In football, the game is usually described as a game of inches. However, for the 2025 Dallas Cowboys, it seems to have become a game of yards. The Dallas defense continues to struggle, allowing opposing teams and their offenses to tee off against them, with the Carolina Panthers being the latest.
Bryce Young’s offense averaged 6.4 yards per play, with the real hero being Rico Dowdle, who had back-to-back games over 200 yards from scrimmage. The first player to do so since Dalvin Cook did it in 2020,
and the first undrafted free agent to ever accomplish that.
Dak Prescott and George Pickens looked like All-Pros for 95 percent of Sunday, with the worst five percent coming on their final drive, when Dallas’ offense ran three plays for negative eight yards and was forced to punt with just over six minutes to play. Prescott never saw the field again as the Panthers walked off with a field goal to win it.
Here are five key takeaways from the Cowboys’ third loss of the season.
First point: 2025 < 2020
The Mike Nolan era in Dallas feels like a blur, but maybe that’s because it was so bad that many who lived through it tried to forget it as soon as the season ended. Somehow, those old feelings many had then are coming up, just a few weeks into 2025. It can’t be 2020 levels of bad on defense, right? Wrong.
Here are a few statistics in several major categories comparing the defensive performance six weeks into the seasons of 2020 and 2025 (courtesy of Stathead)
2020:
– 2,460 total yards allowed (28th)
– 6.01 yards per play allowed (25th)
– 106.1 opposing passer rating (25th)
– 56 rushing first downs allowed (31st)
– 48.8 third down conversion rate (27th)
2025:
– 2,470 total yds allowed (32nd)
– 6.18 yards per play allowed (30th)
– 116.9 opposing passer rating (32nd)
– 61 rushing first downs allowed (32nd)
– 53.2 third down conversion rate (32nd)
This is not what a Matt Eberflus defense is supposed to look like, or at least that’s how fans were led to believe when he was hired at the beginning of the year. The front office had complete confidence in the coach, whom they could have viewed as the successor to Rod Marinelli, and “that got away” from Dallas when Eberflus left for the Indianapolis Colts in 2018.
In his time with the Colts and the Chicago Bears, Eberflus is known for having a respectable defense that can generate takeaways. That’s just not the case so far in his return to Dallas. The Cowboys have never fired a defensive coordinator during the season, and it shouldn’t happen with Eberflus. If Dallas still considers itself a playoff contender, an argument that gets harder to defend with each loss mounting, letting go of your DC now doesn’t make sense.
There’s no real successor on the coaching staff. Special teams coordinator Nick Sorensen was the DC with the San Francisco 49ers a season ago, but was let go after one year on the job. That’s the guy who should replace Eberflus? During his press conference on Monday, head coach Brian Schottenheimer sounded like someone who wants to give his defensive counterpart every opportunity to right the ship. If it continues through Week 18, then a serious discussion for a one-and-done run can be had.
Until then, if you want to be blindly optimistic about the situation, it can’t get any worse than 32nd.
Second point: Loss of identity
Speaking with Calvin Watkins of The Dallas Morning News, Cowboys corner Trevon Diggs summarized Sunday’s performance against the Panthers very well.
“Yeah its very frustrating. It’s all these points (given up), the receivers are running wide open down the field, too many busted coverages. It’s a lot. I feel like we’re all over the place and we really don’t have no identity.”
It’s just one of many things that can be pointed out for blame. Dallas can’t stop the run, they can’t stop the pass, and they can’t rush the passer. Unfortunately, their identity was supposed to be Micah Parsons, and they shipped him off to Green Bay a week before the regular season.
Look at Schottenheimer’s offense. It took an entire offseason to rebuild that side of the ball based on what worked and didn’t under Mike McCarthy. Did it help that Schottenheimer and Prescott had worked together for three years before Schotty calling plays? No doubt, but it was far from being a sure thing.
The clip above shows a two-play sequence in which Prescott has complete command of the offense and orchestrates a masterful performance at the line of scrimmage, ultimately hitting Pickens on the slant for the first down and the touchdown.
The Cowboys’ defense lacks a Prescott-type player who can command all 11 guys like he does. Would it have been Parsons if he were still here? Maybe not, but he would have at least given the defense something to build off of.
The defense needs leadership. Maybe Osa Odighizuwa or Donovan Wilson, both nominated team captains, can speak up. Perhaps it’s DeMarvion Overshown when he returns to the field. Either way, someone has to help Eberflus take control of the situation before it affects the entire locker room.
