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Eberflus Report Week 6 - Defenseless Effort
Rico Dowdle and company had their way against Cowboys in a truly demoralizing way.
Bob Sturm
Oct 15, 2025
Here we go. Our objectives today will be:
OVERALL DEFENSIVE EVALUATION
It has been asked in more than one place recently if the Cowboys are a sleeper team in 2025 because the offense is so powerful and the QB play has been so impressive.
My friends at Check the Mic with Steve Palazzolo & Sam Monson say it every week. If the Cowboys could somehow just have a league-average defense – not even a good one, just dead-bang average – how good could the Cowboys be as a team this season?
Unfortunately, in the words of Corey Seager, “I guess we’ll never know.”
The Cowboys defense is quickly approaching the status of hopeless and I usually don’t get that defeated by something in mid-October because we usually owe it to a team to let them diagnose and address their own issues. The season is a journey and it often takes a while to get to where you want to be. Often, we expect an evolution from where you start to what you become as the team looks for cures and then addresses them to fix what is wrong.
Hopeless is not an option because games are coming fast and furious. Changes must be made and solutions must be found.
But, the 2025 Cowboys seem to be going backwards.
After three weeks, we started to look at the results and wondered if the Cowboys had really done a nice job at improving their run defense. They were 17th in the league and allowing less than 110 yards per game on the ground and allowing just 3.7 per attempt. That was excellent and very much league-average. Yes, the pass defense was an issue, but maybe that was more about health of corners and what if the run defense stays where it was after the Chicago game and the pass defense could quickly escalate as DaRon Bland and Trevon Diggs get back to healthy?
Since that day, the Cowboys have allowed 164 to Green Bay, 144 to the Jets, and 216 to the Panthers. Dallas has allowed 524 yards rushing against to the tune of 5.5 per attempt. It was very much not fixed. And now, it looks like everything is broken.
If you are reading this today, I thank you. But, you might be a sicko to have the patience for the weekly evaluation of the Cowboys defense. This one has almost no positivity or bright side to it. They are a bad defense and it seems to not have bright spots right now. If forced to pick a defensive player who is playing well right now, I am not sure I can give you one. We have plenty of hope for Donovan Ezeiruaku and James Houston as pieces, but its not like they are able to get much accomplished right now. The whole thing looks broken and the only hope right now seems to be to stop playing games and start over in the spring.
But, we are so far away from that right now.
So, today, we are going to look at a brutally embarrassing defensive effort at Carolina where the Cowboys allowed Rico Dowdle into the record books. We detailed that plenty on Monday, but I did want to show you the list of players he joins below for “all-time performances against the Cowboys for yards from scrimmage.”
As you can see, he finishes 4th all-time but, we will show you the top 20:
Above are the 20 players who have gained more than 200 yards from scrimmage in one day against Dallas in history. There are some names on that list you will recognize like Jim Brown and Calvin Johnson as well as a few you may never recall like Troy Stradford and Johnny Morris. You may also note that the Cowboys are 2-18 when a player does this against them. Like when James Cook did it a few years ago in Buffalo, it is normally a very humiliating day all around.
Here is how the metrics looked on Sunday for the Eberflus bunch:
I will draw your attention to the insane success rates that we see. Normal range is 40 to 50 percent, so when the Panthers are up in the 60s in rushing success and first-down success (redundant, of course), we know there is a massive problem. We don’t even need to see the game to know it was a rough day.
When you look at the drive chart, the best way to see problems is looking at the first down column below. If the team is getting multiple first downs on nearly every drive, then your defense is in great danger. Also, if they have more drives (9) than third downs (8), you know you are getting shredded.
So, that is the easy part of our diagnosis today. I am going to try to now show examples that put the Cowboys where they were.
First, here is 177 seconds of Rico Dowdle shredding the Cowboys defense all on one supercut. Josh was kind enough to link them all together so you could see the carnage in one dose.
I normally don’t show you a running back’s performance with the Next Gen chart, but I am not sure I have ever seen something so symmetrically devastating.
OK. It is time to look at this tape. We will try to make this as painless as possible for those of you who are loyal enough to this team to want to see what went wrong.
FILM STUDY
1Q - 13:17 - 1-10-CAR 24 - R.Dowdle left guard to CAR 33 for 9 yards
When I watched the game live, I was amazed at how awful the first five defensive snaps were. We can call it game plan work from the Panthers or the Cowboys being ill-prepared to start the game, but these are the first five snaps right at noon.
