The plaque on Christian Parker’s office door at The Star will read “defensive coordinator,” but the job is really summed up a bit simpler.
Teacher.
Nearly one month after being officially named the Cowboys’ next defensive coordinator, Parker was introduced to the media in his first press conference on Wednesday. And it didn’t take long for those assembled to get a sense of what the new DC is all about.
“I’m the oldest of three boys,” Parker told reporters. “So being a big brother; there’s an element of that in the coaching side in terms of the relationships that you build and how you try to help them learn from their own mistakes but also not letting them fall into the same things that you might have encountered.”
In his first coordinator role, the 34-year-old will now be tasked with imparting a new batch of lessons on defensive players- some of whom are almost as old as he is- and turning around a Cowboys defense that was among the league’s worst in multiple categories last season.
It will start with language.
“What are we calling formations and passing concepts and route concepts? What is our language for tackling and taking the ball away? And the front structures? Coverages? The whole nine, you just go through the whole process and take it piece by piece.”
The fact that the Cowboys will field an all-new defensive strategy for the fourth straight year means that there is no longstanding terminology to either keep or discard. As it was for Mike Zimmer and Matt Eberflus before him, Parker will basically have a clean slate to start from.
Parker says he plans to build a scheme around his players rather than acquiring a certain type of player to fit a predetermined scheme.
“If we can win on blitzes on a running back, then we’re going to blitz a lot,” he explained. “If we’ve got good man-to-man corners, we’re going to play man. If we have guys that are better with zone vision, we’re going to play more zone. You want to build a package that has diversity and scheme, and then you want to tailor it to the players that you have.”
And that’s where the teaching will really come in to play. But it can’t start in earnest for Parker until he gets to know his players.
“I think you have to know the student, first and foremost. You have to know who you’re talking to. What might hit one player’s brain is going to hit different than another, so being thorough and being detailed, being very clear and concise in terms of your messaging. When to correct, when not to correct. Sometimes a player’s got to touch the stove; you just want to do it in a controlled environment.”
Cowboys defenders can therefore expect Parker’s lessons to come in several different forms: not just traditional drills or exhaustive film study, but also interactive learning games that may feel more like grade-school math quizzes than the Xs and Os of professional football.
“The diversity of teaching,” he called it, “whether it’s on the field, in the meeting room, Kahoot! quizzes, physical quizzes, showing them video examples, having them teach it in front of a room- there’s so many different ways you can get in the weeds of teaching scheme, technique, situational awareness. And really, you just want to expose players to as many different examples because it’s going to hit everybody differently in terms of how they’ll be able to learn that.”
That doesn’t mean Parker is dumbing things down. Not even a little bit. His own education at the University of Richmond, where he earned a degree in political science, has given him a breadth of influences he’ll now bring to the Cowboys defensive meeting room.
“A lot of the stuff is centered around the debate element or discussion,” Parker said of his college major. “So when you have those conversations about different leaders in the past, whether it’s on the philosophy side or world leaders in different countries, figuring out different vantage points on why they did what they did, I think it definitely leads into the coaching world. Your Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, the whole philosophical realm there, the principles of stoicism and things like that, or The Art of War and that kind of military strategy, all those type of things: you see those worlds blended a lot when you come to those different backgrounds. And the books that I maybe was supposed to read that I didn’t, you end up circling back to when you get into this.”
Some of Parker’s learning, though, will be drinking from the firehose under the employ of the highest-profile sports franchise on the planet. Parker may have won a Super Bowl ring while on staff in Philadelphia, but coming to work for the Cowboys adds a whole new wrinkle. Parker admitted that, while snowed in up north after accepting the Dallas job virutally, he watched The Gambler Netflix series to help get himself up to speed on his new boss, owner Jerry Jones.
As Parker himself suggested, learning can come in lots of different forms.
What he didn’t learn from Marcus Aurelius, though, he likely picked up from Vic Fangio. While his defense won’t be a straight dupe of Fangio’s scheme, it will be a derivative… with his own tweaks. Parker acknowledged he couldn’t possibly encapsulate everything he learned under the legendary defensive mind during their time together with the Eagles.
“I don’t know if we have enough time for me to explain all that, to be honest with you,” Parker said. “He’s significantly changed my career.”
And now, after assistant stops at Notre Dame, Texas A&M, Green Bay, Denver, and Philadelphia, Parker has the opportunity to do it his way with his own staff in Dallas… though he admits it will be hard to remember he’s in charge of the whole defense now, not just the safeties and corners.
“It starts with the coaches that we hired. I have a lot of confidence in Derrick Ansley, Ryan Smith, and Rob Muschamp in the secondary to drive the bus when it comes to that and the development,” Parker told media members. “Obviously, my eyes are naturally going to start there when it comes to it; I’m going to have to fight the magnetic force during individual periods that are going to draw me to the DBs and go somewhere else.”
And so, just as Parker sets out to mold the entire new-look Dallas defense into contenders, he’ll be doing just as much learning as his players. And his new job will put him in the classroom with what he hopes will prove to be champion-caliber teachers.
“When you’re around talented individuals that love the game like you do and they’re willing to put in that work, there’s definitely a happy marriage there when it comes to player development. They challenge you as a coach. There’s been plenty of players that you learn from them.”
Todd is on X at @ToddBrock24f7. Also, follow Cowboys Wire on Facebook to join in on the conversation with fellow fans!
This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: Marcus Aurelius to Kahoot: New DC Christian Parker to teach Cowboys in different ways
Reporting by Todd Brock, Cowboys Wire / Cowboys Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
