Photo by Amy Lemus/NurPhoto via Getty Images There are plenty of reasons to be excited about a potential addition of Matt Eberflus. It wasn’t that long ago when the Dallas Cowboys were lacking coaches. Now, just a few days later, they have named Brian Schottenheimer as their new head coach and Matt Eberflus is gaining a lot of buzz as their potential new defensive coordinator. On Saturday, our own David Howman discussed why the Schottenheimer decision makes sense for the Cowboys. Today, we’ll look at what they would be getting in reuniting with an old friend. Getting the timing right Fans might remember Eberflus from his first stint with the Cowboys starting back in 2011 when he came over from Cleveland with then-defensive coordinator Rob Ryan. While Ryan’s time in Dallas was short-lived, Eberflus was able to hang around. When the team moved on from Ryan and replaced him with Monte Kiffin and then Rod Marinelli, Eberflus became the team’s linebacker coach. Eberflus spent seven years in Dallas and by 2018, his ability as a coach was being recognized. The Cowboys wanted to promote him to defensive coordinator, but they still had Marinelli so they tried to get sly and just re-title Marinelli as the assistant head coach, opening up the DC position for Eberflus. Not wanting to create tension, Eberflus left Dallas and joined the Indianapolis Colts as their new defensive coordinator. Eberflus’ success continued in Indy and he was hired by the Chicago Bears to be their new head coach in 2022. The gig in Chicago didn’t work out after three losing seasons (almost three, he was fired after Week 13), so now he’s going back to what he does best, and this time around, the Cowboys do have an opening at defensive coordinator. Combined with the offensive-minded Schottenheimer, Eberflus feels like the perfect fit. The linebacker whisperer The former linebackers coach has a strong track record for getting the most out of his linebackers wherever he goes. Starting in Dallas, he was gifted the talented Sean Lee who played at an All-Pro level whenever he was healthy. But Eberflus did a lot with other guys too. Bruce Carter put together strong performances in Dallas, including a five-interception season in 2014. Anthony Hitchens also played beyond expectations with four solid years. Both he and Carter left for a nice payday after their rookie contracts expired with the Cowboys. Eberflus also helped rejuvenate Rolando McClain’s career during his short return to the league. He did the same thing in Indianapolis. Shaq Leonard had four All-Pro seasons with the Colts and then quickly faded. It just so happens that those four years were the same four years Eberflus was with the team. Joining the Cowboys staff should help get the most out of the linebackers, just as former defensive line coach Dan Quinn helped their pass rush and former defensive backs coach Mike Zimmer worked miracles with their injury-riddled secondary. Eberflus will inherit the rising talent of Marist Liufau and hopefully the eventual return of DeMarvion Overshown. Take it away When Quinn was here, the Cowboys’ defense was one of the best units in the league at taking the ball away. They finished No. 1 in the league in 2021 and 2022 with a combined total of 67 forced turnovers. It was a huge reason the Cowboys had one of the stronger defenses in the league. The Cowboys have slipped a little these past two years as they’ve ranked 12th in takeaways in each of the last two years, but the Eberflus influence should help sharpen some of that thievery. As a defensive coordinator, his Colts’ units finished in the top 10 in takeaways all four seasons with the team. They finished inside the top 10 in interceptions all four years and inside the top 10 in fumble recoveries in three of his four seasons with the team. When it comes to taking the ball away, his squads are pretty good at it. Stingy with the points Forcing turnovers is great, but keeping opposing offensives out of the end zone is what really matters. During his time with the Colts, his defenses finished in the top 10 in points allowed three times. This was a breath of fresh air for a Colts defense that had finished outside the top 20 in points allowed in each of the previous three seasons, including the third-worst the season right before Eberflus showed up. Eberflus has done a good job shutting teams down. The Cowboys know this firsthand. Only once has Dallas been shut out in a game over the last 20 years and it just so happens to be the time they faced Eberflus’ Colts where they lost 23-0 back in 2019.

