Cowboys’ DC Christian Parker lays out his plans for team’s defensive draft picks
This weekend’s rookie minicamp for the Dallas Cowboys not only applies to the first-year players hitting the grass at The Star in Frisco for the first time, but it also serves as the first chance for Christian Parker to coach through a practice as the defensive coordinator in Dallas.
After being hired in January from the Philadelphia Eagles where he served as the defensive pass game coordinator over the last two seasons, Parker has spent the offseason assembling his staff, building his playbook and assisting the front office in building a quality unit on the field.
“It was good,” Parker said. “I think any time you get back on the practice field, it’s a safe haven in a lot of situations. Seeing the position coaches coach, the detail and the emphasis on certain things, seeing the players moving around. I think any time you get out there and you hear that music blaring, you know you’re one step closer to really kind of getting to it, and that’s what we do this for.”
While Parker is hushed about what his defense will look like or who will be the lead communicator, he did make it crystal clear that he wants his defense to be his own product and not any sort of copy of the long line of respected lineage he comes from.
“I don’t want this to be called the Eagles defense or the [Eagles defensive coordinator] Vic [Fangio] defense,” Parker said. “It’s going to be ours. We’ve been really intentional going about that process with language that we use, the workflow we have and everything else. It’s been real fun.”
His first draft pick as a coordinator came when the Cowboys selected Ohio State defensive back Caleb Downs with the No. 11 overall selection last Thursday night. The two have already connected on their shared knowledge of the defensive side of the ball, as Parker is excited to see what workload Downs can handle as a rookie.
“I think a guy like Caleb is a natural football player,” Parker said. “He’s one of those first picks in the schoolyard, so he’s going to have natural versatility. It’s just a matter of what he can handle mentally and how we fit everything together.”
Shortly after selecting Downs, the Cowboys added UCF outside linebacker Malachi Lawrence to Parker’s defense with the No. 23 overall selection, a player that Parker became infatuated with during the draft process.
“We had him in the formal process at the combine,” Parker said. “I think you just see a natural rusher on tape. He has natural instincts. He can turn his toe at the top of the rush. He plays with power. He plays with urgent effort. You see him running down quarterbacks, and that’s one thing we talked about. Three quarterbacks in our division are all athletic, so anybody we deploy on the edge has to be able to run sideline-to-sideline with him, and he has that.”
“When we had him in the room, very smart, very bright, very thorough, very detailed in everything that we talked about from run, pass and how we study o-linemen, just the whole nine yards. I had really good exposure to him in that process.”
In the third round, Parker received another versatile piece in Michigan linebacker Jaishawn Barham. In his college career with the Wolverines and at Maryland, Barham displayed flexibility playing off-the-ball and on the edge. Parker’s vision will have him not only start off-the-ball in Dallas but as a MIKE linebacker.
“He’s certainly capable of playing both,” Parker said. “We’re going to keep him at MIKE right now and see how that goes ... Baron Browning is probably the most recent example. He was at Ohio State, he played both spots. We drafted him in Denver. He was hurt when he came out. He ended up starting as a rookie at MIKE and started for a couple games for us before moving to edge after that. Jaishawn has some similar traits to Baron. We just got to bring him along and see how the brain works.”
While the Cowboys didn’t draft any other players on day two than Barham, they did trade for veteran linebacker Dee Winters who will arrive in Dallas with a high mark on his physicality from Parker.
“Number-one, you feel his athleticism and you feel his intensity to the football,” Parker said. “He’s a really good space player. He can really evaporate space. When that ball is thrown in check-downs, or he’s running C-gap to C-gap or A-gap to C-gap, you just see this intensity and really good angles that he plays with, and he’s violent. We encourage that. We think he’s going to have a good transition. We’re working with him, and we’ll see how that goes.”
On day three, they added yet another versatile defender in Alabama defensive lineman LT Overton. Speaking after practice on Friday, Overton said that he can play anywhere from the nose tackle spot to a wide-9 edge rusher. Parker’s vision will see him start in the 3-to-5 range.
“We see him as a defensive tackle,” Parker said. “We know he can play on the edge some, that’s what he did at Alabama. We’ve seen him play over tackles and tight ends, and play more vertical. [Defensive line coach] Marcus [Dixon] has a good plan for him, whether it’s playing the 3[-tech], the 5[-tech], playing some 4i, but we really see a versatile player. He plays a violent style, he uses his hands well, he plays with a power base. He’s been in different alignments already, so it’s going to be more comfortable for him here.”
Parker still has over four months before he has to field his defense in week one, and he will let that time determine some key questions. Of those, the green dot responsibilities as the defense’s lead communicator appears to be an open competition between players like Winters, Downs, DeMarvion Overshown, Jalen Thompson and others.
“There will be options, and we’ll kind of figure that out as we go,” Parker said. “We don’t play a game for a long time, so we got time for that.”
