FRISCO, Texas – Well, meet Christian Parker, the Cowboys next defensive coordinator. We did Wednesday afternoon. Press conference with his new boss, Brian Schottenheimer. On the side A good 40 minutes.
He might of just turned 34 years of age two months ago. If first impressions are meaningful, you'd have never known it if his ability to answer questions is any indication.
This guy doesn't seem to just have removed the training wheels.
Can see why the Cowboys after going through as Schotty said some 40 Zoom interviews, and then bringing in the now former Eagles pass game coordinator for a formal, in-person interview, he knocked the socks off the Cowboys, and that includes owner Jerry Jones, co-owner Stephen Jones and certainly vice president of player personnel Will McClay, and anyone else upstairs or down the hallway sitting in.
Prepared. Insightful. Affable. Charismatic. No answers merely, as Brad Sham would like to say, salad dressing, you know, answers just to be answers.
When asked his own feelings after the extensive in-person interview, you know that feeling many of us have gone through when completing such a job interview in retrospect, he thought to himself leaving for DFW, "No regrets how I handled the process."
Schotty said during the interview process, they asked Parker on the spot to conduct a "mock" first day team meeting address. Me went through a similar newspaper job interview request when told they wanted me to sit in "the slot" that night on the copy desk to lay out the morning paper by the sports editor who was a nationally known baseball writer on the side at The Sporting News. Probably had a lump in my throat, when I asked, "You mean me, by myself, on deadline?"
Yup, and did it.
Schotty said Christian passed with flying colors. In fact, after being here like three weeks, he already has a nickname, "CP."
He was asked if he sees his "youth as an advantage here," being named a defensive coordinator in just his sixth NFL season as anything more than a quality control coach, having spent three seasons in Denver as the defensive backs coach and just two more in Philly as the pass game coordinator/defensive backs coach, then fast tracking to taking over a struggling Cowboys defense.
Parker deadpanned, "I don't know, I've always been young, so (laughs), I don't know anything else. I think work ethic and schematic diversity, in terms of who I've worked for (Vic Fangio twice), who I've been around and how I was raised, and that has to be an advantage of the staff we have hired and the collaboration more so than my age."
Starting to sense what I mean?
Then there was the question about some of the young cornerbacks he's raised, like Denver cornerback Pat Surtain II as a rookie in 2021, the eventual NFL 2024 Defensive Player of the Year, and then the likes of 2025 Eagles Pro Bowl corners Cooper DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell over the past two seasons.
Parker didn't break his arm patting himself on the back.
"I think great players make great coaches," Parker deflected. "I think when you are around talented players who love the game like you do and they are willing to put in that work; there is a happy marriage there when it comes to player development and challenges you as a coach."
Starting to catch my drift? Sense what I'm sensing, and likely most everyone in the packed press conference room out here and those who will choose to listen to this 40-minute press conference, along with like another 10 minutes or so as he walked off the podium.
Now we'll eventually get into scheme, some of Parker's player analysis, more football meat and potatoes. Heck, it's just Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras was yesterday. He's only just met a few of the players, but as Schottenheimer went out of his way to say, "What's been awesome to me is the excitement of our players. Our players are around a little bit . . . but there coming to see (Christian Parker), to be around. You see the excitement for Christian and the other staff and the connection that has already started.
"So, for me, that gets me excited, because again that's what you want."
Big picture: Says Schottenheimer, "This was a great hire for the Cowboys."
Meaning, so far, so really good.
- Congrats Big Newt: Never seen our guy Nate Newton so happy than when joining our Mick Shots Podcast Tuesday morning on DallasCowboys.com. The six-time Pro Bowl offensive lineman, having spent 13 of his 14-year NFL career with the Cowboys, still pumped over receiving a Presidential Pardon last Thursday, wiping away his 30-month prison sentence history for drug trafficking charge back in 2001. Here is how the news came down. I get a call asking for Nate's cell number. He gets a call from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones' assistant, asking him to meet Jerry at The Star that night. His first inclination was to wonder what did I say now on some podcast or TV show? What did I do wrong? Upon arrival Jerry informs him of his pardon, having spent right at 24-months in prison in the early 2000s. "He said, 'You've been pardoned from the President.' I just sat there for about 30 seconds to a minute. I was stunned. But I told him, 'You tell the President, thank you very much.'" And for the next 30 minutes of the show, Nate bared his soul about his time in prison with us and what he learned about life. Worth your listen. So proud of him, having turned his life around over these past 20-some years.
