Breaking Down Eberflus’ Scheme: What to Expect from the Cowboys’ Defense

Cody Alexander from MatchQuarters joins us to breakdown the new defensive scheme

I am very excited this morning. More on that in a second.

No, not because the Cowboys have finalized the Matt Eberflus hiring, but because we knew he checked too many boxes not to be front and center in running this defense the moment we saw Mike Zimmer was ready to retire—if he wasn’t going to be strongly considered as the team’s next head coach.

Eberflus is a very strong defensive mind with significant Cowboys ties and needs a gig. That seems to be the trifecta around here these days, so you didn’t have to be a Vegas insider to see this one coming a mile away.

Eberflus will bring back the Rod Marinelli defense that once served the Cowboys pretty well, even if we were always left wanting with the end product.

My memories of the Marinelli Cowboys defense: It never seemed like they had enough talent to be great at executing it and, therefore, were never really able to replicate any version of the Tampa Bay group or even the Seattle Seahawks, no matter how much they talked about those influences. You may recall that when Matt Eberflus left for the Colts, Kris Richard was brought in from Seattle (when they couldn’t bring Earl Thomas home) to continue trying to sort through the issues that came with getting more from the defense in terms of takeaways and big plays.

The Marinelli defense was less about blitzes, splash plays, and takeaways and more about sound defense that attempted to limit big plays, make offenses work hard for everything, and fly to the ball “like a bunch of crazed dogs.”

Lots of zones and no blitzes. Play it safer and allow your guys to confirm the scheme by winning their matchups. The trouble is, they always seemed to pour financial resources into the offense, and the defense would get the leftovers. Unlike Seattle, San Francisco, and the dominant defenses we know, they didn’t prioritize the studs who would make any scheme work. And that would bite them against the heavyweights in January.