With all the excitement that has surrounded Thursday night's 2025 season-opening game with the Dallas Cowboys, the only goal that matters is to emerge with a victory. The Super Bowl LIX World Championship banner will be unveiled and the pre-game hype will subside and then it's time for football!

How do the Eagles defeat the Cowboys? What are the storylines that matter for this opener? Let's take a dive here ...

1. Dallas has a new coaching staff. And what does that mean, exactly?

Brian Schottenheimer is in charge of the Cowboys in his first season with Matt Eberflus overseeing the defense. Given that this is the first game, there is a great sense of the unknown. So what do the Eagles study? They look at Eberflus from his 15-plus years coaching in the NFL, including stops as a defensive coordinator with the Colts (while Nick Sirianni coached there) and as head coach with the Chicago Bears. He has a track record of employing a scheme that uses a lot of pre-snap movement, a basis in the Tampa-2 scheme and zone coverage. He wants his front to play in an "attack" style. The Eagles will have built-in checks for all of this and will be tasked with making adjustments as the game goes along, not unlike every other game.

2. The Dallas offense: Big-play passing attack is the challenge

This is a huge matchup: The Eagles' secondary against quarterback Dak Prescott – who missed both games against Philadelphia last season – and some outstanding pass catchers led by CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens (who had three targets and zero catches in the Eagles' win over Pittsburgh last season). You would expect the Cowboys to stress the defense with those two, along with tight end Jake Ferguson. The key for the Eagles is to win on first and second down, put pressure on Prescott, have sticky coverage, and give Prescott multiple looks. Prescott is, by the way, 11-5 with six straight wins on Thursday nights in his career. There are going to be jump balls thrown to Pickens and the Eagles have to prepare for that. Big test early for a Philadelphia secondary that has some new faces.

3. No Micah, now what?

Dallas still has pass-rush threats, even with Micah Parsons in Green Bay. Dante Fowler is a veteran with a history of success. Sam Williams is a rising player for the Cowboys. Donovan Ezeiruaku has impressed Dallas in his rookie summer. They are going to play aggressively, be physical, and give the Eagles a lot of quality reps. What is the game plan for the Eagles' offense, the first for new Offensive Coordinator Kevin Patullo? Which leads to ...

4. Eagles and the ground game: It's what they do

Just how the Dallas defense plays the line of scrimmage and how many players it employs in the box is almost irrelevant: The Eagles are going to look to run the football. They have a talented three-man backfield headed by Saquon Barkley, with Will Shipley and A.J. Dillon offering their abilities, and the Eagles have the best offensive line in football that is physical and wins. So, the Eagles will run the ball. How much they do depends on what quarterback Jalen Hurts sees when he's calling the signals, but it's a given: Unless Dallas plays with 8 or 9 players in the box, the Eagles are going to look to keep things balanced and do what they do on offense. Dallas allowed 137 rushing yards per game last season and Barkley ran for 233 yards in two wins over the Cowboys last year.

5. Game 1 of the new special teams rules

This is going to impact everything: A kickoff that lands in the end zone for a touchback means the offense has the football on first down at the 35-yard line. Instead, teams want to kick off to the 3- or 5-yard line and make the return team bring the ball out. Coverage is going to be extremely important. The ability to return kicks is going to be extremely important. Rejoice! The kickoff is back in the NFL, with estimates that up to 80 percent of kickoffs will be returned. That provides a lot of opportunities for big plays.

6. The miscellaneous factors

These are just staples of the game, so as a reminder to you, it is important that the Eagles win ...

• The turnover battle. Teams that have a plus-1 in turnovers win 69-70 percent of the games. The chances of winning increase from there. This is something Sirianni and the coaching staff work on every single day.

• Scoring touchdowns in the red zone means so much. The Eagles were tied for 10th in the NFL in touchdown efficiency in the red zone last season, a number they want to improve. Dallas ranked 31st in the league in red zone TD efficiency.

• Health. Things change in a hurry when there are injuries, so this is something to watch.

• In-game adjustments: Which coaching staff wins this department? It is something the Eagles did extremely well last season.

• The Eagles, withnew playerson the edge, will look to create pressure on Prescott with a four-man pass rush. Defensive Coordinator Vic Fangio blitzes infrequently – the Eagles had a 19.1 percent blitz rate last season, among the lowest in the NFL – and that will help on the back end in coverage.