Slater offers insight into 'very intentional' Cowboys defense under new DC Christian Parker 'The Insiders'
NFL Network's Jane Slater discusses how Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Christian Parker has the defense looking motivated during mandatory minicamp practice.
Video Transcript
Let's talk defense because in 2025, things did not go well.
In comes Christian Parker, in comes Caleb Downs, a, a, a tall task for those guys and others to fix the Dallas Cowboys' defense, Jay.
Yeah, Patrick, I mean if you look at the way they addressed this offseason, their two first round picks went to defense.
They went out and they got Christian Parker to recalibrate this thing because if you look at their numbers last year by several metrics, they were at the bottom of the league.
Now we're gonna hear from Christian Parker tomorrow at the Star, but I thought it would be interesting to ask George Pickens, this is your first look at the defense since you've not been in the building, uh, until today.
What do you know?
Noticing and he will tell you along with several other players that this defense is different and I know that can be annoying to some Cowboys fans.
We've had defensive coordinators come in here and tell us that it's going to be new look, it's going to be exotic, but this seems very intentional.
To tell you what George Pickens told me, he said, quote, I noticed a lot of different stuff from last year's defense.
He said certain routes are predicated on how far the receivers go and how they're going to react, whether they go outside or inside.
This is the line that stood out to me, Patrick.
He told me it's now more learning from the defense than just being out there like last year trying to make a play.
Now Parker might be 34.
This might be his first DC job, but he and his staff are very intentional about the little things.
And OTAs, they were drilling down on the end zone as a 12th defender.
They were saying that use the end zone as a 12th defender and yelling, Push him out.
Let me show you something I saw today.
The linebackers are walking around with green resistance bands along the the the forearms there as they were going up against the tackling dummies.
The reason here practicing keeping the elbows tight to strike.
Now a lot of preaching in Camp will emphasize the importance of connection and being disciplined with your eyes and location.
They want the offense to find where the one on one matchup is and.
Through the traffic, which to Pickens's point is really going to help this team, uh, when you think about it, practicing day in and day out against this defense keeps them sharper against teams that employ those disguised defenses, teams like the Philadelphia Eagles, which is where Christian Parker came from.
So really, really interesting stuff.
Normally I go to practice and it's like, what am I going to see here?
They're essentially in pajamas.
Guys, uh, but it's just some of the little nuances that are standing out to me, and I'm finding myself asking more questions of others while I'm up there.
So I don't know what to make of that.
We can always talk about these things in OTA's mini camp and training camp.
Of course, none of that matters until we get into the season, but I am seeing some things different than in the previous 14 years I've covered this team.