- Salary Cap Deadline: Learned my lesson many moons ago around the advent of the salary cap, knowing the Cowboys were way over the cap, writing something like "the bells are about to go off," signifying the Cowboys facing a fine for violating the cap. Well, they did their cap work by restructuring contracts to duck under in time, and the next time I bumped into Stephen Jones, he jabbed me in the ribs with "Did you hear any bells go off?" having a good laugh. So do not panic when some likely will report the Cowboys are like $36 million over the cap and won't have room to fit George Pickens' potential $28 million franchise tag under the cap. They have 21 days to whittle that overage away.
- Unrelenting Cap: There are those who like to proclaim there are ways to circumvent the NFL salary cap. Wrong, there are ways to massage the cap, but teams never can escape guaranteed money. Just pushing it down the road. And right now, four Cowboys players no longer with the team are counting just more than $24 million against the 2026 cap. Check this out. The Cowboys must absorb the rest of those restructure bonuses paid Zack Martin to lower his base salaries to the tune of $16.4 million this year since he retired last year. Cutting Trevon Diggs last year will cost them $5.88 million this year, the remaining guaranteed money on his contract. Even Mazi Smith stills costs $1.66 million after his sending him last year to the Jets in the Quinnen Williams trade. And this one might dismay you, but the death of Marshawn Kneeland, a second-round draft choice, still has $1.21million of his $4 million guaranteed on his rookie contract to account for this year.
- Needs Adjusting: While veteran DT Kenny Clark's 2026 base salary is a reasonable $8.8 million, here comes the expensive sticking point. If Clark is on the Cowboys 90-man roster the third day of the league year (March 13), and no reason why he wouldn't be, the 11th-year veteran is owed an $11 million roster bonus, bumping his cap charge to $21.5 million. That likely will need some adjusting that pushes that money down the road.
- Seeking Perfection: These Winter Olympics remind me there is no sport out there demanding perfection like figure skating. Don't complete a spin, minus points. Drag a skate, minus points. And heaven forbid, fall, minus big points. Think about it. If a quarterback completes 70 percent of his passes, like completing 28 of 40 passes, with 12 incompletions, that's considered excellent. If a baseball player goes three-for-six at the plate, meaning he still made three outs, he's batting a fabulous .500. And in basketball, if you nail 10 of every 22 three-point attempts, converting at a mere 45-percent rate, that earns big money. But in figure skating you had better be perfect on a least 95 percent of your routine over like four minutes to even have a chance to medal, no matter the technical difficulty of your routine. Hey, nobody factors in the technical difficulty of a batter facing Nolan Ryan when compiling a batting average. Take a moment to consider the immense pressure on these skaters to be perfect.
- Medal Worthy Shots: How fitting that during Black History Month civil rights activist and one-time presidential candidate Jesse Jackson passes away at the age of 84, the guy who lived in our vicinity on the South Side of Chicago remembered for his chant "I am . . . somebody," trying to pump up confidence in whoever you are . . . Sure was fitting CeeDee Lamb was added to the Pro Bowl, even if a substitute, especially after seeing the stat of having produced six 100-yard receiving games in 2025, tied for third in the NFL, behind Jaxson Smith- Njigba's nine and Ja'Marr Chase's seven . . . And then there is this one, Dak Prescott in a three-way tie for the third most two-plus touchdown passes in a game with 10, one shy of his career single season high of 11 in 2023.
Much has been made of being a "good teacher" during this search for the Cowboys next defensive coordinator, concluding with the hiring of Christian Parker, so came as no surprise when early in the press conference Parker was asked his definition of a good teacher.
"I think you have to know the student first and foremost," Parker began. "You have to know who you are talking to. Might hit one player's brain different than another. So being thorough and detailed and being very concise in your messaging. When to correct and not to correct; sometimes a player has to touch the stove, so you want to do it in a controlled environment. Just how to do that, the diversity of teaching what is on the field, in the meeting room, quick quizzes physical quizzes, showing them video examples.
"Having been teaching in the front of a room, there are so many different ways you can kind of get ion the weeds of teaching – scheme, technique, situational awareness, and you really want to expose players to as many different examples because it's going to hit everybody differently in terms of how they going to be able to learn that."
Even more insight there into Christian Parker.
