Blogging The Boys
How early is too early to hit the panic button? September football is notoriously the season for overreactions. Last year, the Ravens started 0-2 and ended up winning 12 games. The Saints started 2-0, with the best offense in the league over that span, and finished 5-12 with an interim head coach.
First-year head coaches are usually offered a honeymoon phase, too, especially when their best player is traded away a week before the season kicks off. Yet here we are, three weeks into the year, and the Brian Schottenheimer era is hitting a point of critical mass.
After last week’s defensive meltdown versus Russell Wilson – who, consequently, looked miserable against the Chiefs defense on Sunday night – Schottenheimer spoke positively about the Dallas defense. He proclaimed that, while the defensive performance was unacceptable, the fixes were easy. They were communication issues, he said, and pledged to have them solved before their Week 3 matchup in Chicago against the winless Bears.
Well, that didn’t work.
The Cowboys got their faces melted off by Caleb Williams, Ben Johnson, and a Bears offense that had looked inept for 98% of their first two weeks of the season. After the game, Schottenheimer was notably less positive when discussing the defense.
Of course, it is still early. The Cowboys changed up defensive schemes yet again, bringing in Matt Eberflus to run the defense after getting fired by the Bears last year. On top of that, they’ve had numerous injuries on that side of the ball: DeMarvion Overshown won’t return until late November, likely, and DaRon Bland missed his second straight game. Trevon Diggs, who is still getting back into shape after another season-ending knee injury last year, was a game-time decision to play Sunday after having a knee injury pop up earlier in the week.
And, of course, there’s the whole Micah Parsons factor. Not that Parsons would have solved the myriad of busted coverages this week, but he certainly would have helped the pass rush, which became the first team to never sack Williams in his young career.
None of those very real issues are the fault of Schottenheimer or Eberflus. Yet, there are still very serious problems the coaches need to address.
Diggs was responsible for a few busted coverages. Kaiir Elam, who’s completely healthy, was too. The safety duo of Malik Hooker and Donovan Wilson – the latter of whom is a team captain – has been pretty subpar since Week 1. There’s also been no cohesion between all these players, despite Eberflus’ scheme being known for its simplicity relative to, say, a Mike Zimmer defense. That falls squarely on Eberflus.
Which brings up the question of how much longer should he get the excuse of “it’s a new season”? Schottenheimer has already promised that changes are coming, and that these changes will come in the form of both scheme and personnel changes. So how much is changing with the scheme Eberflus has run almost exclusively since his last go...