The Panthers run out of 13 personnel and this is sending a message right away. We think we are more physical than you and here comes duo right at you. Heck, here are two tight ends clearing out your edge and linebacker. We are forming a wall and running right at you with no disguise. 2-Juanyeh Thomas runs down untouched with a nice run blitz idea, but busts the tackle and Rico gets 9 yards on 1st down. The 9 yards on 1st down was pretty much the story of the day.
Let’s go to the second snap of the game.
1Q - 12:38 - 2-1-CAR 33 - B.Young pass deep left to M.Evans to DAL 46 for 21 yards (M.Liufau).
13 personnel again. Play-action fake with only 2 players in the route. Two receivers against Cover 3 and still, this 3rd TE Mitchell Evans is wide open behind the linebackers for an easy 21 yards. Cowboys blitz Donovan Wilson but the Panthers are in max-protect and get it handled and Bryce Young delivers a throw to a wide open TE for an explosive on their first pass attempt. Two snaps, 30 yards.
Third play of the game as the Panthers are now in Dallas territory.
1Q - 11:59 - 1-10-DAL 46 - R.Dowdle left tackle to DAL 34 for 12 yards
This might be one of the worst snaps of run defense you will ever see. I mean, this is just awful on every level. Which player busted? Let’s find someone who is doing their job. Use the end zone view and slow motion. A quick inventory of the work here:
The fourth play of the game:
1Q - 11:18 - 1-10-DAL 34 - B.Young pass short left to R.Dowdle pushed ob at DAL 21 for 13 yards (K.Murray).
This one is easy to diagnose. The Panthers want to clear out the flat and see Kenneth Murray vs Rico Dowdle. So, the WR takes Bland away and the TE carries James. Both are just decoys because they want to design an easy completion for Bryce and an easy gain as Dowdle vs Murray is a simple 13 yards and a first down. You will see every week that teams want to isolate Murray. He is a target for every opponent.
And finally the 5th play. This is the one you have seen a lot on social media. Again, these are five consecutive plays to start the game.
1Q - 10:39 - 1-10-DAL 21 - R.Dowdle right tackle to DAL 13 for 8 yards (J.Thomas).
Again, there are so many losses here on this play that we can make a list.
So, yeah, that is a pretty big hole to run through, guys.
Those were the first five plays of the game.
But, wait, it continues.
2Q - 14:56
I will speed this along. This is Osa Odighizuwa taking himself out of his gap and out of the play and Dowdle gets a free 11 yards.
2Q - 14:20
This one is actually amazing. I think Kenneth Murray is thinking he is playing Shemar James spot. I honestly think Murray doesn’t know the call here because Fowler is diving inside and that will almost always mean Murray is to scrape over him to the edge and handle that. As you can see, there is no edge on this play so most people will blame Fowler, but there is no explanation for Murray’s play on this rep other than he didn’t know which LB he was playing. (Again, I leave room for seeing this wrong, but I don’t think I am). Murray is legitimately taking himself out of this play.
2Q - 12:57
You are outnumbered badly on this one and the fact that 59-Murray is running the wrong direction seems like a Jaylon Smith level problem here. Again, I am not trying to make this about one player, but this one player is a NFL veteran making good money and seemingly entrusted by the coaching staff like he is Lee Roy Jordan – a trustworthy veteran who we can count on – and playing like a rookie who doesn’t know what is happening. This is beyond incredible.
At this point, I feel like we are just piling on. Let me do two of the bigger pass plays of the game and then let’s wrap up with a conclusion or two. There are plenty more that I am just going to let slide due to the huge number of issues.
3Q - 13:27 - 1-10-DAL 36 - B.Young pass deep left to R.Dowdle for 36 yards, TOUCHDOWN.
This one is another Cover 3 beater and the Cowboys play this so much on 1st and 10 that you have to know that they have plans to attack and isolate. So, not to be mean, but I am pretty sure this is 59-Murray again as the Panthers do the same thing. Clear out Bland with McMillan. Take Liufau to the flat with the TE. And then Dowdle vs Murray in space. This one is muddy and it puts the LB in a bind when the QB has nobody else closing him down, but once Dowdle clears Murray, he is as wide open as they get as the corner and safety are busy with the verticals. In fact, if Young wants to hit 17-Legette, he is available, too. Poor, poor, poor.
4Q - 2:31 - 4-4-DAL 40 - B.Young pass short left to H.Renfrow to DAL 33 for 7 yards (D.Bland).
