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Cowboys Fire DC Matt Eberflus After Historically Bad Defensive Season
After one year as the team’s defensive coordinator, the Cowboys fired Matt Eberflus on Tuesday, Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer reported.
It was a historically bad defensive season for Dallas. After Sunday’s 34–17 loss to the Giants, the Cowboys officially gave up 511 points this season—this amount is the most points given up by a defense in franchise history.
The Cowboys allowed the most yards (4,521), the second-most yards per attempt (8.1), the second-most touchdowns (35) and had the second-least amount of interceptions (six) across the league this year. These horrible defensive stats didn’t help Dallas’ chances of making the playoffs, which they failed to do with a 7–9–1 record.
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It was expected for Eberflus to be fired, though, as owner Jerry Jones alluded to making changes with defense, starting with the coordinator. Jones made a statement shortly after the news dropped on Tuesday.
“Having known Matt Eberflus for decades now, we have tremendous respect and appreciation for him as a coach and a person. After reviewing and discussing the results of our defensive performance this season, though, it was clear that change is needed. This is the first step in that process, and we will continue that review as it applies to reaching our much higher expectations.”
— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) January 6, 2026
Last week, Eberflus made some interesting comments about the Cowboys trading Micah Parsons before the season. He blamed losing the star pass rusher for a lot of the team’s defensive struggles this year. While this move can’t be all to blame, it surely did mess with Eberflus’s strategy for the season.
The search is on now to find Eberflus’s replacement to work with Brian Schottenheimer in 2026.
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Madison Williams is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated, where she specializes in tennis but covers a wide range of sports from a national perspective. Before joining SI in 2022, Williams worked at The Sporting News. Having graduated from Augustana College, she completed a master’s in sports media at Northwestern University. She is a dog mom and an avid reader.