ARLINGTON — There are two games remaining in the 2025 regular season and the only certainty is Cowboys defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus will finish the job.
Cowboys team owner and general manager Jerry Jones, the man who hires and fires people around here, was asked about Eberflus’ job status following a 34-17 loss to the Chargers on Sunday.
“No, no I won’t,” Jones said when asked if Eberflus would be canned before the end of the season.
Now with that settled, Eberflus’ defense turned in another poor performance in their loss to the Chargers.
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Justin Herbert, the Chargers quarterback playing with a broken left (non-throwing) hand, came in having been sacked 11 times the last two weeks. He’s been brought down an NFL-leading 49 times this season. And going back to last season, Herbert was sacked at least once in his last 16 games.
On Sunday afternoon, the Cowboys had zero sacks.
Defensive tackle Kenny Clark did bring Herbert down as he moved up in the pocket, but it was ruled a rush because the quarterback got to the line of scrimmage.
The Cowboys’ pass rush knocked him down five times, but when it came to sacking him … nothing.
Herbert also threw two touchdown passes, beating starting cornerbacks Trevon Diggs and Shavon Revel. The run defense allowed 4.6 yards per rush and 85 yards to Omarion Hampton, who looked like a stockier version of LaDainian Tomlinson, who averaged 5.3 yards per carry.
Overall, the sacks and pass rush were lacking, the secondary continued its season-long struggles, the run defense gave up almost five yards per carry. And this occurred after two major changes.
Eberflus called the game from the coach’s box and Diggs returned to the starting lineup after missing the previous eight games with knee soreness and a concussion.
So much for change.
“I thought it was OK,” coach Brian Schottenheimer said of Eberflus moving to the coach’s box to get a better look at the game. “I thought it was fine. Again, I think we’ll watch the film and see how everything went. I know we need to get more pressure on the guy [Justin Herbert] and didn’t do a great job getting pressure on him. And I thought both quarterbacks played great today. And unfortunately, their guy got the win.”
The Cowboys went into this one without defensive tackle Quinnen Williams (concussion) and lost linebacker DeMarvion Overshown (concussion) in the first half.
“Frustrating,” rush end Jadeveon Clowney said. “We better than that. We got to do better.”
As we move forward in the 2025 season, the Cowboys need to seriously consider a complete overhaul of the defense. It could be done moving on from Eberflus or even keeping him.
Just get him the players to help him succeed.
If you release Eberflus, then get a coordinator who can use the personnel currently employed.
All the warts of this defense came back to the surface against the Chargers.
It’s easy to blame Eberflus because he’s in charge of the personnel on the field. You can also place the blame on the general manager, and that’s Jones.
The problem with a change at defensive coordinator is that the Cowboys would have their fourth one in as many years.
NFL teams like to preach continuity.
In the Cowboys’ case, it’s about finding the right coordinator. The process in which they go about their business — hiring ex-coaches as their defensive coordinator — is something they’ve done since Rod Marinelli was hired in 2019. It’s getting a little tiring.
Find a defensive coach who knows what they’re doing, and hire him regardless if he’s been a former head coach or not.
The only success they’ve had in this process since the Marinelli hiring is Dan Quinn, who held the job from 2021 to 2023.
Mike Nolan (2020) and Mike Zimmer (2024) just didn’t work out.
At this point, it seems Eberflus won’t either.
“We’ll have to sacrifice continuity as it pertains to this year as to next year if we decide to make a change,” Jones said. “And, you know, you can carry that so far. I saw where somebody wrote today that maybe with the evolving of players that you have, maybe the continuity of a scheme.”
It’s easy to point out the deficiencies of a defense from afar, but a casual observer can tell this unit is badly in need of change.
“I think we got a lot of the right guys,” Clark said. “We gotta lean on those guys and I’m not talking about offseason. We got games to play; we got to figure some things out.”
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