{"id":345873,"date":"2025-09-06T08:34:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T08:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/345873\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T08:34:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T08:34:10","slug":"as-cowboys-lbs-look-to-settle-in-marist-liufau-is-earning-more-playing-opportunities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/345873\/","title":{"rendered":"As Cowboys LBs look to settle in, Marist Liufau is earning more playing opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA \u2014 Cowboys second-year linebacker Marist Liufau<\/a> was a standout during training camp.<\/p>\n

For Thursday\u2019s season opener in Philadelphia, he was a healthy, yet limited, participant, appearing in only six defensive snaps in a 24-20 loss to the Eagles.<\/a><\/p>\n

The combination of potential shown and limited playing time sparked a question to head coach Brian Schottenheimer<\/a> on Friday: could Liufau be someone in line for more playing time moving forward?<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly when we watch film, Marist is earning those rights to play more,\u201d Schottenheimer said on Friday. <\/p>\n

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Follow-up question: if Liufau is earning the right for more playing time, then who\u2019s losing it? And could that change happen after just one week?<\/p>\n

As a whole, the Cowboys\u2019 defense had a solid performance against the reigning Super Bowl champions. But the unit struggled early, allowing the Eagles to score touchdowns on their first three drives. They settled for a field goal on their fourth drive of the game.<\/p>\n

The Cowboys didn\u2019t allow the Eagles to score after that.<\/a><\/p>\n

The starting linebackers \u2014 Jack Sanborn, Kenneth Murray and Damone Clark \u2014 seemed to settle down, too. Saquon Barkley, the league\u2019s leading rusher last year, gashed the Cowboys initially but finished with an average of 3.3 yards per carry.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we really started fitting our gaps better in the second half,\u201d Schottenheimer said after the game. \u201cIt all works together, right? The offensive or the defensive line, they have a gap. The linebackers have to find their gaps and I thought we did a much better job playing true gap sound defense in the second half.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s film review revealed a similar sentiment from Schottenheimer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought overall, our linebackers, they did a nice job supporting the run,\u201d he said. \u201cThey fired and shot in their gaps. Got to be a little cleaner with our hands and our linebacker alignments. Philadelphia did a good job with some of their formations, of creating looks where we had to [change the alignment] of our backers. But, overall, I thought, again, the linebackers played really, really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

There could be room for improvement, however. Sanborn (47.0) and Murray (30.0) \u2014 the team\u2019s on-field play caller \u2014 had two of the three lowest Pro Football Focus defensive grades on the team against the Eagles. Only rookie defensive tackle Jay Toia (29.3) had a worse grade.<\/p>\n

Clark, the person directly in front of Liufau on the team\u2019s unofficial depth chart, had a 61.0 PFF grade on 41 defensive snaps.<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, Liufau was credited with two defensive tackles and one on special teams. PFF graded him at a 68.5 on defense.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably too early for a drastic change at the linebacker position. Schottenheimer has shown, however, that he\u2019s willing to make tough decisions in the service of his \u201cCompete Every Day\u201d mantra. He had former first-round pick Mazi Smith as a healthy scratch<\/a> on Thursday, for example. <\/p>\n

Regardless of when it could happen, Liufau — with big hits on special teams and intriguing athleticism in limited doses — is pushing for more playing time. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou just love his physicality,\u201d Schottenheimer said. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s earned more opportunities and he\u2019s earned more rights to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Find more Cowboys coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 Cowboys second-year linebacker Marist Liufau was a standout during training camp. For Thursday\u2019s season opener in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2066],"tags":[2886,2009,230,229,257,2461,7,6,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-345873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-cowboys","8":"tag-brian-schottenheimer","9":"tag-brief","10":"tag-cowboys","11":"tag-dallas","12":"tag-dallas-cowboys","13":"tag-dallascowboys","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115156435987680968","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}