Blogging The Boys
Matt Eberflus and Andrew Whitecotton are great starts for the Cowboys defense.
The Dallas Cowboys coaching staff underneath first year head coach Brian Schottenheimer has come together quickly, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. Given the fact Schottenheimer will call the offensive plays himself, the Cowboys had the most work to do defensively after just one season of Mike Zimmer. They have put in the work with the hiring of Matt Eberflus as DC, passing game coordinator Andre Curtis, LB coach Dave Borgonzi, and DL coach Aaron Whitecotton. Returning Eberflus to Dallas after a previous stint as the Cowboys linebackers coach from 2011-17 has been noted as one of the biggest wins of the offseason so far. The hiring of position coaches rarely generates the same amount of buzz as a coordinator, but second to Eberflus in terms of excitement level has been Whitecotton.
There is a lot to like about the résumé Whitecotton has built as a young coach, the more experienced coaches he’s learned under in previous stints with the Jaguars, Bills, 49ers, and Jets, and most importantly some of the players he will have to work with on the Cowboys roster.
The addition of Aaron Whitecotton brought some fanfare, and for good reason. The new defensive line coach is still fairly young, as he started his coaching career in 2013 as a defensive quality control coach with the Jaguars. As part of the inaugural staff of head coach Gus Bradley, formerly the first defensive coordinator of the Pete Carroll era in Seattle, Whitecotton was learning from an esteemed mind.
After three years with the Jaguars, Whitecotton was promoted to assistant defensive line coach. However, Bradley was fired midseason, and Whitecotton was forced to find a new home. He joined the Bills on Sean McDermott’s inaugural staff, reuniting with former Jaguars defensive coordinator Bob Babich and assisting with the defensive line.
After three seasons, he took the same position with the 49ers under defensive coordinator Robert Saleh, who had coached linebackers in Jacksonville under Bradley and Babich. Saleh left to be the Jets head coach one year later, and he brought Whitecotton as his defensive line coach, the first time Whitecotton had led a position group.
Over the next four years, Whitecotton was instrumental in the rapid development of several star defensive linemen, including Bryce Huff, John Franklin-Myers, Will McDonald IV, Jermaine Johnson, and Quinnen Williams. Whitecotton also spent three of those seasons working with Carl Lawson, currently a pending free agent for the Cowboys who has already expressed a desire to return.
While the state of the roster as a whole will remain incredibly fluid for the foreseeable future, the Cowboys forming a cohesion between Whitecotton and Eberflus to put a strong focus on their defensive front seven is one of the most overall encouraging moves of the offseason from a true football perspective. It is the first sign of the Cowboys being adept enough to go with...