Peter Casey-Imagn Images Which NFC East team do you hope wins on Sunday? Eagles injury update: Key Eagles return to practice ahead of NFC Championship Game – Dave Zangaro, NBC Sports Philadelphia Philly is getting healthy just in time for the conference championship game. Starting center Cam Jurgens (back) and tight end Dallas Goedert (ankle) returned to practice on Friday ahead of the Eagles’ NFC Championship Game against the Commanders on Sunday. Both Jurgens and Goedert were listed as non-participants to start the week and neither practiced on Thursday. So it was a good sign for the Eagles to have them both back on the field Friday, participating in the final practice of the week. In fact, every player on the Eagles’ 53-man roster was on the field as the Eagles practiced in their indoor bubble at the NovaCare Complex. Practice was initially scheduled to be held at the Linc but the Eagles moved it inside instead. During these playoffs, Goedert has been the Eagles’ leading receiver with 8 catches for 103 yards. He also gives them a lot as a blocker in their run game. The Eagles’ backup tight ends on the roster are Grant Calcaterra and E.J. Jenkins. Jalen Hurts (knee) was back on the field Friday after being upgraded to a full participant on Thursday. He’s going to play in the NFC Championship Game, it’s just a matter of how mobile he will be. “I think he’s had a good week of practice,” head coach Nick Sirianni said, “and I think he’s done some really good things all week. We’ll see.” The other notable injury coming out of Sunday’s game was to rookie cornerback Quinyon Mitchell (shoulder). But the rookie was also upgraded to a full participant on Thursday and has already said he’s playing. What is the Biggest Concern For the Washington Commanders Against the Eagles? – Caleb Skinner, Sports Illustrated A devastating injury along their offensive line could be troublesome for Jayden Daniels. It is almost time for the Washington Commanders to play in a game they haven’t been to in over 30 years when they face off against the Philadelphia Eagles for a third time this season in the NFC Championship game. The Commanders aren’t favored to come out victorious but they have shown before that they shouldn’t be doubted. As mentioned, this team goes as the offense goes, and that will be much needed on Sunday when they head to Philly. Jayden Daniels and his cast have been phenomenal this season and will again look to put points on the scoreboard. Unfortunately for Daniels and the offense, they will have to continue battling without their star offensive lineman Sam Cosmi who suffered a torn ACL ending his season. With the game just on the horizon, CBS Sports’ Cody Benjamin wondered if Jayden Daniels’ play could help offset the absence left by Cosmi. “Lost in the magic of their divisional-round upset of the Detroit Lions was a season-ending injury to Cosmi, who’d quietly graded out as one of this year’s top 25 interior pass blockers, per PFF,” Benjamin wrote. “Daniels has an effortless ability to extend plays or move the chains with his legs, but now up against a stingy Eagles front that includes the ferocious Jalen Carter, he might need to be especially quick with his decisions.” Eli Manning willing to help Giants evaluate quarterbacks – Dan Benton, USA Today The Super Bowl-winning quarterback wants to help any way he can. The New York Giants enter the offseason with a singular goal in mind: Find the next franchise quarterback. That player could be signed as a free agent, acquired via trade, or selected in the 2025 NFL draft. There could even be multiple quarterbacks added in an effort to develop one while another serves as a bridge. However the Giants plan to approach it, retired legend Eli Manning is offering his help in evaluating the many options. “I like watching film,” Manning said, via the New York Post. “If that’s something I’m wanted for, needed for, be happy to look at film and get involved in that part of it.” Although Manning still works for the Giants in a business operations and fan engagement role, he is not currently involved in any sort of scouting. However, he has occasionally been asked for his input over the years. “Yes, I mean a little bit, just over the years, just guys I’ve been around, whether it’s Jaxson Dart of Ole Miss or quarterbacks over the years who have been to the Manning Passing Academy,” he said. “Just what kind of person they are, kind of more off-the-field stuff than maybe on the field.” Because of the Manning Passing Academy, Eli does have significant firsthand knowledge of most quarterback prospects. At some point or another, many cycle through the academy at least once with several making a multitude of appearances. That also provides Manning the opportunity to converse with the young quarterbacks who are headed to the NFL. And should the Giants hone in on anyone specific, Manning could get into their ear and help them understand the pressure that comes along with playing in New York. “It’s not an easy situation,” he said. “A lot of pressure, a lot of expectations and being in New York, really being around the NFL, they expect immediate results, which is not easy to do, in any market playing the quarterback position. Who do you got in the NFC Conference Championship game, the Eagles or the Commanders? Hit the comments and let us know your take.

