Yes, I know. Christian Parker hasn’t called a regular-season defense for the Cowboys yet, and I’m already wondering what happens when he leaves.
Let’s call this hypothetical Sunday.
I want to give Parker his time first. Dallas hired the 34-year-old in January, making him the youngest defensive coordinator in franchise history and he’s installing his defense.
This comes with learning his players and trying to clean up a unit that gave every Cowboys’ fan a boatload to gripe about last season. I would hope one rough year wouldn’t have Jerry Jones shopping for another coordinator before Parker gets his feet under him.
I would like him to get two to three years to figure things out.
Now let’s get hypothetical.
Suppose Parker turns Dallas into one of the nastiest defenses in football. I’m talking about the run defense holding up, third-and-long stops making us hold out breath, young players develop, and the takeaways come back.
This type of 180 would get the league’s attention and create interview opportunities for the young coach. Stack two in a row and a deep playoff run, and someone will talk themselves into hiring the young defensive guru before another team beats them to it.
I can say that would sting, but it would be more than that. Coordinators don’t become hot commodities because things fall apart and that would leave Brian Schottenheimer with a problem.
Or would it, because Dan Quinn might be looking for a job.
I don’t want this to get twisted into Parker being halfway out the door. He hasn’t earned anything yet.
I can be rough on defensive coordinators and I think most fans are with me. One week the new guy is a genius, and the next week, after a running back breaks loose for 140 yards, we all want him escorted out of The Star by security.
That’s the life of a coach for the Cowboys. The good is good, but bad is the worst in the league for us fans.
We can’t operate like that, but we do.
We need to give Parker enough time to build his defense instead of patching together someone else’s defense. If the first year is bumpy, we ride those bumps like driving on Oklahoma roads.
I want to see if the defense improves, and whether the young guys are developing. Let’s see if his plan makes sense in December, and if it does, keep building..
This hypothetical only works if Washington falls apart, Quinn gets fired and Parker eventually takes a head coaching job.
I know that’s a lot of dominoes to fall.
Still, Quinn and Schottenheimer aren’t strangers who shared a hallway once. They coached together with the New York Jets in 2007 and 2008, then reunited in Dallas in 2022 and 2023.
Schottenheimer knows what Quinn looks like in a meeting room and how players respond to him. Most...