Here is the 4th and 4 that everyone on the TV broadcast was wondering why DaRon Bland was playing so deep. This requires a little understanding of the Cover-1 library and I will link our friend Cody Alexander’s guide to such a thing. Essentially, this looks like Cover 1-lurk where Bland is trying to deceive the QB into thinking the slant to Renfrow is free and then they ambush him with Murray stepping in the way to pick off or defend the pass. It is a fine idea, but difficult to execute and it is clear they didn’t get there in time. One more step from Murray and maybe the Cowboys win this game. But, it is a game of inches.
I called it Cover-1 Thief on the radio, but now I think it is Cover-1 Lurk. Either way, that was the call and Bland was doing what he was instructed to do. Here was the conversation from the other day to try to better explain it.
SPLASH PLAYS AND PLAYING TIME
It was a light day for splash plays in Carolina. There were a few, but obviously, the defense was unable to make any plays on the proper side of the line of scrimmage.
The Season Leaderboard is extra modest.
The Cowboys snap counts from Statbutler.com:
CONCLUSIONS
If you made it this far, you are a true sicko. Well done. But, you probably know the conclusions already. This defense is about as bad as it can get and there are almost no reinforcements on the way.
I would encourage the organization to put almost every defensive job up for grabs and sweep the practice squads in this league for alternatives. Six weeks is enough to see that there should be wholesale changes.
Should Matt Eberflus be safe? No. But, what would ending it accomplish? They gave him very little to work with so it isn’t like someone else could unlock an all new level of performance.
This is on a lot of these players and the more failure we see, the more freelancing we see. The basic bottom line is assignment football is getting worse every week. There is no pass rush and no run defense. The pass coverage is bad and they don’t generate splash plays.
In other words, we expect Washington to have a field day and Dak will need to score 35 to have a chance.
I wish we had better news, but there is almost none right now.
Rico Dowdle and company had their way against Cowboys in a truly demoralizing way.
Bob Sturm
Oct 15, 2025
Here we go. Our objectives today will be:
- Overall Defensive Evaluation - It was bad.
- All Trends are pointing down for this group.
- Historical days from scrimmage vs Dallas.
- Identifying the Run Defense busts.
- Film Study, Splash Plays and Playing Time
OVERALL DEFENSIVE EVALUATION
It has been asked in more than one place recently if the Cowboys are a sleeper team in 2025 because the offense is so powerful and the QB play has been so impressive.
My friends at Check the Mic with Steve Palazzolo & Sam Monson say it every week. If the Cowboys could somehow just have a league-average defense – not even a good one, just dead-bang average – how good could the Cowboys be as a team this season?
Unfortunately, in the words of Corey Seager, “I guess we’ll never know.”
The Cowboys defense is quickly approaching the status of hopeless and I usually don’t get that defeated by something in mid-October because we usually owe it to a team to let them diagnose and address their own issues. The season is a journey and it often takes a while to get to where you want to be. Often, we expect an evolution from where you start to what you become as the team looks for cures and then addresses them to fix what is wrong.
Hopeless is not an option because games are coming fast and furious. Changes must be made and solutions must be found.
But, the 2025 Cowboys seem to be going backwards.
After three weeks, we started to look at the results and wondered if the Cowboys had really done a nice job at improving their run defense. They were 17th in the league and allowing less than 110 yards per game on the ground and allowing just 3.7 per attempt. That was excellent and very much league-average. Yes, the pass defense was an issue, but maybe that was more about health of corners and what if the run defense stays where it was after the Chicago game and the pass defense could quickly escalate as DaRon Bland and Trevon Diggs get back to healthy?
Since that day, the Cowboys have allowed 164 to Green Bay, 144 to the Jets, and 216 to the Panthers. Dallas has allowed 524 yards rushing against to the tune of 5.5 per attempt. It was very much not fixed. And now, it looks like everything is broken.
If you are reading this today, I thank you. But, you might be a sicko to have the patience for the weekly evaluation of the Cowboys defense. This one has almost no positivity or bright side to it. They are a bad defense and it seems to not have bright spots right now. If forced to pick a defensive player who is playing well right now, I am not sure I can give you one. We have plenty of hope for Donovan Ezeiruaku and James Houston as pieces, but its not like they are able to get much accomplished right now. The whole thing looks broken and the only hope right now seems to be to stop playing games and start over in the spring.
But, we are so far away from that right now.
So, today, we are going to look at a brutally embarrassing defensive effort at Carolina where the Cowboys allowed Rico Dowdle into the record books. We detailed that plenty on Monday, but I did want to show you the list of players he joins below for “all-time performances against the Cowboys for yards from scrimmage.”