Photo by Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images The Cowboys need to get back to hitting home runs in the draft. The word “frustrating” has been used now more than ever to describe the Dallas Cowboys. Whether it has been through the Cowboys coaching search trying to replace Mike McCarthy, their lack of aggressiveness in free agency and the trade market, the way they have handled recent contract negotiations, or their performances in the playoffs, Cowboys fans are becoming quite familiar with being frustrated. One of the reasons they were as bad as they were in 2024 and their inability to get over the hump in the playoffs is because they simply have not drafted well over the last three-to-four years. NFC East rival and Super Bowl-contender, the Philadelphia Eagles, are coming off a year in which they added multiple Rookie of the Year candidates in Cooper DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell. In 2023, they added Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith. In 2022, they added Jordan Davis, Cam Jurgens, and Nakobe Dean to the fold and all those additions are key reasons they are competing for the NFC Championship this weekend. In their first year under new ownership, the Washington Commanders built a playoff contending team quickly adding Jayden Daniels, Jer’Zhan Newton, Mike Sainristil, and Brandon Coleman, all key pieces to the Commanders and their ability to reach the NFC Championship game. Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images For the Cowboys, they have struggled to add true-difference makers through the draft in recent years. Out of the 2024 draft, Cooper Beebe is the only player that played at an acceptable level. In 2023, DeMarvion Overshown is the only player drafted who has showed signs of being a true difference-maker, but after yet another devastating knee injury, the Cowboys would be wise to plan to be without Overshown for the foreseeable future. In 2022, Dallas did hit home runs with Tyler Smith and DaRon Bland, and Jake Ferguson has potential, but the rest of their 2022 draft class, who will be heading into the last year of their rookie deal in 2025, have left a lot to be desired. That more than anything is the key difference between the Eagles and the Commanders who have absolutely crushed their recent drafts, all while adding difference-makers in free agency over the last few offseasons. By now, Cowboy fans should not expect the team to make splashes in free agency, but with their inability to add multiple difference-makers in the last few drafts, it leaves them behind the eight ball in terms of roster building with the rest of their NFC rivals. Looking at it a bit deeper, the Los Angeles Rams, a team Stephen Jones has criticized on their team building strategy, has been a much better drafting team over the three-to-four year stretch we are talking about. The Rams have added Jared Verse, Braden Fiske, Kamren Kinchens, Beaux Limmer, Steve Avilla, Byron Young, Kobie Turner, Puka Nacua, Kyren Williams, and Cobie Durant, over the last three drafts, to continue to build a competitive roster after going “all-in” for their Super Bowl victory in 2021-2022. The Detroit Lions, a Super Bowl favorite over the last two years, have built their roster heavily through the draft, adding Terrion Arnold, Jahmyr Gibbs, Jack Campbell, Sam LaPorta, Brian Branch, Aidan Hutchinson, Jameson Williams, and Kerby Joseph through the last three drafts. The Cowboys playoff hopes live and die with how they do in the NFL Draft, and over the last three years they have added just four difference-makers, while their NFC rivals having much better luck building their team through the draft, while also using other resources to add talent. With uncertainty surrounding who will coach the team in 2025 and beyond, one thing is for certain, and that is for this team to get back to its winning ways they need to crush the 2025 NFL Draft. It has been quite a while since they have done so, but it is likely now-or-never for this team’s chances of making a playoff push.

