Seattle Seahawks vs. New England Patriots. Mike (Macdonald) vs. Mike (Vrabel). East vs. West. Drake Maye vs. Sam Darnold. There are a lot of ways to describe the upcoming Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, with the matchup for it being set on Sunday with the New England Patriots win at the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks home win against the Los Angeles Rams. For the Dallas Cowboys, it is the latest Super Bowl they won’t be in, though former defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence being in it as a Seahawk in his first year since leaving the Cowboys is certainly making some noise.
Last week following the Divisional playoffs, we took a look at one key element all four teams in action – and particularly the winners – had on offense that the Cowboys lacked in 2025, their second consecutive season outside of the playoffs. It is time to do the same thing with the conference championship winners, although this insight will rightfully take us to the defensive side of the ball this time.
The Cowboys defense has caught some good vibes for the first time in what feels like eons following the hire of Christian Parker as defensive coordinator. The hire immediately came with a long list of reasons to like itand weakening the Cowboys’ biggest rival in the NFC East is certainly one of them. Poaching Parker is just one possible step the Cowboys could take to close the gap between them and the Eagles, and as the initial buzz from the hire is wearing off, the next, much more important step is looming large. The Cowboys need new cornerstone players on all three levels of the defense, they need new personnel mostly in the secondary that can fit yet another new scheme, they need leadership on that side of the ball, and depth to withstand the season’s attrition.
The hope is that some of the characteristics that led to the Cowboys hiring Parker in the first place will lead to a similar mindset in how they approach free agency and their pair of first-round picks in the draft. They needto continue stepping outside of the box in their effort to fully leave behind the Matt Eberflus defense in 2025. Parker is the youngest DC in team history, and was the winning candidate out of a rather impressive and extensive list of interviewees the Cowboys met with that went well beyond the familiar retreads they’ve had in this coordinator role most recently like Eberflus or Mike Zimmer. By all reports and estimations, this was a hire that put the autonomy Brian Schottenheimer has in the spotlight in perhaps the biggest way of his entire tenure so far.
The next thing to keep an eye on in this regard will be the dynamic between Schottenheimer and Parker. This also brings us to the first point of comparison between where the Cowboys are now, where they may be going, and where both the conference champions currently are. Both Super Bowl representatives got to the big game this year with defensive-minded head coaches. Mike Macdonald has done a masterful job in his second season as head coach for the Seahawks, and Mike Vrabel has led an equally masterful turnaround for the Patriots in his first year as HC for his former team – becoming the first player/coach in NFL history to play in a Super Bowl for the same team he takes to a Super Bowl as a coach. Both of these teams have used their defenses to support quarterbacks that weren’t exactly on many fans’ shortlist of ones they’d expect to start this year’s Super Bowl, with Sam Darnold going to his first and Drake Maye also going to his first in just year two as a starter.
Obviously, the Cowboys have not leaned this far into having a mindset towards defense through their head coach in a long time. Their support for quarterback Dak Prescott has been much more direct, and always included offensive-minded head coaches in Jason Garrett, Mike McCarthy, and now Schottenheimer during his time as a starter. The term “Dak friendly” has always been synonymous with loading up directly on offense around Dak, be it the dominant offensive lines he enjoyed early in his career, stacked depth charts at wide receiver, or a constant desire to field a strong run game. These combinations have all merely been different paths to the same destination, teams that are good enough to make the playoffs with some regularity, but not truly be a contender once in the dance, and most often let down by their defense in the biggest moments.
The last time we did see the Cowboys in the playoffs, Dan Quinn’s defense was so bad that one game alone turned Quinn from a hot head coaching candidate to one who only ended up having the Commanders job as an option later in the process. The results didn’t get much better under Zimmer the following season, and 2025 under Eberflus is an experience fans can only hope will be an all-time low in how much one defense can sink a team.
The Cowboys don’t need to hire a defensive-minded head coach to end their 30 year drought of appearing in a conference championship game, but they likely will need better cohesion between whoever their offensive-minded head coach of choice is and whoever is in charge of the defense. This will also require a defensive coach to be empowered to a level the Cowboys have not had in some time, while also being in lockstep with the head coach. Zimmer admitting to not installing his whole scheme in 2024, and not even an murmur about McCarthy stepping in to do something about this, was not a good look at that point. The Cowboys all but forcing Eberflus to be Schottenheimer’s DC in year one, and then watching his scheme fail on a near weekly basis with few tactical or personnel adjustments prompted by Schotty or otherwise, was arguably an even worse look.
With Christian Parker already seemingly working hard on bringing in new staffers to replace the assistants that worked under Eberflus, the Cowboys are starting to take the necessary steps to lean all the way into playing a variation of Vic Fangio’s scheme that requires full buy in and cohesion. It’s this level of defensive buy in, empowerment, roster-building through all phases including free agency, and playing with a highly noticeable level of physicality, that created the right formula for the Super Bowl to not feature a Patrick Mahomes, or Josh Allen, or Matthew Stafford or Justin Herbert, but instead Maye and Darnold who play with the confidence their defense is behind them at all times.
In watching both championship games from the same vantage point all of Cowboys nation was, on the couch, both highly-competitive games ended with a similar conclusion. The better coached team won both games, and set up a Super Bowl that proves in a massive way that coaching does make a huge difference in the game right now. Primarily in the NFC Championship game, the difference between the Seahawks having a cool, calm, and collected confidence on both sides of the ball spurred by their elite level of trust in both play-callers was a stunning difference compared to the TV looks at a very fired up Sean McVay after each Rams touchdown – only for his team to be let down by Chris Shula’s defense without many adjustments coming drive after drive. Where the Schottenheimer/Parker duo will fall on this spectrum remains to be seen, but the answer to this question could be the number one thing that determined how far the 2026 Cowboys can go.
The Cowboys will be relying on continuity in their offensive coaching to remain strong on this side of the ball, but on defense really had no choice but to start over yet again for the third year in a row with a new coordinator and scheme. Both the NFC and AFC participants also showed how supporting a quarterback can sometimes have nothing at all to do with the players that actually take the field with the QB, something the Cowboys would be wise to learn as many of their big financial commitments have already been made on offense.
The process to make Parker the savior to the Cowboys defense that many other coaches and former players of his believe he can be will be a long and arduous one. Very, very early on though, the steps along this journey have been good so far. The reasons to believe in the dynamic between Schottenheimer and Parker being better than they have been between Cowboys head coaches and defensive coordinators are evident, the thesis of playing a defense that majors in preventing big plays when the Cowboys have a big play offense themselves makes a lot of sense, and retooling in this way aligns the Cowboys just a little bit more with the Seahawks and Patriots.
Whether it’s DeMarcus Lawrence getting a ring he couldn’t in Dallas, or Patriots owner Robert Kraft adding to a Super Bowl winning lead that Jerry Jones is apparently chasing, the Cowboys stand to learn a lot from the final game of this season about how to get closer to this position next season.