Mobile, ala. – Dallas cowboys made an important step for their defense in 2025 on Tuesday.
Another major puzzle piece is looming now.
As Dallas appointed the former Chicago Bears head coach, Matt Eberflus, his defensive coordinatorThe franchise expects Eberflus to install a system that puts a bonus on the aggressive pressure of its defensive front.
The coupling in this plan: the best player of the pressure of Dallas, Micah Parsons, enters the option of fifth year and the last year of his recruit contract in a team that has not signed the best stars of the agreements of spring lately. When the receiver Ceedee Lamb was held throughout the training camp last summer before receiving an agreementThe cowboys offensive responded with a slow start to the season.
It was with the continuity of the game and offensive system system.
Parsons and the cowboys are preparing to learn their third defensive system in three seasons, which could excite the importance of the clarity of the unit contract.
Will cowboys extend parsons earlier?
“I do not think that anyone who has ever underestimated the value of Micah in terms of what he can bring,” the executive vice-president Stephen Jones said on Tuesday. “From the day he crossed the door, he was one of those (guys who) when he rides, it’s a problem for other guys and they were able to find him. They were able to understand how they are going to go on him.
“I don’t want to go into details (from) soon, when it all happens. Too early for all this, but obviously Micah is an important part of what we are. »»
It may be too early for a team to always bring together its defensive staff to develop a clear plan for players’ extensions. But the cowboys route to extend Parsons could depend on two factors.
The first: is Dallas ready to pay for that the money players in his position commanded him, because some of his predecessors reset the market among the contracts without a quarter?
And second: Lamb last year waited to sign with Dallas until the Vikings receiver of Minnesota, Justin Jefferson, resets the market. Could Parsons also slow down an agreement until the Pittsburgh steelers extend TJ Watt and the Browns of Cleveland with Myles Garrett?
When the Cowboys wrote Parsons 12th in the general classification in 2021, they imagined that Parsons could go beyond the role of interior second he played in Penn State. The owner of the team and managing director Jerry Jones described the potential of Parsons that night as a “pressure, pressure, pressure”.
After four years by putting pressure on the rest of the league, Start can now put pressure on the cowboys.
What Parsons offers to Cowboys, whose success can spend it
When the cowboys interviewed Eberflus this week, they asked questions about his parsons vision, Jones told Yahoo Sports.
“Everyone had their own idea of versatility with (Parsons) and moved it because it is such a gamekeeper when it rolls,” said Jones. “Bringing him into situations where he can have matches that are favorable (when) everyone will try to double, triple. I mean we saw everything with him and even up to three guys on him.
“So, if you can move it and you don’t know with certainty where it will be, then it can be advantageous for everyone on defense. … We are confident (Eberflus) will use it and get the most out of him. »»
The maximum of parsons turned out to be heavy during his recruit contract.
In four seasons since Dallas drafted it 12th in the general classification, Parsons dominated up to 52.5 bags, 112 strokes and 256 plated in total. He forced nine escaped and recovered four, including one for a touchdown.
Parsons ranked third this season on the metric of the Pass-Rush victory rate of ESPN, winning 23% of its precipitation.
Its four -year beginnings compare itself favorably to its counterparts close to the extension line. Although their impact can be measured in different ways, the parson career has increased faster than any active player by certain measures.
52.5 bags of parsons in its first four seasons Edge Watt of Watt and 42.5 from Garrett. His 177 pressures exceeded Watt 176 (by little) and the 119 of Garrett.
Garrett and Watt have collected more bags in the past four years, but the 25 -year -olds could have more than first years in advance than the 30 -year -old Watt and Garrett, 29. Watt won the defensive player of the year in 2021, his fifth season; Garrett won in 2023 his seventh.
The Eberflus system will bring a 4-3 defensive front with philosophical similarities with the system of the former defensive coordinator of Dallas, Rod Marinelli, said Jones. He will look for “more robust” defensive plated to stop the race, a category that Jones awaited the choice of first -round draft in 2023 Mazi Smith to fill well. The cowboys will also seek to extend the defensive platform of a free agent Osa Odighizuwa, a local talent that Jones characterizes as a “priority” in their free agent course, pending the evaluation of Eberflus.
But the ethics that Eberflus brings could just as well describe the style of parson game.
“High energy,” said Jones. “Zero tolerance so as not to run in the ball and play aggressive and play – a difficult term – but play violent. This is where it is built.
How the defense of cowboys is part of the vision under the new head coach Brian Schottenheimer
The experience of head coach in the NFL may not be an official requirement for the defensive coordinator of the Cowboys. But Dallas’ defensive coordinators have checked this box for more than a decade now. His last coach not to meet these criteria was the defensive coordinator of 2013, Monte Kiffin, who had spent time as a chief coach of the North Carolina State.
Consider that a plus that attracted cowboys to Eberflus. Dallas appointed Brian Schottenheimer his head coach on Friday eveningThe first position of chef for a coach with more than two decades of experience in the NFL. He will call offensive games, confirmed Schotenheimer and Jones. Dallas therefore wanted a counterpart who could remove the defensive logistics from the Schottenheimer’s plate.
In Eberflus, who knows the cowboys well after having sat his coaches staff from 2011 to 2017, they hired a candidate with experience in the role and organization.
Dallas liked the intensity of Eberflus to balance Schottenheimer’s positivity. And statistically, Eberflus has coordinated three score defenses of the first 10 and five ground defenses among the first 10 since 2018.
The Cowboys View stopped the race and creating a racing game as crucial areas of improvement in 2025. Sous Schottenheimer, they plan to hire an attacking coordinator who will supervise the race game and the protections, said Jones.
A more reliable racing game will better support the quarterly Dak Prescott and will relieve the defense pressure.
“I think it’s a must,” said Jones. “I think it is a must that we marry our racing game to our game of passes … (with) reduced training and things that have set you up to execute the ball even more efficiently like some of these teams L ‘did in our league. Schotty kisses all of this.
The cowboys offensive will benefit from a certain continuity under Schottenheimer, who has spent the last two seasons as an offensive coordinator under the game coach Mike McCarthy.
Dallas’ defense will seek to smooth the tides of the change while it went from Dan Quinn in 2023 to Mike Zimmer in 2024 and now 2025.
The participation of Parsons will be crucial to succeed in this transition. Cowboys will help this participation.
“We have had three systems and we understand that it is not optimal – I will be the first to admit it,” said Jones. “But we also talked with Matt when we interviewed the way we make this as painless as possible.
“Schotty will really count on Matt to make the big lifting on the defensive side.”
