NFL world thinks there’s more to Mike Pettine hire than the Cowboys are letting on, here’s what the evidence actually suggests
The Dallas Cowboys’ big hire on defensive might be bigger than the team is willing to admit. But not big enough to support the idea that Christian Parker is being demoted.
The Dallas Cowboys are making several moves to improve the NFL’s worst defense, from moving defensive coordinator Christian Parker from the sideline to the booth to bringing Mike Pettine back from retirement.
The latter is the most intriguing.
Pettine, a former defensive coordinator and head coach, brings the experience that Parker and the defensive staff lack. And while Pettine’s title will be “senior defensive assistant,” some around the league believe there will be more to it.
NFL coaches believe Pettine’s role should be bigger
According to WFAA Cowboys insider Ed Werder, coaches around the NFL believe there’s more to Pettine than just being a “senior defensive assistant.”
“The Cowboys are carefully representing the hiring of Pettine as someone who is here to support Christian Parker and offer advice based on his experience,” Werder wrote in a social media post. “But NFL coaches I’ve spoken to who know Pettine and the dynamics of the situation with the Cowboys believe the more influence and responsibility Pettine has, the better for the team.”
Werder cited a former NFL head coach who had Pettine on his staff: “They finally hired a real coach. Pettine is legit. Dallas will walk away with that division now.”
The above doesn’t suggest that Pettine will be the de-facto DC and Parker is being demoted, as some fan accounts have alluded to on social media. Despite Parker’s move to the booth, it’s not what’s going on in Dallas.
But it does suggest that Pettine’s title might fall short to what Pettine will be required to do. The Cowboys’ defensive staff is in over its head. They need Pettine to speed the learning curve up. And that goes a little beyond a senior defensive assistant’s job.
It goes into Winston Wolf territory. Pettine is here to solve major problems.
Not only does the team rank dead-last in just about every defensive metric that you pick, but they’ve been consistently outcoached since Week 1 when Matt Nagy and Greg Roman’s offense made the entire defense look lost all night. Though Parker is coaching a banged-up secondary and a pass rush lacking a star, coaching has undeniably fell short.
The Cowboys are failing to manufacture pressure or takeaways. They’re insisting on doing things that are not working. The clearest example of it is their use of stunts and four-man games on the defensive line.
With Pettine’s expertise in schemes similar to what the Cowboys are running, he should hit the ground running. He’s also known as an expert in pressure looks, which Dallas badly needs if the defense is going to get to the quarterback at all this season.
And of course, his familiarity with both Parker and head coach Brian Schottenheimer helps a lot.
Pettine is not here to be DC
The Cowboys defense will still be run by Parker. The optics will be tough for him, for sure. If the unit turns a corner, you can expect many to point to Pettine as the reason why. However, the evidence says a lot.
Parker reportedly tried to bring Pettine back from retirement earlier in the year but it wasn’t until now that he was brought back—potentially with a more attractive offer, financially speaking. So he was a part of his vision all along.
Schottenheimer described Pettine as a “big Christian Parker fan,” which fits with the fact that he gave the young coach his first job in the NFL.
This is stil Parker’s unit. But there’s a middle point between Pettine running the defense and being just an assistant. We’ll see if the two big voices in the defensive meeting room complement each other, or if they clash the minute things don’t go well.