Photo by Nic Antaya/Getty Images It may be hard to believe, but there are still NFL teams playing football this weekend. Four of them to be exact, meaning, of course, that Sunday’s games will determine who plays in Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans. A division rival of the Dallas Cowboys is guaranteed to be there as the Philadelphia Eagles host the Washington Commanders in the NFC Championship Game. For the Eagles, it will be their third appearance in this game over the last eight seasons. Representing a division well-known for not having any repeat winners for more than the last two decades, the Eagles have found some consistency in a place it matters much more – the postseason. The Commanders appearance in Sunday’s early game is their first since 1991, which officially made the Cowboys drought of not appearing a win away from the Super Bowl since 1996 the longest in the conference. When the Eagles and Commanders square off for the third time this season, looking to determine a series winner after both teams defended home field in the regular season, it will be a matchup of former Cowboys coaches in Eagles OC Kellen Moore and Commanders HC Dan Quinn as well. While Dallas’ circus of a coaching search ended with internal candidate Brian Schottenheimer being hired, two of their former assistants have found the grass much greener on the other side. As if the Cowboys going 7-10 and missing the playoffs entirely after winning the division a year ago didn’t offer enough potential for their front office to finally learn some hard lessons, the cherry on top has to be the two teams finishing ahead of them still vying for the Lombardi trophy. Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images The Cowboys are well aware that a rapidly growing number of younger fans are coming to know them more for their playoff failures since 1996 and not anything close to their own history of hoisting the game’s ultimate prize. The actual nuts and bolts, football-related reasons why the Cowboys have fallen off so much feel as far away as their Super Bowl XXX win, and unfortunately adding the Commanders and Eagles reaching this point with their former coaches hasn’t seemed to help much. The Cowboys went a combined 1-3 against these teams this season, with a wacky, impossible to replicate fourth quarter win at the Commanders in Week 12. Aside from that the reasons these teams are better than the Cowboys on the field are obvious, and have been on display for the Eagles in playoff wins against the Packers and Rams so far, and likewise for the Commanders against the Buccaneers and top-seeded Lions on the road. One of the results of being faced with an early start to the offseason in Dallas was supposed to be the jolt needed to actually address the future of the team. Instead the Cowboys appear just as rudderless as they were throughout a meaningless regular season they brought upon themselves. So, with less than 48 hours until either Kellen Moore or Dan Quinn is actually handed a trophy, let’s take a closer look at the reality the Cowboys currently find themselves in. The Coaching Factor Robert Saleh. Leslie Frazier. Kellen Moore. Brian Schottenheimer. Those are the four names of the only coaches to officially interview for the Cowboys head coaching vacancy. This is the list produced by Jerry Jones’ reported “solo mission” to find his franchise’s next coach after five seasons of Mike McCarthy. No Ben Johnson, who went to the Chicago Bears. No Aaron Glenn, who is now the head coach of the New York Jets. No Mike Vrabel, who predictably returned to the New England Patriots. Even the slight intrigue of the Cowboys starting the interview process with Saleh and then adding Frazier, signaling a potential shift to a defensive mind after a decade and a half of Garrett and McCarthy specializing in offense, was quickly swept up in the momentum of another offensive hire feeling inevitable once Schottenheimer became the first candidate to reach a second interview. The very fact the Cowboys needed a new head coach after rumors and speculation they wanted McCarthy back, and it was more of the former coach’s decision to part ways than it was the front office was surprising. McCarthy has since interviewed for the now-taken Bears job as well as the still-open Saints job. If this is true, hiring Schottenheimer is the closest thing to McCarthy, his offensive coordinator for the last two seasons, and is probably also the closest thing the Cowboys can do to tell the fans they don’t see a need for real change. Schottenheimer has never had an opportunity to call plays for the Cowboys, but the bad taste left in the mouth of how the offense looked so inept and fundamentally broken under both