5 Storylines to Watch in Thanksgiving Eagles-Cowboys Matchup on FOX

Don’t plan to eat too much on Thanksgiving this year, or else you might sleep through one of the biggest matchups of the 2026 NFL regular season. The Dallas Cowboys will play host to the Philadelphia Eagles on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 26) on FOX and the FOX One app, the network announced on Monday, adding a holiday bonus to one of the NFL’s best divisional rivalries. The matchup should be among the most-watched NFL games this upcoming season, given the holiday window and the fact that it features two of the NFL’s most popular teams. But it should promise to be a thrilling battle between a recent Super Bowl champion and a playoff hopeful, as both games between the Eagles and Cowboys last season were decided by one score. So, as we begin the countdown to the thrilling Thanksgiving matchup, here are five storylines to watch in Eagles-Cowboys with more than six months until kickoff at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. Dallas didn’t have many big wins last season, going 7-9-1, and six of those victories came against teams that finished 6-11 or worse. The lone exception? A late November home game against Philadelphia. This one was four days before Thanksgiving, where the Cowboys rallied from a 21-0 deficit — and down 21-7 with three minutes left in the third quarter — for a 24-21 win over their NFC East rivals. Dak Prescott threw for two touchdowns and ran for a third in the comeback, capped by Brandon Aubrey’s 42-yard field goal as time expired. The 21-point comeback matched the largest in Cowboys history. The Eagles were 8-2 before that loss, and it started a three-game losing streak. They’d still win the division, but lost in the wild-card round to the 49ers. The Cowboys would beat the Kansas City Chiefs the following week on Thanksgiving, keeping their slim playoff hopes alive at the time. But they then lost four of the final five games to miss the playoffs. The Cowboys’ defense was abysmal last year, giving up a league-high 30.1 points per game and the most passing yards and second-most overall yards per play. That led to the firing of defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus, and the Cowboys hired Eagles defensive backs coach and passing game coordinator Christian Parker. Parker was a part of a Philadelphia coaching staff that helped the Eagles finish fifth in points allowed a year ago, and was also in that same role when they won the Super Bowl in 2024. Parker’s departure from the Eagles was big enough that the likes of Cooper DeJean shared their sadness in his decision to leave for a division rival. Parker, who is only 34, is considered to be one of the top, young-minded assistants in the game, and he’s now tasked with getting the Cowboys’ defense back on track. The team gave him some reinforcements this offseason, too. They traded for former Green Bay Packers edge rusher Rashan Gary before selecting Ohio State safety Caleb Downs and UCF edge rusher Malachi Lawrence in the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft. The selections were widely praised, particularly the Downs pick. If Parker can find success in turning around the Dallas defense, a head coaching job might not be far off. An easy way to prove his qualifications would be to slow down Philadelphia’s offense on Thanksgiving Day. Jalen Hurts lost his first two starts against the Cowboys, but he’s 4-2 since then, with only one interception thrown in his last 185 passes against Dallas. He’s even better as a scrambler, though. Hurts has rushed for two touchdowns in each of his last three games against Dallas, and since he took over as Philadelphia’s full-time starting quarterback in 2021, he has seven rushing scores against the division rival. The next closest player in that span is new Houston Texans running back David Montgomery, who has four rushing touchdowns since 2021. Being a division rival gives Hurts more chances, but he’s the only quarterback with multiple 50-yard rushing games against the Cowboys over the last five seasons as well. Even if wide receiver A.J. Brown is traded next month as expected, the Eagles will have a much more potent passing game built around Hurts. They traded up with the Cowboys to take first-round pick Makai Lemon, a receiver from USC, after trading for Packers wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks. They also added Hollywood Brown and Elijah Moore in free agency to go with star DeVonta Smith. On top of that, the Eagles added a receiving threat to their tight ends room, drafting Vanderbilt’s Eli Stowers to pair with veteran Dallas Goedert. Philadelphia is 6-1 all-time in Thanksgiving games, and that .857 winning percentage is the best among NFL teams with more than two such games in its team’s history. The Eagles haven’t played on Thanksgiving since 2015, though. That game featured their lone Thanksgiving loss, falling 45-14 to the Detroit Lions. But a year earlier, the Eagles played a Thanksgiving game against the Cowboys in Dallas, picking up a commanding 33-10 win. LeSean McCoy rushed for 159 yards and a touchdown that day, giving Philadelphia a one-game lead on Dallas in the NFC East. The two teams would meet again 17 days later, with Dallas winning the rematch. The Cowboys would win their last four games of the season and the Eagles would lose their next three, so it was Dallas that won the division at 12-4 and Philadelphia that missed the playoffs at 10-6. Dallas and Detroit are annual Thanksgiving hosts, and the Cowboys are 35-22-1 in their history on Thanksgiving — that’s a .612 winning percentage, compared to .571 overall in their history. The Cowboys have beaten the Eagles in seven of the last eight meetings in Arlington, with the lone Philadelphia win coming in 2024. Dallas has averaged a ridiculous 34.4 points per game in those seven wins. That’s pretty remarkable considering that the Eagles have given up 37 or more points just six times since December 2020, but four of those are against the Cowboys, and three of them were at AT&T Stadium. Prescott has played long enough that he has basically an entire season of games against the Eagles. He’s 10-5 against the Cowboys’ rival, with 3,944 passing yards, 26 touchdown passes and just nine interceptions. It’s reasonable to think Prescott will finish 2026 with the third-most career touchdowns of any NFL quarterback against the Eagles, passing Kirk Cousins (28) and trailing only Sonny Jurgensen (33) and Eli Manning (54).