The Cowboys are very quickly being faced with a major conundrum: Matt Eberflus. It’s rare that a team fires a head coach – let alone an assistant – during their first year on the job. Yet, it’s becoming harder and harder to justify keeping Eberflus around. The Dallas defense has been utterly miserable all year, and their one moment offering hope – a Week 5 win over the winless Jets – quickly withered away in a demoralizing loss to the Panthers.
Brian Schottenheimer has made it clear he’s not even thinking about moving on from Eberflus. On Monday, he had this to say:
“I’ve been Matt. I’ve been a coordinator. And I’ve been where people are calling you out and saying you don’t know how to coach and, ‘Man, this guy is the worst coach in history…’”
“Matt Eberflus is a damn good football coach. We have to perform better. But I’ve been him, so part of me being in [defensive meetings] is to help as an asset, to tell him I believe in him. I understand what he’s going through. It sucks. It’s no fun. We’re gonna ride this thing out. And we’ll play better. We really will.”
That’s an admirable response from Schottenheimer, who is surely thinking the same thing Eberflus must be thinking: I didn’t build this roster, or decide to trade away the best player a week before the season. In fact, Eberflus accepted this job fully under the impression that an extension with Micah Parsons would happen, only to quickly find out that would not be the case.
It’s easy to find excuses for Eberflus, and it’s understandable why Schottenheimer is hesitant to fire his defensive coordinator just six games into the season. He’s also right about Eberflus being a good coach; his track record, which we profiled back when the hire was made, speaks for itself.
That said, Eberflus has fielded a miserable defense week in and week out this year. This most recent game in Carolina was possibly the worst, even if the statistics don’t say so. Take, for example, the fourth down conversion that sealed the win for the Panthers:
It’s fourth down and the Panthers need three yards to move the chains. Eberflus lines up three defensive linemen to one side and has Kenneth Murray mugging the A gap. On the boundary side, Trevon Diggs is right at the line of scrimmage, while DaRon Bland is giving a 12-yard cushion to Hunter Renfrow, lined up three yards beyond the line to gain.
When the ball is snapped, Murray drops into a shallow zone before drifting towards Renfrow, who runs a quick slant. Bland, meanwhile, backpedals for a second before triggering down on Renfrow as he breaks inside. Neither player is quick enough to stop what was an easy throw.
Here’s the problem: Eberflus was essentially daring the Panthers to run this exact play. The pre-snap alignment suggests exactly that, and the only other explanation for leaving Bland so far off the line is sheer incompetence. More likely is that Eberflus was trying to bait Bryce Young into throwing the slant to Renfrow.
That idea is great in theory, but it relies on two things. First, Murray needs to move in Renfrow’s direction right at the snap to intercept – or at least break up – any pass. Second, Bland needs to trigger downhill immediately and meet Renfrow right at the line to gain, which is made nearly impossible by his deep alignment and backpedal at the snap.
So in the biggest moment of the game, Eberflus calls a play that attempts to bait the offense into throwing at two defenders that have struggled mightily thus far this season. That’s what takes this play from being great in theory to being terrible in reality. The Panthers took the bait, too, and they had zero regrets afterward.
Therein lies the problem, though: Eberflus is a good coach with a proven track record, but the roster he’s coaching in Dallas is not good enough for the defense he wants to run. Diggs and Bland excel in a press-heavy defense, while the pass rush unit has usually thrived with a heavy barrage of stunts and simulated pressures. None of those are features of the Eberflus defense, and his being in this role is the football equivalent of fitting a square peg into a round hole.
So what’s the solution? The Cowboys don’t have the personnel to run this scheme effectively, but not because their personnel lacks talent. They just have the wrong coach for the personnel. That leaves Schottenheimer with two options: force Eberflus to change up his scheme or fire him.
The second option presents an even harder question to answer: who replaces him? Pass game coordinator Andre Curtis makes the most logical sense, and he worked alongside Schottenheimer in Seattle, but he also spent the last three years with Eberflus in Chicago. So, too, did linebackers coach Dave Borgonzi. Neither of those coaches seem likely to come in and drastically change the scheme, while defensive line coach Aaron Whitecotton is considerably less experienced than the other two.
Of course, there’s also Nick Sorensen. The special teams coordinator was on Pete Carroll’s Seahawks staff for nine seasons, overlapping with Schottenheimer for three years. He primarily assisted with defensive backs, and was later the pass game coordinator for the 49ers before serving as their defensive coordinator last year. Granted, San Francisco fired Sorensen after one year in that role, and moving Sorensen to defensive coordinator would just create a hole at special teams coordinator.
The inability to sufficiently answer the question of a replacement is perhaps the biggest argument for keeping Eberflus, but that brings us back to Option 1: Schottenheimer must intervene. The players have already made it known they don’t like the scheme as is, yet Eberflus continues to run things his way. Now is the time for the head coach to step in and course correct.
If he does, Schottenheimer might be able to save the season. His offense is still putting up ridiculous numbers and is about to get CeeDee Lamb back, and his special teams is about to get KaVontae Turpin back. Fixing the defense is the single most important piece in making this year’s team actually matter, especially after recent losses for the Eagles and Commanders.
So while Eberflus is the one under fire, and rightfully so, the onus now shifts to Schottenheimer. The head coach has to put his foot down and demand a change if his coordinator won’t do it himself.
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