The Dallas Cowboys are set to kick off the 2025 NFL season with their third defensive coordinator in three years.
Dan Quinn held the role for three seasons before exiting following the 2023 season to become the new head coach of the Washington Commanders. He was replaced in 2024 by Mike Zimmer, who was shown the door after one season when Brian Schottenheimer replaced Mike McCarthy as head coach. And now, the job belongs to Matt Eberflus, who spent seven years in Dallas as an assistant and makes his return to the franchise after seven years away.
Eberflus is far more like Quinn than he is Zimmer, which Cowboys fans should like from an overall standpoint. But there have been some concerns that Dallas won't be nearly as aggressive when it comes to blitzing, as Eberflus has historically been a bit conservative in that department.
But in the early days of Cowboys training camp, Eberflus has apparently flipped the script, as the Dallas defense has been seen blitzing quite a bit.
Again… this is training camp so be very careful with overreacting.
— Marcus Mosher (@Marcus_Mosher) July 23, 2025
But Matt Eberflus is usually not a big blitzer, but we’ve seen quite a bit of it thru two days of camp. https://t.co/QmkNzM5HSY
Cowboys could be a blitz-heavy team again under Matt Eberflus
This is one area fans of America's Team seemed to like about Zimmer, as the Cowboys ranked sixth in the NFL last season in blitz rate at 29.9%.
After Eberflus left the Cowboys following the 2017 season to become the Indianapolis Colts' defensive coordinator, his teams never even hit the top 25, ranking 29th in 2018 (17.5%), 27th in 2019 (22.9%), 31st in 2020 (17.1%), and 29th in 2021 (20.2%).
In his first year as the head coach of the Chicago Bears in 2022, Eberflus didn't call the defensive plays, but he clearly still had some influence, as his team ranked 25th in blitz rate at 18.2%. He took over play-calling duties in 2023 after defensive coordinator Alan Williams resigned and actually ramped things up a bit, with the Bears ranking 21st at 22.2%.
You can't look at last season as a whole, of course, as Eberflus was relieved of his duties after 13 games. But here's where things get interesting.
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Overall, Chicago ended the year ranked 19th at 23.5%. Up until the time Eberflus was fired, the Bears actually ranked ninth. And in regard to pass plays only in that stretch, Chicago ranked higher than Dallas, coming in at No. 12 with the Cowboys seven slots back in 19th.
So, there's been somewhat of a slow build happening over the last couple of years in how Eberflus approaches his blitzing strategy, which seems to be why we're seeing more of it than expected at Cowboys training camp.
Personnel naturally has to factor into a coach's decision to send pressure, and Eberflus has to be excited about the group he's got in Dallas. Assuming Micah Parsons takes the field at some point once this ongoing contract saga ends, he'll undoubtedly see double-teams left and right.
As such, Eberflus may be more inclined to blitz, knowing he has openings. And if opposing offensive lines are forced to adjust, Parsons may obviously find himself in one-on-one situations, which no opposing offensive player wants to deal with.
Eberflus does go with a little safer strategy, as he typically prefers to bring five instead of six, but it'll be interesting to see if that changes as well.