As you can see, he finishes 4th all-time but, we will show you the top 20:
Above are the 20 players who have gained more than 200 yards from scrimmage in one day against Dallas in history. There are some names on that list you will recognize like Jim Brown and Calvin Johnson as well as a few you may never recall like Troy Stradford and Johnny Morris. You may also note that the Cowboys are 2-18 when a player does this against them. Like when James Cook did it a few years ago in Buffalo, it is normally a very humiliating day all around.
Here is how the metrics looked on Sunday for the Eberflus bunch:
I will draw your attention to the insane success rates that we see. Normal range is 40 to 50 percent, so when the Panthers are up in the 60s in rushing success and first-down success (redundant, of course), we know there is a massive problem. We don’t even need to see the game to know it was a rough day.
When you look at the drive chart, the best way to see problems is looking at the first down column below. If the team is getting multiple first downs on nearly every drive, then your defense is in great danger. Also, if they have more drives (9) than third downs (8), you know you are getting shredded.
So, that is the easy part of our diagnosis today. I am going to try to now show examples that put the Cowboys where they were.
First, here is 177 seconds of Rico Dowdle shredding the Cowboys defense all on one supercut. Josh was kind enough to link them all together so you could see the carnage in one dose.
I normally don’t show you a running back’s performance with the Next Gen chart, but I am not sure I have ever seen something so symmetrically devastating.
OK. It is time to look at this tape. We will try to make this as painless as possible for those of you who are loyal enough to this team to want to see what went wrong.
FILM STUDY
1Q - 13:17 - 1-10-CAR 24 - R.Dowdle left guard to CAR 33 for 9 yards
When I watched the game live, I was amazed at how awful the first five defensive snaps were. We can call it game plan work from the Panthers or the Cowboys being ill-prepared to start the game, but these are the first five snaps right at noon.
The Panthers run out of 13 personnel and this is sending a message right away. We think we are more physical than you and here comes duo right at you. Heck, here are two tight ends clearing out your edge and linebacker. We are forming a wall and running right at you with no disguise. 2-Juanyeh Thomas runs down untouched with a nice run blitz idea, but busts the tackle and Rico gets 9 yards on 1st down. The 9 yards on 1st down was pretty much the story of the day.
Let’s go to the second snap of the game.
1Q - 12:38 - 2-1-CAR 33 - B.Young pass deep left to M.Evans to DAL 46 for 21 yards (M.Liufau).
13 personnel again. Play-action fake with only 2 players in the route. Two receivers against Cover 3 and still, this 3rd TE Mitchell Evans is wide open behind the linebackers for an easy 21 yards. Cowboys blitz Donovan Wilson but the Panthers are in max-protect and get it handled and Bryce Young delivers a throw to a wide open TE for an explosive on their first pass attempt. Two snaps, 30 yards.
Third play of the game as the Panthers are now in Dallas territory.
1Q - 11:59 - 1-10-DAL 46 - R.Dowdle left tackle to DAL 34 for 12 yards
This might be one of the worst snaps of run defense you will ever see. I mean, this is just awful on every level. Which player busted? Let’s find someone who is doing their job. Use the end zone view and slow motion. A quick inventory of the work here:
- 94 Kneeland is getting pushed back 10 yards by a Tight End on the far left.
- 95 Kenny Clark is moved so far out of the play by the double from LT and LG that he is facing the other end zone.
- The orbit motion takes 50 James a few gaps down and he is pinned in traffic with 59 Murray as they are on the wrong side of the play and well away from the action. Both of them!
- 6 Wilson is following the sniffer TE out to the far left and because nobody else is even on this side of the field anymore, this leaves a massive lane for Dowdle.
The fourth play of the game:
1Q - 11:18 - 1-10-DAL 34 - B.Young pass short left to R.Dowdle pushed ob at DAL 21 for 13 yards (K.Murray).
This one is easy to diagnose. The Panthers want to clear out the flat and see Kenneth Murray vs Rico Dowdle. So, the WR takes Bland away and the TE carries James. Both are just decoys because they want to design an easy completion for Bryce and an easy gain as Dowdle vs Murray is a simple 13 yards and a first down. You will see every week that teams want to isolate Murray. He is a target for every opponent.
And finally the 5th play. This is the one you have seen a lot on social media. Again, these are five consecutive plays to start the game.
1Q - 10:39 - 1-10-DAL 21 - R.Dowdle right tackle to DAL 13 for 8 yards (J.Thomas).
Again, there are so many losses here on this play that we can make a list.
- The playside edge 54 Williams is run off the field by the WR 17-Legette in such a way that I am left with head shaking. This can’t happen.
