Aikman was critical of Jerry Jones for publicly applying pressure to Matt Eberflus instead of Brian Schottenheimer handling the coaching staff.
One of the biggest storylines heading into the Cowboys’ final three games of the season is defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus’ future.
Jerry Jones turned some heads this week with some pointed comments about Eberflus heading into Sunday’s game against the Chargers. Cowboys COO and co-owner Stephen Jones joined 105.3 The Fan (KRLD-FM) for an interview and discussed his father’s comments, Eberflus’ future, DaRon Bland’s injury and more.
Read highlights from the interview below, edited lightly for clarity.
How important is it to avoid consecutive losing seasons for the first time in over 20 years?
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Stephen Jones: I mean, obviously that’s what we want to avoid. No one wants to go down that road. Certainly, I know this team, with the leadership we have on it, and the guys want to go out and compete and get the job done down the home stretch here, very important to finish strong. And certainly we’ve had a good week of practice but at the same time, we know we’ve got got a lot of work to do.
Has Trevon Diggs done everything that you needed him to do to meet the standard to play on Sunday?
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Jones: Yeah, I think he’s certainly trending in the right direction. I mean, looks like that certainly could very well be the case, and I know he wants to get out there and compete. He’s a competitor, and certainly trending that way. But we’ll play that up to gametime and see where we go.
Can you comment on Matt Eberflus moving to the coach’s box and why that decision was made and why that wasn’t done earlier?
Jones: Yeah, I think Matt historically has been comfortable on the sideline. I think as we’ve evolved over the course of the season, we’re looking for ways to improve. We thought we had made some good steps there, but the last couple games hadn’t been as good. We’re just looking for long term solutions, and certainly want to look at options. Coach Schottenheimer is the one who came up with the idea, and sat with coach Eberflus, and they came to the conclusion it’d be a good idea.
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Troy Aikman made some comments earlier today about the front office’s involvement with the coaching staff and he feels that should be all head coach decisions. So does Schottenheimer get the final say when it comes to staff changes?
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Jones: No, I mean, I would say 99% of the time we go with what coach Schottenheimer and his staff want to go with. I mean, anytime you have ownership in anything, you obviously, if you’re keeping up with anything in a responsible way, then you certainly want to know what’s going on. But at the same time, you’re also supportive of the people you put in place to make those decisions.
If Schottenheimer wanted to make a change on the staff, he would run it by you guys and you would do the best you can to help him see that through, right?
Jones: Yeah, guys, we’re not going to get into theoreticals. We’re worried about the upcoming game. We play the Chargers, and we’ll continue to work hard and not only to beat the Chargers, but obviously to continue to take the next steps to make this a better football team as we go forward in the future.
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It was disappointing to hear the news about DaRon Bland, any context you can add for us on how long or what the timeframe this injury could have?
Jones: Yeah, I think he’ll be fine for 2026. I think it should be something where he has a real chance to be ready to go for the minicamps and all of that, our guys will do a good job getting him ready, but I don’t see any lingering thing other than pushing him into having a thorough off season with his rehab and hopefully be ready to go for all of our minicamps and things of that nature.
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