With Cowboys defense in crisis mode, Brian Schottenheimer is offering up a new set of eyes

FRISCO — The constant struggle of the Cowboys defense has hit crisis mode.

Coach Brian Schottenheimer is spending more time with the defensive players and coaches as the Cowboys enter their Monday night game against Arizona.

Schottenheimer is a noted offensive coach and currently is not only the head coach, but the offensive play caller. Schottenheimer’s presence has been met with open arms.

Why not?

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What’s currently occurring with this defense can best be described as inconsistency. Injuries, scheme, poor play are just surface reasons why the Cowboys rank 31st in total defense.

Schottenheimer is providing another set of eyes for the players and coaches with the hope that something will change.

“That’s always beneficial when you can get that,” defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus said Thursday. “If it was Frank Reich in there or any offensive guy you’ve been with.”

Reich was Eberflus’ head coach when he was the defensive coordinator in Indianapolis.

“It’s really beneficial because you could see it through the offensive coordinator’s eyes,” Eberflus said. “It gives insight, not only in a meeting, in a defensive meeting or a unit meeting, but also, us just talking in the office together. So I think that’s really important to really soak that in.”

In 2022, Schottenheimer was a consultant under former Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy. Schottenheimer’s duties were to provide the defense with what he was seeing from an offensive standpoint.

One example of Schottenheimer’s help is telling the defensive coaches what he would call based on a certain alignment he sees at the line of scrimmage. If the offensive alignment changes based on a player in motion, then if the defense changed its alignment, he would provide his own comments on what he would do.

Schottenheimer admitted when he was an offensive coordinator in Seattle and with the New York Jets, former coaches Pete Carroll and Rex Ryan would sit in on his meetings when things were going poorly.

It upset him.

“You don’t like it,” Schottenheimer said. “Myself personally, I took it personal. Like, ‘Why are you in my meeting? Hey, Pete, get out of my meeting. I don’t want you in my meeting, Pete.’ ‘Hey, Rex, why are you in my meeting? Get out.’ Flus hasn’t been like that at all. And he’s been very open to some of the thoughts and again, he’s leaning on the staff and again, it’s a good plan. Like I said, there will be changes. And some bigger than others. But the change is not necessarily what makes this thing go.”

One of the issues with the Cowboys is health. Both starting safeties have missed games with injuries and one of their backups was knocked out of a game last week in a loss to Denver. The linebacker position is missing Jack Sanborn with a groin injury and has dealt with inconsistencies overall.

The pass rushers don’t have one of the best in the game in Micah Parsons, who was named NFC’s Defensive Player of the Month for his performances in October. What’s left of the group hasn’t produced enough to shake quarterbacks or help the secondary make plays on the ball.

The Cowboys’ best cornerback, Trevon Diggs, is on injured reserve with a knee injury and a concussion.

Also, the scheme, zone-heavy in the first month of the season, is buffering on consistency and after Diggs and DaRon Bland asked to play more man-to-man coverage, Eberflus obliged.

Eberflus and Schottenheimer offer no excuses for the issues.

After a win over Washington, where the Cowboys compiled four sacks and held their opponent to 205 yards passing, there were slipups in Denver.

The Broncos’ 44-24 win was fueled by 426 yards of total offense, 179 rushing, and 63% conversions on third down. Quarterback Bo Nix wasn’t sacked and was hit once.

“You know, sat in here last week, I thought guys were moving in the right direction,” Eberflus said. “They didn’t play as well as we went into it and we accept responsibility, accountability for that.”

So now a defense that’s gone through all sorts of changes in the offseason with the personnel and scheme seeks fixes that might not work against the Cardinals.

Schottenheimer isn’t coming across as a savior to the defense, but as a person offering solutions to the problems.

“It’s good, just got another ear in there just listening to everything,” defensive tackle Kenny Clark said. “If he got an idea or something that he might see that offenses are trying to attack us in, he’s going to let us know that. It’s cool having him in there.”

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