Cowboys, Jerry Jones place big bet on defensive overhaul in 2026 NFL Draft

Imagn Images

FRISCO, Texas -- The Dallas Cowboys knew change needed to define the 2026 offseason, particularly on defense.

After three consecutive 12-win seasons, Dallas produced back-to-back years with fewer than eight wins for the first time since the Dave Campo era. A Dak Prescott season-ending hamstring injury didn't help the Cowboys' 7-10 season in 2024, but the defense also allowed 27.5 points per game that year.

Without All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons in 2025, Dallas bottomed out for one of the worst defensive seasons in team history. The Cowboys yielded a league-worst 30.1 points per game. Matt Eberflus was a one-and-done defensive coordinator.

Change began swiftly in Dallas, firing Eberflus just two days after the 2025 regular season concluded. Instead of hiring a retread ex-NFL head coach as their next defensive coordinator, as Dallas had done previously, Jerry Jones went outside his comfort zone.

Jones hired Christian Parker, the Philadelphia Eagles' defensive passing game coordinator/defensive backs coach under Vic Fangio, as his new DC, despite never having been a coordinator before. Parker, 34, is the youngest defensive coordinator in franchise history. Parker's scheme takes the Cowboys out of their longtime 4-3 defensive structure and into a 3-4, multiple-scheme look that descends from the Fangio tree.

"When I look back, and I see where we've had some of our disappointments, it's when we've played well, relatively speaking, and have been in the ballpark with our record," Jones said. "But when we got down to that playoff kind of football, it's pretty obvious. ... No matter what, we're going to change things around here. and we're going to try to see if something else works. ... It was very healthy. But what it did do, no matter what you say, if you look at these results where we are here tonight, and that's why I started off with that. Between the coaching, the scheme, the players and everything else, we didn't change it for change's sake. It was more than that, hopefully."

Dallas went almost exclusively defense in the 2026 NFL Draft, selecting , including the Ohio State All-American safety Caleb Downs. The Cowboys couldn't have sung his praises any louder.