- 93 Toia gets reached by the center with ease and is beaten badly.
- So once your DT is beaten by the center and your edge is beaten by the WR, that leaves the RG and RT with the easy assignments to go bulldoze a LB and a DB and now the RB Dowdle has nothing but grass to deal with. If you pause the tape at 0:21, you see an amazing picture of incompetence that I will offer here with the circle on Sam Williams who responded on Twitter with the laughing face emoji.
So, yeah, that is a pretty big hole to run through, guys.
Those were the first five plays of the game.
But, wait, it continues.
2Q - 14:56
I will speed this along. This is Osa Odighizuwa taking himself out of his gap and out of the play and Dowdle gets a free 11 yards.
2Q - 14:20
This one is actually amazing. I think Kenneth Murray is thinking he is playing Shemar James spot. I honestly think Murray doesn’t know the call here because Fowler is diving inside and that will almost always mean Murray is to scrape over him to the edge and handle that. As you can see, there is no edge on this play so most people will blame Fowler, but there is no explanation for Murray’s play on this rep other than he didn’t know which LB he was playing. (Again, I leave room for seeing this wrong, but I don’t think I am). Murray is legitimately taking himself out of this play.
2Q - 12:57
You are outnumbered badly on this one and the fact that 59-Murray is running the wrong direction seems like a Jaylon Smith level problem here. Again, I am not trying to make this about one player, but this one player is a NFL veteran making good money and seemingly entrusted by the coaching staff like he is Lee Roy Jordan – a trustworthy veteran who we can count on – and playing like a rookie who doesn’t know what is happening. This is beyond incredible.
At this point, I feel like we are just piling on. Let me do two of the bigger pass plays of the game and then let’s wrap up with a conclusion or two. There are plenty more that I am just going to let slide due to the huge number of issues.
3Q - 13:27 - 1-10-DAL 36 - B.Young pass deep left to R.Dowdle for 36 yards, TOUCHDOWN.
This one is another Cover 3 beater and the Cowboys play this so much on 1st and 10 that you have to know that they have plans to attack and isolate. So, not to be mean, but I am pretty sure this is 59-Murray again as the Panthers do the same thing. Clear out Bland with McMillan. Take Liufau to the flat with the TE. And then Dowdle vs Murray in space. This one is muddy and it puts the LB in a bind when the QB has nobody else closing him down, but once Dowdle clears Murray, he is as wide open as they get as the corner and safety are busy with the verticals. In fact, if Young wants to hit 17-Legette, he is available, too. Poor, poor, poor.
4Q - 2:31 - 4-4-DAL 40 - B.Young pass short left to H.Renfrow to DAL 33 for 7 yards (D.Bland).
Here is the 4th and 4 that everyone on the TV broadcast was wondering why DaRon Bland was playing so deep. This requires a little understanding of the Cover-1 library and I will link our friend Cody Alexander’s guide to such a thing. Essentially, this looks like Cover 1-lurk where Bland is trying to deceive the QB into thinking the slant to Renfrow is free and then they ambush him with Murray stepping in the way to pick off or defend the pass. It is a fine idea, but difficult to execute and it is clear they didn’t get there in time. One more step from Murray and maybe the Cowboys win this game. But, it is a game of inches.
I called it Cover-1 Thief on the radio, but now I think it is Cover-1 Lurk. Either way, that was the call and Bland was doing what he was instructed to do. Here was the conversation from the other day to try to better explain it.
SPLASH PLAYS AND PLAYING TIME
It was a light day for splash plays in Carolina. There were a few, but obviously, the defense was unable to make any plays on the proper side of the line of scrimmage.
The Season Leaderboard is extra modest.
The Cowboys snap counts from Statbutler.com:
CONCLUSIONS
If you made it this far, you are a true sicko. Well done. But, you probably know the conclusions already. This defense is about as bad as it can get and there are almost no reinforcements on the way.
I would encourage the organization to put almost every defensive job up for grabs and sweep the practice squads in this league for alternatives. Six weeks is enough to see that there should be wholesale changes.
Should Matt Eberflus be safe? No. But, what would ending it accomplish? They gave him very little to work with so it isn’t like someone else could unlock an all new level of performance.
This is on a lot of these players and the more failure we see, the more freelancing we see. The basic bottom line is assignment football is getting worse every week. There is no pass rush and no run defense. The pass coverage is bad and they don’t generate splash plays.
In other words, we expect Washington to have a field day and Dak will need to score 35 to have a chance.
I wish we had better news, but there is almost none right now.
