FRISCO, Texas – The Cowboys are continuing to expand their net in the search for a new defensive coordinator, as three more candidates will interview with the team for the vacant position.
Current Cowboys DL coach Aaron Whitecotton interviewed on Monday, Ravens DC Zachary Orr and former Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon are expected to interview on Tuesday, expanding the current list of interviewees to six.
Last week, Dallas held interviews with Vikings defensive pass game coordinator Daronte Jones, Browns safeties coach Ephraim Banda and Broncos defensive pass game coordinator Jim Leonhard.
Whitecotton is the only internal candidate that the Cowboys have interviewed at this point in the process. The 2025 season was his first in Dallas, after spending the previous four seasons as the Jets' defensive line coach.
Familiarity is one of the biggest things that Whitecotton brings to the table for Dallas, not just because he spent the past year with the team, but he also has been around star DT Quinnen Williams for most of his career. Williams is a big part of the Cowboys' defensive future, and how to maximize having him on the field is certainly one area Dallas will be looking for while holding interviews.
In the approximately four and a half seasons Whitecotton and Williams have spent together, Williams has had the best years of his career, posting four straight Pro Bowl seasons since 2022 and a first-team All Pro nod in 2022. Since coming to the NFL in 2013, Whitecotton has not yet held a defensive coordinator position.
The next candidate is Orr, a native of Desoto, Texas and graduate of the University of North Texas. He played three seasons at linebacker for the Ravens from 2014-2016 before suffering a congenital neck/spine condition that ended his 2016 season, and would ultimately be the final time he played.
Former Ravens head coach John Harbaugh immediately hired Orr as a defensive assistant in 2017, a role he would serve in until 2020. In 2021, Orr joined Urban Meyer's staff with the Jaguars as the outside linebackers coach, the same staff that Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer was on as the passing game coordinator.
After one season in Jacksonville, Orr returned to the Ravens in 2022 as the inside linebackers coach. In 2024, at just 32 years old, Orr was promoted to defensive coordinator. That season, the Ravens had a top 10 defense in the NFL, which included the number one run defense in the league. The Ravens finished 24th in total defense in 2025, but were still a top-10 unit against the run.
Gannon fits the bill of who the Cowboys have hired in the past at defensive coordinator: Former NFL head coaches. Each of their last five defensive coordinator hires had been a head coach in the NFL at some point prior to their arrival in Dallas.
In three seasons as the head coach of the Cardinals, Gannon compiled a 15-36 overall record. One of those wins came earlier in 2025 against the Cowboys, where his defense held Dallas to just 17 points, tied for their lowest output of the season.
When he took the job as head coach, Gannon hired current Cowboys offensive coordinator Klayton Adams as his offensive line coach, where Adams spent two seasons before taking the job in Dallas.
Prior to his time as the head coach in Arizona, Gannon was very familiar with the Cowboys as he was the defensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2021 and 2022, both units which finished top 16 in the league, including a 2022 defense that was third-best in the NFL and helped Philadelphia reach the Super Bowl.
Even earlier before that, Gannon worked with two former Cowboys defensive coordinators as well. From 2014-2017, Gannon was the Vikings' assistant defensive backs coach while Mike Zimmer was the head coach, and then became the defensive backs coach for the Colts while Matt Eberflus was defensive coordinator from 2018-2020. He also has a background in scouting with the St. Louis Rams, where he spent 2009 as a college scout and was a pro scout in 2010 and 2011.
The 2025 NFL coaching carousel has already begun to shake things up all over the league, as eight teams currently have head coaching vacancies, leaving the door open for plenty of staff turnover in the coming weeks. As that happens, the Cowboys are expected to continue casting their net wider for more potential candidates.
To keep up with the latest on Dallas' search for a new defensive coordinator, visit our official 2026 defensive coordinator candidate tacker when you click here.
