The Dallas Cowboys don't face Philadelphia until Week 7. And yet, Howie Roseman already scored a win over Stephen Jones and Co. while Dallas scrambles to patch its injured secondary.
The Dallas Cowboys don't play the Philadelphia Eagles until Week 7, the start of a two-game series that will go a long way in deciding the NFC East. However, the Eagles already got their first win against Dallas, and it came off the field.
Philadelphia blocked the Cowboys' plan to poach veteran nickel cornerback Kenny Moore II from its practice squad. According to
ESPN's
Jeremy Fowler
, the Cowboys wanted to target Moore, and the Eagles responded by signing him to their 53-man roster to make sure he stays put.
"(The Cowboys) also explored signing Eagles cornerback Kenny Moore II off that team's practice squad," Fowler wrote. "Philly conveniently elevated Moore to the active roster that same day, possibly because the NFC East rival was sniffing around."
For those unfamiliar with the rules, any NFL team is free to sign a player off another team's practice squad. The catch is he has to go straight to the signing team's 53-man roster.
So when the Cowboys came calling for Moore, the Eagles promoted him to the 53. Now he stays in Philly.
Smart move by the Eagles, I guess. Howie Roseman gets one over on Stephen Jones and company, and sometimes that's just how it goes.
Here's the thing about this failed pursuit: it tells us a lot about how worried Dallas is about its secondary. The Cowboys already signed three defensive backs to the practice squad this week, and going after Moore suggests they had a bigger plan in mind for the injuries piling up.
And there are a lot of them.
Since the start of the season, the Cowboys have seen starting safety Malik Hooker go down, as well as backup safety PJ Locke. Cornerback Cobie Durant is also dealing with an injury, and safety Jalen Thompson is on injured reserve.
Cornerback Shavon Revel Jr.l is questionable after he was limited in practice Wednesday. He told reporters he does not feel 100% after suffering a knee injury.
That's the context. Now for the main point: Moore is a nickel specialist, and a proven one.
He was a standout in the slot for the Indianapolis Colts for a long time. He started for eight seasons in a row, including seven starts at nickel in 2025 before the Colts decided to move on. Nickel is where he has played the most snaps every season of his career except his rookie year back in 2017.
That's a relevant piece of information when you ask who plays nickel for the Cowboys right now. The answer is first-round rookie Caleb Downs .
With Locke and Thompson hurt, I wonder if the idea behind targeting Moore was to move Downs (who is mostly playing nickel) to full-time safety.
That is to say, Downs could slide into the strong safety role while Hooker does his thing at free safety, which is where he specializes. Dallas could then put a Band-Aid at nickel and let Moore handle the slot.
Maybe that was the plan. Maybe Moore was only expected to provide depth in case the Cowboys needed to execute something like that later. Or maybe they wanted him on the outside and trusted him enough to do the job there.
We'll never know for sure. Unfortunately for Dallas, the Eagles took that option off the table, and the Cowboys have to find another answer from what they already have.
To be fair, Philadelphia isn't the most pressing issue for the Cowboys right now. Week 7 can wait. The concern is getting their second win of the season and climbing back to .500 with a secondary held together by practice squad signings.
For now, Roseman gets this round.
This article was originally published on A to Z Sports. Read the full story here: Dallas Cowboys' plan to fix major defensive issue sabotaged by Eagles weeks in advance to their first matchup
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