McCarthy and Schottenheimer’s guidance in 2024 is enough to feel like retaining any significant part of the previous staff on this side of the ball is a bad idea. There is another layer to this that perhaps gets even darker. Again, if it remains true that the Cowboys were sent into scramble mode even just a little bit by McCarthy’s exit, their final interview list paints a picture of not having the easiest time in the world convincing coaches to consider the job. When the quarterback responsible for three of the five Super Bowls in the team’s history calls the job “not exactly coveted”, there is fire where this smoke blows. The Cowboys clearly had their opportunity to choose Quinn as their head coach if they wanted to over the three seasons he was McCarthy’s defensive coordinator, sticking with McCarthy and watching Quinn remain loyal. This loyalty ran out at the exact same time the magic of Quinn’s defense did as well, as a 48-32 beatdown at the hands of the Packers in the Wild Card round last year hurt Quinn’s prospects as a head coach candidate elsewhere. It took a while, but

Stephen Lew-Imagn Images Kellen Moore reportedly coveted the Cowboys job that went to Brian Schottenheimer. After about two weeks the Dallas Cowboys finally made a move at head coach on Friday night and chose to hire Brian Schottenheimer, their offensive coordinator over the last two seasons. Schottenheimer was also on staff for one year prior to that. To say that the Schottenheimer thing came out of nowhere for the Cowboys would be to put the situation quite mildly. It all began on Monday morning when he appeared as the betting favorite by one oddsmaker and by that day’s end he had been scheduled to interview formally with the team. Yes, he was the betting favorite before an interview even happened. As the week wore on Schottenheimer would gain a second interview, the only candidate to do so, and on Friday night at just about 10pm ET the news was made official. Schottenheimer was indeed the only candidate to formally interview twice, but three others did so once apiece: Kellen Moore, Robert Saleh and Leslie Frazier. This time last week it really felt like Moore might be the top choice by Cowboys brass, but obviously opinions changed. Whether opinions were impacted by Moore’s current team in the Philadelphia Eagles still being active in the playoffs and him therefore unavailable for activities that have to get underway or any other reason, there was seemingly a pivot. In the aftermath of the Schottenheimer news becoming official, there were many pieces of information reported by various insiders. Among the thoughts that ESPN’s Todd Archer offered was that Moore reportedly coveted this job. Coaches, executives and industry people I spoke to were shocked that Schottenheimer rose to the top of Jerry Jones’ list above seemingly more qualified candidates. Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, a former Cowboys player and the former OC in Dallas, was believed to covet the job and there is surprise in league circles that Dallas didn’t wait to explore that possibility more fully. There are two ways to read the report from Archer here. The first is obvious in that an assumption can be made he is saying that Moore coveted the job this cycle and wanted the job and is therefore upset that he did not get it. There is certainly logic to that idea. Another perspective though is that the belief that Moore coveted the job could have been one held by many prior to the process unfolding. Maybe everybody in question believed that Moore long coveted the job, but that he individually ultimately felt differently. There are a number of possible realities here. That the Cowboys job is or was a coveted job at any point this cycle by Kellen Moore or anyone else is an idea that another former quarterback of the team would seemingly disagree with. You will recall that on the day that Dallas and Mike McCarthy officially parted ways that Troy Aikman blasted the team’s process and specifically said that he did not believe the job to be a coveted one. He used that exact word. Troy Aikman on the Dallas Cowboys: “I thought Mike McCarthy would be the head coach, so this is a bit of a surprise for me today… It suggests that there’s not a real plan… To say that it’s a coveted job, I’m not sure I would necessarily agree with that.” ️#NFL pic.twitter.com/M6cmb1dOaO — Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 13, 2025 Maybe Moore really wanted the job and is bummed out that he did not get. Perhaps Moore thought he wanted the job and things ultimately changed for him or the team. Whatever the case the job officially belongs to Brian Schottenheimer, whether it was coveted or not at any point in recent history.