The Cowboys front office has one more game to evaluate the work of defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus when the Cowboys finish the 2025 regular season against the New York Giants.
If Jerry Jones’ comments on Friday tell you anything, a decision on Eberflus’ future hasn’t been made, but things don’t look good.
“No, not at all,” Jones said on 105.3 The Fan (KRLD-FM) about his comfort level with Eberflus and the defensive scheme employed. “We got a lot of work to do there.”
During the interview, Jones expressed excitement with the Cowboys’ 30-23 win over the Washington Commanders on Christmas Day. That victory ended a three-game losing streak, and Jones, along with several other players, said finishing the season strong is a must.
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Jones said his enthusiasm for the victory shouldn’t be confused with his thoughts on the defense overall.
The Cowboys won an ugly game and the defense played a role in that. Jones didn’t like the seven plays of 15 or more yards his defense gave up.
The Commanders started 39-year old Josh Johnson, the third quarterback, and he was sacked once and hit six times. Jadeveon Clowney had 1 1/2 sacks and three quarterback hits. Clowney’s effort, his best of the season, also included six quarterback pressures out of 16 pass rushes. He also had two tackles for either a loss or no gain.
However, the Cowboys defense (41 plays), which wasn’t on the field as much as the offense (87 plays), allowed an average of eight yards per play. There was a 72-yard touchdown run by Jacory Croskey-Merritt, where he hit top speeds of 21.6 miles per hour, the 15th fastest run of the season according to Next Gen Stats. Wide receiver Deebo Samuels had a 41-yard reception on a screen pass where near the end of it, he knocked the helmet off safety Donovan Wilson.
Every time the Cowboys offense, which pushed the lead to 21-3 in the first half, pulled away, the defense struggled to maintain the comfortable lead. It allowed the Commanders to come within a touchdown three times after trailing 21-3.
Johnson looked relaxed in the pocket as the pass rush just couldn’t reach him consistently.
“I thought he did look comfortable back there, but again, you’re certainly getting enough pressure on him when you hold them to 1 of 6 on third down like that,” coach Brian Schottenheimer said. “Again, was it perfect? No. I will say this. I know they were doing a lot of things to chip our edges and things like that. There’s things you can do to take advantage of that, but at the end of the day, this is a damn good football win for our football team, and we’re going to enjoy Christmas.”
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For the majority of the season, Eberflus has been under siege about his scheme and the lack of blitzes coming from it. Communication was a major problem early in the season and injuries also impacted what Eberflus could do with the personnel.
Against Washington, Dallas played without starting linebacker DeMarvion Overshown (concussion) and starting cornerback DaRon Bland (foot). Logan Wilson, a linebacker whom the Cowboys traded for, was active but didn’t play.
Outside of the personnel, the Cowboys made a change in how Eberflus calls the plays. In a Week 16 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, Eberflus called the defensive signals from the coach’s box for the first time in his career. Clowney said he didn’t notice much difference, other than the energy Eberflus brings.
The purpose of moving Eberflus to the coach’s box was to allow him to make adjustments faster when seeing the whole field from a different vantage point. With Eberflus in the coach’s box, the Cowboys have allowed 28.5 points and 390 yards per game.
Cornerback Trevon Diggs said the struggles should be shared.
“It’s 50-50,” he said. “A team effort. A team thing. I feel like we know what we got in our room. We know what the calls are. We know everything. We have to stick together. It’s the only way we can get through this and build and grow by sticking together.”
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