Brian Billick likes Eagles over Cowboys for the NFC East
Super Bowl XXXV champion head coach Brian Billick favors the Philadelphia Eagles, not the defending Dallas Cowboys, to win the NFC East. The former Baltimore Ravens head coach explained his reasoning to "Shan & RJ" on Dallas-Fort Worth 105.3 The Fan on Wednesday.
"Sam Bradford looks very, very good," Billick said. "Philadelphia led the league last year in turnovers, giving up the ball and giving up big plays. If they can kind of produce at the same level, I think they'll be better defensively. I think Sam Bradford is the real deal if he can stay healthy."
Bradford has a 149.6 preseason passer rating along with an 86.7 completion percentage, the best among quarterbacks with a minimum of five attempts. These exhibition samples provide belief in spite of his 58.6 completion percentage and 79.3 passer rating in his 49 career games, where Bradford compiled an 18-30-1 record.
"I'll be interested to see how they use DeMarco Murray, because he's obviously different than LeSean McCoy," said Billick. "But if all those ifs not withstanding, Philadelphia is going to be an interesting team to watch."
The Cowboys let Murray walk in the off-season, and the team's new franchise record holder in rushing yards in a season signed a five-year, $40 million contract with Philadelphia. Dallas has countered the departure with the signing of eighth-year running back Darren McFadden from Oakland and combining him with current running backs Lance Dunbar and Joseph Randle to form a running back by committee. These personnel changes in the rushing attack make Billick curious as to what the Cowboys run game will look like.
"I'm going to be interested in the style of running game they want to establish. Obviously, DeMarco Murray, the power running game, what he was able to do. He always got positive yards. That's the thing I always like about DeMarco Murray, a little like Frank Gore. You were always going to get positive yards. It may not have been huge gains, but you weren't going to be in a whole lot of second-and-12, second-and-14. Even if it was second-and-8, that was better than what I mentioned earlier.
"I don't know that the running game that they have right now is going to give them that same consistency. That was a big part of the mechanics of that offense moving forward and then you set up the big play down the field obviously to Dez Bryant and Jason Witten. And Tony Romo performed maybe the best year of his career. He had the balance of that running game."
While Billick, now an analyst for NFL Network, may not be picking the Cowboys to win the division, he won't rule out the possibility of the team making the playoffs.
"It really comes down to, as I'm sizing it up, Philly or Dallas, you can't win the East, how do you match up in the NFC wildcard division, which is pretty good," Billick said. "You've got the NFC West whoever doesn't win the division. Looks like the NFC North, Green Bay. Minnesota is going to be pretty good. Detroit has looked to be pretty good. And in the East you've got the two. And then the South, it's hard to imagine anybody comes out of that but the division winner. So, it's an interesting match up."
