Coming off back-to-back victories, the Dallas Cowboys suffered a 30-27 letdown at the hands of the Carolina Panthers on Sunday afternoon. While there were some positives, including the continued emergence of wide receiver George Pickens, they were overshadowed by another pitiful performance from the defense led by Matt Eberflus.
The Cowboys coughed up 410 yards of offense, including 229 total yards and a touchdown to Rico Dowdle, in the loss. While Cowboys players may be unhappy, head coach Brian Schottenheimer did nothing to calm the waters, suggesting that Eberflus’s struggles are a result of the players not doing their jobs when he was asked if he has the personnel to run the scheme.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Eberflus said, via The Athletic’s Jon Machota. “No question about it."
Brian Schottenheimer is in Denial About the Cowboys’ Defense
Schottenheimer’s comments come off as his choice to bury his head in the sand when it comes to the Cowboys' defense. Dallas entered Sunday allowing the fourth-most points per game (30.8) in the NFL, which clearly isn't where Schottenheimer wants that unit to rank as we approach the midway mark of the 2025 campaign.
Even worse? Players such as Trevon Diggs have been outspoken about changing coverages to help the unit. Despite those calls for change, Eberflus has been defiant in insisting that his scheme isn’t the problem.
Issues like this one fall on the head coach to step in and ensure a solution that is best for the team is arrived at. Instead, Schottenheimer seemed to side with his defensive coordinator, citing his track record both as a defensive coordinator and head coach.
“Matt’s a great coach,” Schottenheimer said via Machota. “Everywhere he’s ever been he’s had good defenses. It’s not just Matt by himself. Matt’s trying. The players are trying. This is not a lack of effort.”
In case you’re wondering, Eberflus has been either a DC or head coach for eight seasons. During that time, he's led a top-10 defense in yardage once and a top-10 defense in scoring on three occasions. His defenses also haven’t ranked in the top 10 in either category since he left the Indianapolis Colts after the 2021 season to take the head coaching job with the Chicago Bears. Before being relieved of his duties during the 2024 season, the Bears ranked 27th in yardage allowed and 13th in scoring.
With NFL teams making adjustments on a play-by-play basis, Schottenheimer's stubbornness and loyalty cost the Cowboys the game. Unless someone makes a change, Dallas will be living out the definition of insanity and will be doomed to keep repeating their mistakes.