Especially in the wake of the Micah Parsons trade taking place one week before the start of the season, the Cowboys entered 2025 with questions on defense. That side of the ball has indeed been a sore spot so far. 
Through Week 6, Dallas sits at the bottom of the league in total defense and 31st in points allowed. As such, defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus has increasingly drawn criticism for his performance to date. The former Bears head coach is in his second Cowboys stint, and it is not in danger of ending any time soon.
“Matt Eberflus is a damn good football coach,” head coach Brian Schottenheimer said when asked about potential staffing changes (via Jon Machota of The Athletic). “We have to perform better. But I’ve been him, so part of me being in [the defensive meeting room] is to help as an asset, to tell him, ‘I believe in him. I understand what he’s going through…’ We’re gonna ride this thing out. And we’ll play better. We really will.”
After his first Cowboys stint – as the team’s linebackers coach – Eberflus spent four years as defensive coordinator of the Colts. Indianapolis posted a top-10 finish in points allowed three times under Eberflus, and he parlayed that strong coordinator showing into a head coaching gig. Things did not go according to plan in Chicago, though, and the 55-year-old was fired before his third season in charge was complete. Improvement will be needed if Eberflus is to rebuild his stock during his current Cowboys tenure.
“He’s had tremendous experience,” owner Jerry Jones said on today’s 105.3 The Fan appearance when offering an additional endorsement of Eberflus (h/t Machota). “He’s dealt with adversity. He’s had some great successes… I jumped at it when we had the chance to get him. I still feel as strongly [about him as the day we hired him].”
The Cowboys currently lead the league in total offense and rank third in the NFL in scoring. That has only resulted in a 2-3-1 record, however, in large part due to the shortcomings of Eberflus’ unit. It will be interesting to see if trades and/or free agent pickups are sought out to bolster the defense over the coming weeks. In any case, Eberflus’ job security early in his return to Dallas should not be regarded as uncertain at this point.
Ruh roh… he will be fired next week now.
as a bears fan I think he is a horrendous coach, HOWEVER trading Micah before the season gave who ever was their DC an absolutely impossible task and I have hard time seeing it as his fault
Maybe its time to admit that even though Troy Aikman falls all over himself praising every aspect of the team and all the Cowboys players either being “All Pro’s” or potentially soon to be recognized as so…..that maybe the defensive players just aren’t nearly as good as the Cowboys and Aikman seem to think…..we’ve been hearing for years how good they all are mostly from Jerry and the Cowboys marketing machine plus Aikman….and yet they haven’t been to the big game in how long?……
Is there any announcer as useless as Troy Aikman? I’ve never heard someone talk so much and say so little.
Joe Buck. They are the absolute worst pair of announcers in football. I can’t even listen to them and I’m a cowboy fan.
You guys have obviously never heard the tandem of Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins. They are much worse. Having Joe Buck EVER announce a Chicago game of any kind is obviously a horrible idea. The Chicago hatred just oozes out of his pathetic mouth.
All Aikman did last night was talk down about the Bears and all their mistakes. But when Washington fumbles the ball to lose the game, he was quiet.
Ever heard of Tom Brady?
I don’t know why one of these sports broadcast networks just doesn’t hire a couple of voice impersonators to do the games. The entertainment possibilities would be limitless. I like Kevin Pollak but there are several other talented people to consider as well.
If you’re willing to believe in the idea that a guy can be a good coach who just got stuck in a bad situation, then I guess you also have to accept the possibility that a guy can be a bad coach who lucked into a good situation. Therefore, his run of success doesn’t necessarily mean he has something to offer your team.
This may explain Matt Eberflus, a guy with some history of success who seems to be in way over his head with each new job he takes.
Don- The facts are the Bears would be 0-5 if Eberlose was the Bears coach still and wasn’t coaching for the other team when the Bears got their easiest win. They don’t win any of their games this year. Backing Eberlose is like backing a terminal disease. It’s a bad idea.
Eberflus was a decent D coordinator when he had talent. But how he got hired as Bears HC was mind boggling, then to have management stick with him when they drafted Williams was equally dumb. He was never anything special. His Ds were built on coverages not power attacks by the DL.
The officiating against the Bears last night was joke once again. I know it sucks both ways but it stood out last night on 2 plays in particular where it was blatant. The first was the horrible call against Benedet for being lined up too far back when it was obvious he wasn’t that negated a TD to Odunze. Even the Bear haters in the booth were shaking their heads. I would like to see when that flag was dropped BTW. The other was a BLATANT pick play by Washington where the WR picked Robinson to let the Commanders get a key first down that happened at a key time. Now I’ll agree that having Robinson cover a WR was probably not a good idea but there was NOBODY within 20 yards of those 2 guys and was DONE IN FULL VIEW of 2 refs who had to be Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles to have missed it. There were others like the PI on Loveland that were equally bad but those 2 were obvious. I don’t like to say tings are rigged but it’s starting to feel that way if you’re paying attention.
