The 2021 NFL regular season ends this weekend. There are two Saturday games, and the night contest features the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles. The NFC East battle will kick off at 8:15 p.m. ET on ESPN and ABC. The game will also stream on ESPN.com, NFL.com, ESPN App, NFL App and Yahoo Sports App.
The Cowboys (11-5) can’t clinch the No. 1 overall seed in the NFC but can move up in the standings with the win and some help. After winning four straight games, the Cowboys fell to the Arizona Cardinals 25-22 last week. The plan for the Cowboys is to play their starters on Saturday if healthy.
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“I think the thing that people need to recognize is you only have 48 players to play the game,” Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said, per the team’s official website. “So going up there and then you start pulling players, you’re really putting stress on other players that particularly haven’t maybe played that many reps at that many positions. So you have to be cognizant of that – talking about special teams and so forth.”
The Eagles (9-7) are in the playoffs, clinching a spot last week. This will be the team’s 14th playoff appearance since 2000, tied for the second-most among all NFC teams. This comes after the team added a new head coach in Nick Sirianni and a new starting quarterback in Jalen Hurts who was drafted in 2020. And with the Eagles’ in the playoffs, will they play their starters on Saturday night?
“We’re talking through all that still,” Sirianni said during his Monday press conference, per the Eagles’ official website. “We haven’t decided anything there yet. We don’t have to decide right now. We’re preparing like we would normally prepare on a Monday for a game. Really, it’s like a Tuesday now that we got flexed to Saturday. So, we’re trying to get our plan ready, we’re trying to rip through that, and, again, like I said, we don’t have to make that decision quite yet. So, I know there is a thing about resting and there is a thing about staying sharp. No doubt we’re taking everything into account, and we’ll discuss that later on today.”
