Mike McCarthy says Cowboys will not be resting starters against Eagles in Week 18

The Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys appear to be taking different approaches to their Week 18 game that was rescheduled for Saturday night.

Nick Sirianni publicly said the Eagles haven’t decided on resting starters. But it seems very likely that Philly will be doing just that, especially after adding 12 players to the COVID list on Monday afternoon. The Birds can potentially move up to the No. 6 seed in the NFC playoff picture but there’s no guarantee and their most likely first-round opponent is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers anyway.

In other words, there isn’t a ton for the Eagles to play for.

The same could be said for Dallas considering that they’re likely locked in to the No. 4 seed. There are six scenarios where the Cowboys stay in their current spot while there is only one to move up to No. 3 and only one to move up to No. 2.

Despite their unlikely upward mobility, Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy told reporters that Dallas plans to play their starters in Philly this weekend.

We’ll see if this is just posturing or if he actually means it.

If it’s the latter, well, there’s a good chance the Cowboys could blow out the Eagles’ backups. Dallas is currently favored by seven points, according to DraftKings Sportbook, and that line might only increase in their favor.

But the Eagles won’t mind losing a meaningless game to Dallas. Especially as the Cowboys unnecessarily risk injury to their starters in the process.

In order to get a Cowboys perspective on this news, I reached out to my frenemy RJ Ochoa (who you know from our time together co-hosting the NFC East Mixtape podcast and his contributions to Blogging The Boys). His take on McCarthy potentially playing starters?

“I’ll be upset if Dallas plays dudes seriously. It’d be stupid.”