The Dallas Cowboys' defense played well enough in Week 5 to buy coordinator Matt Eberflus more time.
That isn't to say Jerry Jones would fire Eberflus mid-season. Jones rarely sends coaches packing during a season. However, the defense looked bad enough in the first month that anything should be on the table if it backslides following a five-sack showing against the Jets.
While some things are out of Eberflus' hands - like Dallas' subpar linebacker play - he's continued to ignore an obvious fix: giving James Houston starter snaps.
Cowboys DC Matt Eberflus needs to quit playing and start James Houston
Signed right before training camp, Houston has been the Cowboys' best pass rusher in the post-Micah Parsons era, and it's not all that close. Dante Fowler had a huge game this past Sunday, but Houston has been more consistent and productive on a down-to-down basis.
Houston is currently fourth in the NFL with an 18.4 percent splash play rate, trailing only the Texans' Will Anderson Jr. and the Broncos' Nick Bonnito have a higher rate. Ironically, Parsons checks in just under Houston with an 18.2 percent splash play rate.
The 26-year-old Houston is playing out of his mind, and yet he ranked last among Cowboys edge defenders with 27 snaps in Week 5. He racked up five pressures in the game on just 23 pass-rushing snaps, per PFF. He was credited with 1.5 sacks, but he could've had three or four.
Houston leads the team with 3.5 sacks in five games, even though he's played as many pass-rush snaps (54) as Marshawn Kneeland, who has just three pressures on the season.
What is most damning about Houston's lack of playing time is that Sam Williams, who picked up another bad penalty against the Jets and has a lowly 7.8 percent pass-rush win rate on the season, has more than double the number of pass-rush snaps as Houston, with 118.
The only explanation is that Eberflus wants to keep Houston fresh at the beginning of games to unleash him in the third and fourth quarters. But what sense does that make? Cowboys fans have seen this defense give up opening drive touchdowns without breaking a sweat.
That isn't to say Houston will fix everything, but he's one of the Cowboys' best players right now. Period. Eberflus is committing malpractice by not riding that wave until it crashes. He needs to be in the starting lineup. We're not sure what Dallas' DC is waiting for.