Cowboys defense vs. Eagles offense takes center stage in Week 6 battle for first place in loaded NFC East

The NFC East was not supposed to be this good at this point of the season. Especially not after Dak Prescott was injured in an embarrassing Week 1 loss. Alas, the East has three teams sitting at 4-1 or better after five weeks. Two of those teams will square off, when the 5-0 Philadelphia Eagles play host to the 4-1 Dallas Cowboys for the Week 6 edition of “Sunday Night Football.” 

This matchup pits two of the best units in the league against each other. Philadelphia’s offense ranks fifth in the NFL in both TruMedia’s version of EPA per play and Football Outsiders’ DVOA, while Dallas’ defense checks in fourth in EPA and sixth in DVOA. Those outfits are powered by position groups that rank among the small handful of best in the league: Philadelphia’s offensive line and Dallas’ defensive front. The Eagles so far rank first in Pro Football Focus’ pass-blocking grade and 11th in run-blocking, while the Cowboys rank first in pass-rush grade and lead the NFL in pressure rate (42.1%) by a mile. (They also rank 23rd in blitz rate. When they blitz, they’re getting pressure on 50% of snaps. When they don’t, it’s a still-league-best 39.8%.)

Unfortunately, the battle in the trenches does seem likely to be at least somewhat affected by injuries. Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson, Isaac Seumalo, and Jason Kelce all dealt with issues during last week’s game against the Cardinals, and have been limited in multiple practices this week. The same is true of Micah Parsons and Demarcus Lawrence, while safeties Jayron Kearse and Donovan Wilson — who often function as pseudo-linebackers — practiced in full but are still listed on Dallas’ injury report. All of those players seem somewhere between highly likely and guaranteed to play, but they may not be at full strength. Still, this should be a fascinating matchup on which to focus. 

Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn is doing a better job than almost any coach in the NFL of generating one-on-ones and other favorable situations for his rushers, varying his fronts and alignments and generally making sure you don’t know who is coming, or when, or from where. Quinn is very smartly using Parsons to rush the passer far more often this season than he did a year ago, when the rookie was an efficiency monster racking up huge stats despite rushing at a significantly lower rate than other elite defenders. He ranked 120th in the NFL in…