Eagles’ Kellen Moore admits Jalen Hurts, offense blinded by sunlight in stadium during blowout win vs. Cowboys

PHILADELPHIA — The sunlight that infiltrated AT&T Stadium wasn’t just affecting the Dallas Cowboys’ ability to catch passes. 

Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore admitted the sunlight was bothering the Eagles offense in the first quarter when Philadelphia had possession on that end of the field. The Eagles had just 32 yards on 10 plays (3.2 yards per play), but scored on their second possession thanks to a short field from a Cooper Rush fumble. 

“It was,” Moore said when asked if the sun impacted Hurts. “In general for everyone. I’ve been there. I was there a long time.”

Moore knew all the intricacies of the sun and the challenges it presented from his four years calling plays as the Cowboys offensive coordinator. And he was a Cowboys quarterback from 2015 to 2017 before joining the coaching staff in 2018. 

“The stadiums all have different circumstances. That one, obviously the sun played a decent role,” Moore said. “You just have to call plays according to it knowing certain parts of the field at times can be a little bit challenging. 

“We had it in the first quarter, towards the end of the first quarter in the red zone. Then obviously we were going the other way.”

The Eagles ran 20 plays in the second quarter (not counting the end of half) for 157 yards, an average of 7.9 yards per play. And this was even with a possession where they ran two plays that combined for -19 yards. They scored the same amount of points (seven) as the first quarter, but also had an 83-yard drive in the mix. 

While the Eagles figured out how to handle the sun, the Cowboys winning the coin toss and electing to receive was the questionable call. The full glare of the sun hovered around the second quarter, when Dallas had possession on that end of the field. Dallas had three of four second-quarter possessions in which it finished with five yards or less. 

“That really goes under the category of home-field advantage,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said earlier Tuesday. “It should be an advantage to the home team, so I don’t want to adjust it for one reason because it is an advantage to us. 

“That’s our advantage. That should be our advantage. We get to play there more and we get to have it as an advantage. It has been an advantage for us to know where the sun is. I don’t want to change that.”

Even though Moore and the Eagles took advantage of the Cowboys’ misfortune, there was no vindication for beating Dallas on Moore’s end. Moore was fired by the Cowboys in 2022 in favor of head coach Mike McCarthy calling plays, which hasn’t worked out as well as Dallas hoped. 

“It certainly was fun,” Moore said. “You know a lot of people there. It certainly was fun to see certain people that you spent a number of years with. That aspect of it was fun.”