{"id":733696,"date":"2026-02-06T15:15:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T15:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/733696\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T15:15:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T15:15:19","slug":"jerry-jones-says-new-cowboys-dc-christian-parkers-teaching-flexible-scheme-stood-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/733696\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerry Jones says new Cowboys DC Christian Parker\u2019s teaching, flexible scheme stood out"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Cowboys<\/a> owner and general manager Jerry Jones<\/a> said he was impressed with new defensive coordinator Christian Parker<\/a>\u2019s ability to teach and the flexibility of the defensive scheme.<\/p>\n

Jones made his first comments about Parker during a wide-ranging conversation with a small group of reporters Thursday night before the NFL Honors<\/a> show.<\/p>\n

When it comes to Parker, the youngest defensive coordinator in franchise history at 34, Jones said his communication skills were also important.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like his focus on being a teacher, educating and his emphasis on that mental aspect of football,\u201d Jones said. \u201cHe obviously got a lot of physical emphasis, too. In general, I\u2019m excited about the makeup of our entire defensive group. They\u2019re younger to my knowledge right now, unless it was a high school level, I don\u2019t think we have a head coach in the group. There may be before we totally finalize. I\u2019m very much aware that whatever we did before in our decision-making, we\u2019re going a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Jones discussed the previous communication problems on defense. He also said he reviewed who was hired as defensive coordinator and other positions on the unit over the past few years.<\/p>\n

The biggest thing is having a diverse scheme.<\/p>\n

The Cowboys finished the 2025 season allowing a franchise record 511 points and 6,409 yards, the third most in the NFL.<\/p>\n

Several players complained about the scheme once the season started and the inability of defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus to make adjustments more quickly.<\/p>\n

In the latter half of the season, Eberflus called the defensive plays from the coach\u2019s box instead of from the sideline, which he\u2019d never done before in the NFL.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the time they spent making sure they were on the same page, whether it be scheme, whether it be technique, they went out of their way to bond on that,\u201d Jones said of the new defensive staff that\u2019s almost finalized. <\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t sell that short at all. One of the things I\u2019m looking forward to is multiple schemes in what we\u2019re going to run. There needs to be flexibility and buy-in from everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Find more Cowboys coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones said he was impressed with new defensive coordinator…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2066],"tags":[96665,230,229,257,2461,7,2883,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-733696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-cowboys","8":"tag-christian-parker","9":"tag-cowboys","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-cowboys","12":"tag-dallascowboys","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-jerry-jones","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116024346443637566","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}