Cowboys DC Matt Eberflus gives surprising reason for why he returned to Dallas in 2025

USA Today

2 days ago

Cowboys DC Matt Eberflus gives surprising reason for why he returned to Dallas in 2025
As the NFL coaching carousel hit high gear in early 2025, it was clear Matt Eberflus was going to have options. He had been fired as the Bears head coach just a few months earlier, and his 14-32 overall record in Chicago made it unlikely he'd get many looks for another top job so soon.
A return to a defensive coordinator position, however, seemed probable. He'd done the job previously in Indianapolis, taking the Colts from one of the worst defenses in football to top-10 status in short order. And before that, he had served for seven seasons in Dallas, first as linebackers coach and then adding passing game coordinator to his duties.
But for all the defensive stars Eberflus has helped to launch over the years- from DeMarcus Ware and Sean Lee to Shaq Leonard and Kenny Moore- it was actually a player on the other side of the ball that finally cemented his decision to return to the Cowboys for a second stint on their sidelines.
"Really, to me, it was Dak Prescott," the 55-year-old coordinator told Matt Mosely and Ed Werder on The Doomsday Podcast.
"When he was a rookie, we drafted him here, and what did he go, 9-1 the first 10 games?"
He did indeed. The 2016 Cowboys made it to 11-1 over Prescott's first 12 games before stumbling twice in the final four weeks to finish 13-3 and with the NFC East crown.
But even more than the stellar promise showed by the young Mississippi State passer on the gridiron, it was what Prescott displayed off the field, in the locker room, and in the community that apparently made a lasting impression on Eberflus.
And while he acknowledged a close relationship with the Jones family as a big factor in his return, it was the chance to come back and be around a Prescott-led team once again that eventually swayed Eberflus away from other job opportunities.
"I know what's inside his heart and what kind of man he is and what kind of leader he is," Eberflus explained of Prescott. "So to me, that was a slam-dunk."
Eberflus may have been ready to join the Cowboys staff, but interestingly, Brian Schottenheimer had not yet won the head coaching job. It didn't take much input from other trusted voices in longtime coaching circles, though, to convince Eberflus that the Cowboys' ship would be in good hands under Schotty's command.
"I was asking around about him because I knew he was up for the job," Eberflus recalled. "I've got a really good couple of friends that are really good friends with him, and they just said, 'Love him. What a great football mind. What a great guy. He's going to be a great leader.' And so I was all in at that point."
Eberflus says he's tried to help Schottenheimer adjust to all the newness of an NFL head coaching job, looking out for what he calls "things as a head coach that you don't know that are involved in the job until you become a head coach." It's a "see-something-say-something" mindset that he says all the Cowboys assistants have adopted as the staff embarks on this first season together.
The newness, the talent, the friendly competitions, lining his unit up against Prescott in practice and then being on the same team with him afterward: it's all brought about an energy that Eberflus already says is different from other places he's coached.
And maybe that will help bring about a result that's different from where Eberflus- and Prescott- and the Cowboys- have found themselves in recent years.
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