Third point: George Pickens is a No. 1
Before the season started, CeeDee Lamb and Pickens were at Kyler Murray’s celebrity softball game. Lamb said there’s no “1A or 1B” but that they are both No. 1 wide receivers. Lamb’s intuition was spot on. In his absence, Pickens has blossomed into the player the front office hoped for when they traded for him.
Against the Panthers, Pickens had a career day, catching nine passes for 168 yards and a touchdown. Over the last three weeks, Pickens has 26 targets (T-3rd), 16 first downs (1st), 359 receiving yards (2nd), 4 receiving touchdowns (1st), 125 yards after the catch (1st), and a 154.6 passer rating when targeted (1st) among all wide receivers.
As Pickens continues to deliver impressive performances, his value keeps increasing. A few weeks ago, Jerry Jones mentioned seeing a long-term future with Pickens. However, if that future comes with a price tag of over $30 million a year, the question remains whether Jones is comfortable with that reality.
Super NFL agent David Mulugheta, who represents Pickens, is always seeking the best opportunities for his clients. Financial security may lead Pickens to consider options outside of Dallas, but his best situation for on-field production could be with a star on his helmet. This is where the franchise tag becomes useful, allowing the team to potentially keep Pickens long-term or trade him for valuable assets before the next season.
Another offseason filled with contract dilemmas lies ahead.
Fourth point: Plain and simple—Dallas has to be better against the NFC
Dallas used to be one of the juggernauts of the NFC. From 2021 to 2023, the Cowboys lost just nine games to NFC opponents. That same success has vanished over the last year and six games. Since the start of last season, the Cowboys have lost ten games to teams in the NFC. That’s tied for the fourth most out of the 16 teams in the conference.
During that same stretch, the NFC teams with a winning record against their own conference are Philadelphia, Detroit, Tampa Bay, Washington, Minnesota, Atlanta, and Green Bay. If the Cowboys played those teams in any order, already having played two of them, their record would probably be 0-6-1. There’s just no confidence right now that Dallas could beat any of those teams, even with everyone being healthy.
Dallas will have a chance to prove people wrong, still having to face the Commanders twice, the Lions, the Vikings, and the Falcons before the 2025 season is over, but the Cowboys can’t lose to teams like the Panthers and Bears, whom they have beaten handily in the past.
Saad Yousuf of The Athletic talked about Sunday’s loss on The One Star Cowboys Podcast and said we thought Dallas was better than Carolina, always giving them the benefit of the doubt against lesser opponents. But now the Cowboys are starting to look like the new Panthers, putting themselves in the same tier as the New York Giants, New Orleans Saints, and Arizona Cardinals.
Fifth point: To trade or not to trade
The Cowboys face a pivotal decision in the next few weeks. With the NFL trade deadline approaching, fans are left wondering if the front office will make a move to improve their roster. If the offense struggled as much as the defense, it would be a non-starter. However, after six weeks, the Cowboys’ offense is one of, if not the best, unit in the league, even without CeeDee Lamb and two starting offensive linemen.
The defense has continued to be an anchor, blunting any hope of making the postseason. Unfortunately, Dallas needs a little of everything on that side of the ball, starting with linebackers and pass rushers. If Jerry Jones is unwilling to part with just one of his four first-round picks over the next two NFL drafts, then Dallas might have to sweeten some deals with players and picks if they want to make a move.
Two obvious players come to mind as options. The first one is Jalen Tolbert. The fourth-year wide receiver was the obvious choice in the offseason, but Dallas stuck with their homegrown player, hoping he could build on his career year in 2024. With Pickens entering the fold and Jonathan Mingo slated to come back from injury soon, Tolbert seems to be the odd man out. Not to mention, he is a free agent at the end of the season.
Tolbert showed he has potential in this league after leading Dallas with seven touchdowns with a backup quarterback. He has also shown flashes in crunch time when it mattered most, like his acrobatic catch against the Packers. A team like the Kansas City Chiefs, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Los Angeles Rams, or Pittsburgh Steelers could use a player like Tolbert.
The second player on the list is utility offensive lineman T.J. Bass. The third-year man out of Oregon has had to fill in for the injured Tyler Booker at right guard and has, for the most part, looked like an NFL starter. In 112 pass blocking snap opportunities, Bass has allowed just one pressure according to Pro Football Focus. His run blocking could use some work, but against the Jets and Packers, he had better outings in those games than against the Panthers.
In a league always starving for offensive line depth, Dallas might be hesitant to make this move, considering they could use the help, too. But with Booker coming back healthy and Trevor Keegan, along with Ajani Cornelius on the roster, Bass becomes expendable if they could get some help on defense. The last few starts have been a quality showcase for other NFL teams of Bass’s potential. Like Tolbert, he is entering the final year of his rookie contract and is a restricted free agent.
