FRISCO, Texas — If there's one thing Matt Eberflus has staked his NFL coaching career on, it's the play of linebackers assigned to his tutelage. It's been a rough road for the defensive coordinator through the first four games with the Dallas Cowboys, but that vehicle took a detour in the Week 5 dominance put on film in the eventual, and convincing, win over the New York Jets — linebackers Shemar James and Marist Liufau playing key roles in the outcome.
Having lost Jack Sanborn to a concussion with six minutes to play in the second quarter, it was James thrust into the limelight along with Liufau and Kenneth Murray.
"Yeah, so I would say it was kind of a surreal feeling for me," said James, the rookie going from making his debut one week prior to playing 60 snaps (73%) for the defense and another 14 snaps (47%) on special teams.
All he did was finish with a team-high 15 tackles, the highest the Cowboys have seen in the past decade and a number exceeded only by former Dallas linebackers Leighton Vander Esch and Sean Lee and, again, it occurred in James' second game; and as a fifth-round pick.
Vander Esch and Lee were a first-round and second-round pick, respectively.
"I was kind of on cloud nine," said James. "I was running out there and hitting like, 'See ball, get ball.' That's kind of what was going on in my head. And that was kind of the outcome of that — 15 tackles."
Not four football minutes after James entered the contest, it was Liufau owning a moment of his own by putting the kibosh on a threatening drive by chasing down running back Breece Hall and punching the ball free to swing momentum wildly in favor of the Cowboys, who walked away by halftime and never looked back.
Sam Williams would recover Liufau's forced fumble, and All-Pro quarterback and MVP candidate Dak Prescott then led the offense down the field to reward Liufau with a touchdown to make it a 17-3 contest instead of a possible 10-10 tie nearing halftime.
And anyone thinking the play was coincidental, accidental or pure luck is missing a key variable in their thought process: Liufau's weekly process involves incessantly punching at every football that comes near him, and no matter who is carrying it.
"I try to be intentional," Liufau explained. "Not only in practice or in walkthroughs, whether it's some managers walking by with the football, and they'll get mad at me, too, I'm just being intentional in finding the football whenever I can. I'm just trying to prepare myself to find it during the game, really."
As a related aside, the native of Honolulu finds the budding nickname "Hawaiian Punch" flattering and "cool", but stops short of rubber stamping it until "I can ask around the locker room first", so let's just say it's in booth review at the moment.
Intentionality can go a long way for those who understand the power of it. It lives at the root of many a wise age-old directive, including one nearly everyone has heard 1,000 times before: practice makes perfect.
What you practice, you shall perfect. How you act, you shall become. Liufau embraces such things, as well as understanding he still has plenty of room to grow.
"It's about having the humility to say, 'What can I do better, really?'" he explained. "I mean, looking at it, I didn't play a perfect game, and recognizing that and seeing what I can do to get better and having a great week of practice going into this next game."
The way the second-year linebacker carries himself is not lost on a younger player like James, who couldn't be more thrilled to not only play alongside an extremely talented Notre Dame product, but to also try to match his intensity and relentlessness on any given game day.
"It's always great to know you got a guy like Marist next to you, because you know he's going to give us all every single play," James said of Liufau. "Like that play when he got that punchout. He was on the side getting blocked, got off the block and punched the ball out. We were thanking God, because you never knew how far he was gonna run.
"You always love a guy like Marist on the team."
And, like Liufau and so many others in the locker room, the fire to improve also burns brightly within the former Gator.
"I would say just some of my zone drops, kind of getting closer to the man," James explained when asked what he plans to work on in Week 6 and beyond. "Instead of eight yards, I can make it a four-yard gain — stuff like that. I am communicating better, but you can always communicate better with the back end. It'll say [it's about] getting everybody on the same page and just playing that relentless and tough defense."
Needless to say, after four weeks of defensive struggles overall (though James didn't have a hand in any of it), the Cowboys' corps of linebackers took a major step forward against the Jets, and it's something they can build on going forward.
The looming return of potential superstar linebacker DeMarvion Overshown also approaches, a recent timeline of "not long past the bye" being used to describe his progress in his recovery from a season-ending knee injury suffered in 2024.
Drop him into a promising, young group that includes Liufau and James and Eberflus might be cooking with fish grease before it's all said-and-done — after weeks of trying to figure out how to get the stove working in Dallas.
