The Matt Eberflus experiment with the Dallas Cowboys sounds like it’s reaching a crossroads moment to end the season. During his weekly interview with Shan & RJ of 105.3 The Fan, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was particularly blunt with how disappointed he’s been with the defense this season.
Ever since Week 2, when the Cowboys welcomed the New York Giants to AT&T Stadium, almost every team Dallas has faced has been a “get right game” for their offense. When Eberflus came in to replace Mike Zimmer, the Jones’ were hoping they were getting the same hot-name coach who left the team after the 2017 season to become the defensive coordinator in Indianapolis with the Colts.
Eberflus went on to have enough success with the Colts to land him a head coaching job with the Chicago Bears. In his nearly three years with the Bears, his defenses were hit-or-miss, but for the most part were not the weakest part of the operation—that fell on the shoulders of the offense, and his lack of experience as a game manager in big-game moments.
It felt like a natural transition to hand the keys over to a coordinator who was familiar with Dallas and lend a helping hand to a first-time head coach, Brian Schottenheimer. However, for a variety of reasons, the wheels fell off early and often, leaving Dallas with a historically bad defense for most of the season.
There will be ample time to discuss the major flaws in Eberflus’ scheme, but the most disappointing aspect is how the Cowboys performed against the NFC North.
Allowing opponents to score an average of 38 points per game is unacceptable. Allowing this to occur against teams from your old neighborhood is grounds for dismissal.
The NFC North should be a division Eberflus is well familiar with, given that he coached in it for three years. Okay, so maybe the Bears can be an exception given having a first year head coa……… oh, wait. Ben Johnson moved just four hours west of where he had his claim to fame as the offensive coordinator with the Detroit Lions, so Eberflus had no reason not to be ready for the offensive play callers in the division.
The familiarity goes both ways. Johnson, Matt LaFleur, and Kevin O’Connell are used to playing an Eberflus-led defense, too. If the Cowboys want to contend with the top teams in the conference, including the Lions and Packers, they need a coordinator who can keep up with the NFC North. Look at Mike Macdonald in Seattle. A major reason he was hired as head coach was that his defensive scheme gave the Seahawks a fighting chance against Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan in the NFC West.
When the Cowboys’ schedule came out, it felt like having Eberflus in the building would have given Dallas a fighter’s chance against the teams in his former division. Instead, Dallas’ defense lost by knockout a didn’t manage to win a single game.
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