I agree about the officiating, actually. Wasn’t impressed with a few calls, including some of those that you mentioned.
Good win for Chicago, though. Swift just couldn’t be stopped. Johnson really called an amazing game, he deserves a ton of credit (along with Swift, and of course, the redemption of one Jake Moody).
Ooohhh! The endorsement is usually followed by the firing
The death kiss vote of confidence.
Taking a roster built for man coverage with a dicey linebackers group and giving it to a defensive coach who builds his scheme heavily around zone coverage and linebackers hasn’t gone well after trading away the best player right before the season. No one could have seen this coming.
Disagree….the owner (Jerry Jones), the GM…again Jerry Jones and his staff, and the HC are supposed to know their roster personnel strengths and weaknesses on both offense and defense ……Eberflus interviewed for the job which was when he outlined what his plan for defensive attack and its success was supposed to be with exactly this defense and its personnel…..what was the braintrust thinking if your analagy about zone vs man actually is true……and as a sidebar….Aikman anointed Diggs as the second coming when the rest of us saw a showboater who can be had…..
Truly struggling to understand what point you’re making here.
In a nutshell it’s that Eberlose bend don’t break approach sucks and Jones squared should have seen that coming and not hired him.
I agree 100%, actually, and came to say the same thing. Not an endorsement of Eberflus independently, of course, but ironically the Cowboys have seen this before. When they fired Rod Marinelli (in the emerging years of Demarcus Lawrence’s rise to stardom), Dallas hired the veteran Mike Nolan to manage McCarthy’s first defenses. McCarthy indicated that they wouldn’t switch too much, but Nolan ran a completely opposite scheme in every respect from Marinelli. What was a perfect zone 4 man front turned into a zone/man 3-4 overnight, and the personnel across the board (especially the DBs) were not suited for it. Eventually, they experienced a large uptick in their ability to cause turnovers, but Nolan was fired. Eventually the defense stabilized as the personnel were added to run it appropriately.
The Bills didn’t the same thing in their transition from Jim Schwartz’s 4 man front to Rex Ryan’s zone3-4. Their unit went from one of the best in the league to one of the worst. By the time Ryan was fired, the defense had improved to about average, but the personnel still weren’t suited for it. When a team has a great (or even good) defense, they probably shouldn’t hire a coach that runs an exact opposite scheme and expect it to remain the same. The Cowboys did one better and traded their generational pass rusher…you can see how could go in a repeat scenario.
I don’t know if Eberflus will turn it around ( or if he will even stick around long enough to have a chance), but I will say that my eyebrow raised when I saw this hire. The Cowboys defense is going to have to be completely restocked if they want to commit to this scheme, or the scheme is going to have to change. There is some precedent of the latter happening-Denver’s Vance Joseph did this just last year after the disastrous Miami game. He completely changed his base tendencies and adjust his scheme to the players, while abandoning some of his old concepts. It’s worked masterfully. Now, Denver has a MUCH more talented defense than Dallas, but bear in mind that a lot of those guys built their stardom after the scheme change. It’s fair to think that it aided them in their own rises.
They say good coaches coach to their personnel rather than forcing square pegs into round holes, but with a team that’s not exactly in a total rebuild, either hiring a coach who makes some sense for the roster or one who’s flexible to the talent on hand would be good. I do think Eberflus can be a good defensive coordinator, like he has been before, and I get bringing in a coordinator with head coach experience for a first time head coach, but this is looking grim on defense. (Whereas hiring Adams on offense looks fantastic.)
That’s a verifiable fact. Good coaches look at the players they have and fit the scheme to them. If you want to change to a different scheme you have to get different players. That’s coaching 101.
It’s always fun watching a player extra a little retribution against his former team and 239 scrimmage yards by Rico Dowdie was a nice “Hey, guys! remember me?” moment.
Well, he did call it. I wonder how long this can last-Dowdle has been the best back in the league these last two weeks, and pound for pound arguably may have been the best offensive player. 400+ yards in two games is just sinister.
I mean, we all saw this was coming once Micah was traded. He was more than just “one guy” on the field. Defense is a whole lot easier to play when two offensive players (or more) are assigned to keep one guy from getting to your QB. Every half second more you give a NFL QB, the more effective he becomes.
That last statement sounds quite logical but the data doesn’t support it. Let’s use Tom Brady as an example. According to Pro Football Reference his passer rating when in the pocket for less than 2 1/2 seconds was 99.8. When he had more time in the pocket than that his passer rating was only 90.6. You’ll find several other QBs who seemed to be less effective when having more time so Brady is not an isolated case.
How dare you cloud my post with facts!!