Hogs Haven
It’s week 17 of the NFL season and the 4-11 Washington Commanders will be facing a 6-8-1 Dallas Cowboys team at home at Northwest Stadium on Christmas Day (Thursday) at 1:00 pm EDT. The Cowboys have been a lot of fun to watch most weeks, with one of the highest-scoring offenses in the NFL and a defense that allows some of the most points scored in the NFL.
On offense, the Cowboys are coached by OC and run-game designer Klayton Adams, as well as HC and playcaller Brian Schottenheimer. Adams was previously the OL coach of the Arizona Cardinals and coached the Cardinals up to the 4th-most rushing yards in 2023 and 7th-most rushing yards in 2024. The combo of Adams and Schottenheimer have designed an offense in Dallas that utilizes a lot of play action, a lot of pre-snap motion, heavy use of tempo, and a very conscious effort to ensure run and pass plays start with the same looks. The result has been an offense that has generated the 2nd-most yards and 5th-most points in the NFL and has revitalized the careers of RB Javonte Williams and WR George Pickens.
On defense, the Cowboys are coached by DC Matt Eberflus, former HC of the Chicago Bears and former DC of the Colts. Eberflus is known for running a Cover 2 zone defense that rushes 4, but has switched things up since last playing the Commanders, going from the 12-lowest blitz rate in the league to the 10th-highest blitz rate and playing considerably more man coverage. The Cowboys have also shored up their DL since our last matchup, trading a 1st and 2nd round pick to the Jets for star DT Quinnen Williams. Despite the changes, the Cowboys have remained one of NFL’s worst defenses, ranked 3rd-worst by yards allowed and 2nd-worst by points allowed. In addition to poor play, the Cowboys defense has been characterized by sloppy play, and are tied with the Giants in allowing the most penalty yards to opponents in the NFL.
I asked David Halprin of Blogging the Boys five questions to better understand the state of the Cowboys and what to look for in this game.
1) What are the biggest things that have changed for the Cowboys since the last time they faced the Commanders?
From an overall standpoint, we now know what kind of team this actually is in 2025. Back in the first meeting, it was really hard to tell where the season was going to go for Dallas. We had won some games, played close or tied in others against what were supposed to be better teams, and we also lost a game we thought we should have won. So overall, we were a little confused as to what kind of team we were – contender, pretender, something in between? Everything was still possible at that point. Now, we know that we are pretenders and that our defense is historically bad. So that feels like the overall takeaway....
