their quarterback have a big day<\/a> on us,\u201d Jones said Tuesday on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, via Jon Machota of TheAthletic.com. \u201cThat wasn\u2019t the plan. We could have used more pressure, without question, at different times. The result was that we let him make some pretty significant plays out there, plus, he played pretty well. It seems like we\u2019re always saying that about these [opposing] quarterbacks. Some of them hadn\u2019t played as well, but when they play us, they play better. I think that\u2019s telling, too.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Cowboys rank 29th in total defense, including 32nd against the pass. <\/p>\n
\u201cCandidly, just to be very up front about it,\u201d Jones said, \u201cI think if we could have gotten this defense in better shape earlier that we could be sitting here with the kind of wins that would\u2019ve not had us in this tight spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team has created some of its own problems on defense by the turnover at the coordinator position. Players are brought in to fit a scheme that is gone the next year. <\/p>\n
The Cowboys also didn\u2019t help Eberflus by trading edge rusher Micah Parsons just before the start of the season.<\/p>\n
Dallas was expected to play more man defense to fit what cornerbacks Trevon Diggs and rookie Shavon Revel, among others, do best.<\/p>\n
Jones didn\u2019t accept explanations or excuses, though, believing that coaches should adapt their scheme to the players they have.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m satisfied that the players we have fit what we\u2019re trying to do really well,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a long time since Jones has fired any coach. His MO is to let the coach\u2019s contract run out before moving on.<\/p>\n
The Cowboys, though, did fire defensive coordinator Mike Nolan after only one season, in January 2021, after a historically bad season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Eberflus is the Cowboys\u2019 third defensive coordinator in three seasons. They will have a fourth defensive coordinator…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-354086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-nfl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}