The Cowboys have one game left to play in the regular season, and no decisions have officially been made, but it sure feels like Matt Eberflus will be departing the staff after just one year as defensive coordinator. Not only has Jerry Jones publicly hinted at it, but his recent comments on Eberflus not playing Logan Wilson suggest a growing frustration.
It’s a strange and saddening development for many reasons. Eberflus has always had a strong track record on defense, routinely producing top 10 defenses in Indianapolis. Even as the Bears head coach, Eberflus often leaned on strong defensive performances as his offenses languished in mediocrity. Eberflus had many failures as a head coach, but the defense was very, very low on the list of problems in Chicago.
So what went wrong in Dallas? Specifically, what went so poorly that Eberflus now seems highly likely to be one-and-done in his return to the franchise where he came into his own as a coach? And what needs to happen to turn things around?
Micah Parsons trade didn’t help
It’s impossible to talk about the 2025 season without bringing up the Micah Parsons trade. Cowboys fans are not even slightly interested in giving Eberflus any excuses, but the Parsons factor can’t be ignored or discounted.
When Eberflus took the job, he believed Parsons would be on the roster. As he started to build out his playbook and install the scheme, it was done so with the belief that the best defender in the league would be on that line of scrimmage, serving as the cornerstone of the pass rush team.
There’s no question that Parsons would’ve made this defense better. He wouldn’t have fixed the busted coverage assignments, but Dallas wouldn’t be so feast-or-famine in the pass rush department, which would have helped the secondary to a degree, as well.
Asking Eberflus to adjust his defense just a week before the season kicked off was objectively unfair. Any coordinator would have struggled with such an adjustment, and it should serve as a reminder that the defensive struggles go beyond just one coordinator.
Of course, plenty of other coordinators would have been able to adjust by now, while Eberflus hasn’t. But things got off to a miserable start before Eberflus had even called a regular season game.
Poor fit with talent
Even before the Parsons trade, some were sounding the alarm on how Eberflus would fit in Dallas. Eberflus had a well-established scheme he fine-tuned right here in Dallas under the mentorship of Rod Marinelli. That meant a fairly faithful adaptation of the storied Tampa 2 defense, which prioritizes disruption from the front four while dropping the back seven into zone coverage with two high safeties.
In Chicago, Eberflus introduced some variation into his schemes, mixing in more Cover 3 than he had in Indianapolis. That coincided with the addition of Andre Curtis, formerly from the Seahawks and currently the Cowboys’ pass game coordinator. Eberflus also incorporated more blitzes into his defense, though mostly using defensive backs for that.
None of that played into the strengths of the Cowboys’ defensive personnel. Trevon Diggs and DaRon Bland had both thrived in Dan Quinn’s scheme, which alternated between press bail techniques in Cover 3 and press man coverage in Cover 1. Quinn also used plenty of simulated pressures, often sending linebackers after the quarterback and crowding the line of scrimmage pre-snap to muddy the picture.
Eberflus simply doesn’t do that. When he blitzes, he tries to disguise it until the ball is snapped. He rarely uses stunts or twists on the defensive line and rarely puts more than four on the line of scrimmage, a stark departure from what both Quinn and Mike Zimmer had done before him.
Eberflus operates without much pre-snap subterfuge, preferring to focus on playing fast and executing simple concepts rather than the controlled chaos of Quinn and Zimmer. But if the players aren’t cut out to execute those simple concepts, it’s the equivalent of a cow’s opinion: a moo(t) point.
Lack of adjustments
By far the biggest indictment on Eberflus this year is how little he’s changed. The Parsons trade was objectively unfair, and it threw a massive wrench in the plans for this defense, but Eberflus also never made the necessary adjustments to account for it. He continued to play primarily zone coverage and shied away from using press techniques with any regularity.
He also made limited use of simulated pressures despite his pass rush unit struggling to generate pressure consistently. Even Kenneth Murray, who posted an 18% pass rush win rate on blitzes last year with the Titans, rarely got sent on blitzes despite Eberflus’ insistence on playing Murray over any other Cowboys linebackers.
The only adjustments Eberflus made that lasted more than one or two weeks was his use of five-man fronts following the Quinnen Williams trade. While that tweak was genuinely good and made a bit of a difference, it wasn’t enough on its own, and only served to underscore just how little Eberflus was willing to deviate from his rigid schemes.
What needs to happen next
The Cowboys defense is salvageable. Not this year, of course, but next year. There are building blocks. The trio of Williams, Osa Odighizuwa, and Kenny Clark are all under contract, giving Dallas perhaps the best defensive tackle room in the league. Donovan Ezeiruaku has flashed plenty of promise as a rookie, and Jadeveon Clowney has started to catch fire, though his contract is up after this year.
Logan Wilson is under contract for the next two years and has been an upgrade over Murray when he’s played. DeMarvion Overshown should also be an impact player after a full offseason at full health. Marist Liufau has also flashed promise, though he seemingly fell out of favor with Eberflus.
The secondary is a more complicated issue, and probably needs the most attention. Diggs seems very likely to be gone, and Bland will be recovering from another foot surgery. Donovan Wilson is a pending free agent, and Malik Hooker will be 30 by next year. Shavon Revel has flashed but still needs work, while both Caelen Carson and Reddy Steward have had some good moments here and there.
By no means is the deck stacked, but there are pieces that would make the coordinator job appealing. What Dallas needs more than anything is a coach with a proven ability to adjust the scheme to his personnel. Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores, Colts defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo, and Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula have all proven very capable of doing exactly that, and should be viewed as the model.
If the Cowboys can find the next Flores, Anarumo, or Shula, their defense will be in better shape just by virtue of having a coach willing to make adjustments. They’ll still have work to do on the roster, but schematic flexibility is a must for the next phase of this Dallas defense.
See More:
