Stock Down: Matt Eberflus
Personally I did not put a lot of stock into the narrative of Flus returning to Chicago to see a Bears organization that fired him in the middle of last season. The NFL sees people fired midseason all of the time. But as one user on Twitter put it so eloquently, it is a tough scene for Flus to get destroyed by a quarterback who looked largely dysfunctional under his watch. To be clear, Flus is a defensive mind and that context matters, but the point at large is difficult to ignore.
Forgetting that entire discussion point, the Cowboys defense made Caleb Williams look incredible. He posted arguably the best day of his career, he literally tied his career high in terms of touchdown passes, and he was not sacked a single time.
The day was made worse for Flus when the New York Giants looked moribund once more on Sunday night, emphasizing that Dallas was the antidote to their offensive woes.
Stock Down: Trevon Diggs
We should acknowledge that he appears to be playing hurt. That matters, but he is playing nonetheless.
Trevon Diggs was once a great cornerback for this team and but it looks like those days are behind us. He was among the weakest points on the defense on Sunday in Chicago and was being targeted with regularity. Who could blame the Bears when they were doing what was working.
The Cowboys appeared ready to acknowledge that this is Diggs’ last season with the team with how Jerry Jones publicly lamented him at the beginning of training camp. Everything involved here feels left-footed and the play on the field is representative of that.
Stock Down: Kaiir Elam
We have spoken a lot about how the Cowboys love former first-round picks and they have a track record of uncovering solid production in that realm. It stood to reason that Kaiir Elam could be of that ilk.
Three games in that certainly does not look to be the case. Elam has really struggled in the secondary and was equally picked on by Caleb Williams (a crazy sentence to type).
DaRon Bland has been out and Elam’s role has therefore not been exactly what it was supposed to be. None of that helps the play on the field, though.
Stock Down: Donovan Wilson
Dan Quinn revitalized the safety position for the Cowboys and it was such an incredible three-year run. Within that success was a career turnaround for Donovan Wilson as he thrived under DQ.
Wilson looks lost on defense. He is a hard hitter and that is great, but he is among those getting most beat in coverage by all sorts of pass-catchers from every team the Cowboys have played to date. He had the moment of heroism against the Giants when Russell Wilson chucked up an arm punt, but that was pretty hard to mess up.
It is one thing to get continually beat in the passing game, but Wilson is not enforcing anything on the ground either. There are a lot of weak points on this defense so saying one is bigger than another feels unfair, but if we are looking for that spot it might be here.