Tuesday on 105.3 The Fan [KRLD-FM]. "I thought they were playing well."
On Seattle's first drive, Philadelphia sacked Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson for four yards to take them out of field goal range and force a punt. On the Seahawks' next possession, a dropped punt by punter Jon Ryan that was also fumbled, recovered by the Eagles, and taken to Seattle's 14 yard line helped setup Philadelphia's 7-0 lead to end the first quarter.
Philadelphia's special teams and defense has been impressive this season. The Eagles defense has four players in linebacker Connor Barwin, defensive end Vinny Curry, linebacker Trent Cole, linebacker Brandon Graham that would each lead the Cowboys in sacks. Philadelphia is second in the league with 44 sacks, and are 13th in takeaways with 21.
Witten says their defense presents many challenges.
"They're so good up front," said Witten. "They can move around, get pressure on the outside and get pressure on the inside too.
You go back to our game, we weren't able to get anything going. It was hard to look at the plan and, so, we never got adjusted and couldn't execute."
Witten says the Cowboys won't use the same game plan from Thanksgiving, and is confident in the coaches' ability to formulate a good one for Sunday night, just like they have all year in the opinion of the six-time All Pro.
The front office has confidence, not only in the coaching staff, but the players as the Cowboys, the only undefeated-on-the-road team in the NFL, go into Philadelphia.
"I think the fact we're playing good on the road, we can play a lot better than we played against the Eagles at home on Thanksgiving," said Jones.
The last time the Cowboys lost as the visiting team was Week 17 of 2012 in Washington, which was for the NFC East title. Sunday night won't have the finality that the Washington game had, but it will still be an important battle for first place in the division.
