Matt Eberflus had tremendous success during his stint as the Dallas Cowboys linebacker coach. Sean Lee thrived under him. Anthony Hitchens and Damien Wilson became legitimate role players thanks to his teachings. We all (speaking generally here) wanted him to have the defensive coordinator title in an official sense in those days, but the Cowboys held strong in keeping Rod Marinelli.
Times are tough for Eberflus’ defense right now and no one is here to cast stones. We are simply here to look at how we got to this point and where it all started.
The front office holds blame for Matt Eberflus
Let’s be clear that Matt Eberflus is responsible for his own actions. His defense is actively holding the Cowboys back as an overall team and he deserves blame. We are in unison.
Now let’s zoom out. Brian Schottenheimer is in his first year as the Cowboys’ head coach and one would assume that he would have been the one in charge of determining who his DC would be. Remember that this is the Dallas Cowboys, though.
Jump to the 10:22 mark of this interview that Ed Werder and Matt Mosley conducted with Eberflus back in the offseason. Werder asks Eberflus what made him want to return to Dallas given that he (in Werder’s words) had other offers to be a DC in 2025.
“Number one, the Jones family. The familiarity with them. I love Mr. Jones, Stephen Jones, and the entire family. To be able to come back and work with those guys. I trust them, know them, have a relationship with them. That to was number one.”
“Secondly, when I was visiting with the Cowboys at that time I really didn’t know who the head coach was going to be because everybody was recruiting everybody at that time.”
NFL hiring cycles can be wild. It is fair to have discussions and interviews with candidates for different spots on your staff due to the chaotic nature of it all. But consider that for Eberflus the Jones family was number one on his list and that he did not know his boss would be Brian Schottenheimer.
Consider that this report from Pro Football Talk reinforced how Eberflus was thought to be the top defensive coordinator for the Cowboys even before Schotty was hired to be the team’s head coach. Conspiracy theorists noted at the time how Eberflus fit the mold as someone who the front office has a relationship and familiarity with, so did Schotty to be fair, which draws the line between the dots.
It is easy and convenient to blame the Jones family when times are tough for the Cowboys, but in this instance it is more than fair. Their apparent insistence on someone they knew has directly compromised this season given that the defense is by far the weakest point of this team at the moment.
With all due respect to Eberflus, we should also call out that the Cowboys hired him at literally the first moment that they could when he had to take a demotion. He left Dallas (when he was not the DC) for the DC role with the Indianapolis Colts and left them to be the head coach in Chicago. His next stop was his current one.
These words will fall on deaf ears, but if the Cowboys want to have any type of success in the Brian Schottenheimer era then they are going to have to empower the man to make his own decisions.
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