They’re the Cowboy killers. The Eagles who always rose to the occasion when the Eagles faced their most hated rival.
With the 127th Eagles-Cowboys game set to kickoff Sunday night at the Linc, we thought we’d take a look at the top 10 Eagles who owned the Cowboys. Guys who made life miserable for Dallas fans game after game, year after year.
LeSean McCoy: The only running back with better lifetime numbers against the Cowboys than LeSean McCoy is the greatest running back of all-time. Jim Brown averaged 5.3 yards per carry in 11 career games against Dallas, and Shady is No. 2 at 5.2, a fraction ahead of Walter Payton. That’s some pretty good company. McCoy had four games vs. the Cowboys with at least 130 yards – that’s tied with Payton for most ever. He’s responsible for four of the six-best Eagles rushing performances ever vs. Dallas (Duce Staley and Bryce Brown had the two others).
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Duce Staley: Just behind Brown, Shady and Payton is Duce Staley, whose 4.9 career mark is 4th-best all-time vs. the Cowboys. Duce had three 100-yard games against the Cowboys, including his legendary 201-yard performance in the Pickle Juice game in the 2000 opener at Texas Stadium. Duce also had 51 receiving yards in that game, and his 252 scrimmage yards are most ever by a RB vs. the Cowboys and second-most by anybody. Calvin Johnson had 329 receiving yards vs. Dallas in 2013. Staley is one of only five RBs in NFL history to rush for 100 yards against the Cowboys three straight years. The others are Shady, Tiki Barber, Ricky Watters and Gerald Riggs.
Zach Ertz: Ertz has 77 catches against the Cowboys, 15 more than any other tight end in history. Hall of Famer Jackie Smith had 62. Brent Celek is sixth on that list with 51. Ertz is the only tight end with two games of at least 130 yards against Dallas. He had 13-for-139 against the Cowboys at the Linc in 2017 and 14-for-145 at the Linc in 2018. Only two other tight ends (Antonio Gates in 2013, Delanie Walker in 2014) had one career 130-yard game against the Cowboys. Ertz owns two of the 10 all-time 13-catch performances against the Cowboys, and he ranks eighth all-time among all players with those 77 career catches against the Cowboys.
Sonny Jurgensen: No Eagles quarterback has really been consistently dominant against the Cowboys. Randall Cunningham was rarely at his best vs. Dallas. Jaws threw 19 TDs and 24 INTs in his Eagles career against the Cowboys. Donovan McNabb had some very good games but also some bad ones – including those back-to-back disasters in 2009 that ended his Eagles career. Carson Wentz had some terrific performances but also some duds. Michael Vick was really good against Dallas but only started three games. So we’ll go with Jurgensen, who went 4-1 with a 110.1 passer rating in five starts against Dallas for the Eagles, including a five-TD performance at Franklin Field in 1961, still tied for 2nd-most TDs ever thrown in a game against the Cowboys.
Pete Retzlaff: Retzlaff had some huge games against the Cowboys and averaged 19.8 yards per reception vs. Dallas, to this day 3rd-highest ever against the Cowboys behind DeSean Jackson (21.8) and Mel Gray (20.0). Retzlaff finished with 41 catches, 811 yards and five TDs in just 12 games against Dallas, including games with 107, 113 and 118 yards. At the point he retired in 1966, only Buddy Dial had more 100-yard games vs. the Cowboys than Retzlaff.
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DeSean Jackson: in his second career game, D-Jack had six catches for 110 yards against the Cowboys at Texas Stadium. By the time his brilliant career was over, Jackson had 61 catches for 1,330 yards and a ridiculous 21.8 average vs. Dallas. Only Hall of Famers Charley Taylor and Art Monk have more yards against the Cowboys, and that 21.8 yards-per-catch is highest ever against Dallas. Jackson had nine career catches of 40 yards or more against the Cowboys, including a 91-yarder from Michael Vick in 2010 and an 81-yarder from Jalen Hurts in 2020. The biggest game of Jackson’s career was a 210-yarder at AT&T Stadium, the 3rd-most yards ever against the Cowboys and the most in Dallas.
Reggie White: Reggie was a true Cowboys killer. He picked up 19 ½ sacks in 25 career games against Dallas – more than anybody else – and as an Eagle he had 15 ½ sacks against the Cowboys in just 16 games. Just under one per game. White’s four career multiple-sack games against Dallas are second-most ever, one behind Michael Strahan.
Andy Harmon: One of the NFL’s best defensive tackles in the mid-1990s, Harmon recorded more sacks against the Cowboys than any other interior lineman in history. Of Harmon’s 39 ½ career sacks, eight were against Dallas. He ranks 11th among all defensive players in career sacks vs. Dallas. The top three defensive tackles in career sacks vs. the Cowboys are Harmon with 8.0, Darwin Walker with 7.0 (all as an Eagle) and Rhett Hall with 6 ½ (4 ½ with the Eagles).
Wes Hopkins: Nobody in history intercepted more passes against the Cowboys than Hopkins, the Eagles’ Pro Bowl safety from SMU. Hopkins and safety Terry Kinard of the Giants each had nine. Hopkins didn’t have an INT in his first three starts vs. Dallas and then had nine in his next 11. Wes had three multi-interception games against the Cowboys, and the only other player who’s done that is Hall of Famer Roger Wehrli.
Lito Sheppard: Lito finished one INT short of Hopkins and Kinard, picking off eight passes in just nine career games against Dallas. Three of those eight INTs came in 2006. Sheppard had a 101-yard pick-6 off Vinny Testaverde at Texas Stadium in 2004 and a 102-yarder off Drew Bledsoe at the Linc in 2006. The only players in the last 20 years with three INTs in a season against the Cowboys are Sheppard in 2006 and Jordan Hicks in 2016. Sheppard is the only player in NFL history with two lifetime 100-yard interception TD returns against the same team and one of only two players with two 100-yarders total. Ed Reed is the other (the first was against Jeff Garcia with the Browns and the second was off Kevin Kolb in 2008).
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