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Their coaching staff fully assembled, the Dallas Cowboys made available to the media Monday several assistants brought aboard by head coach Mike McCarthy.
Among the group was new defensive coordinator Mike Nolan, an NFL lifer whose professional resume dates back to 1987. Having run seven different defenses — with the Giants, Redskins, Jets, Ravens, Broncos, Dolphins and Falcons — he knows a thing or two about that side of the ball.
As such, and though he’s only held the job for a few weeks, the 60-year-old has pinpointed exactly the type of system to be installed in Dallas.
“I would say you want it to look like a swarming type of mentality. If anything, you’d like to do that,” Nolan said, per ESPN.com. “I believe there’s parts of coaching that goes into that. For example, I think the things you do with players, the way you teach your players, everything from the language to the scheme I think are all critical factors in making it looking just like that.”
Nolan has achieved success wherever he’s called home. Most recently, that was New Orleans, where he served as linebackers coach and helped transform a once-laughable defense into an upper-echelon unit. In 2019, the Saints finished fourth against the run and totaled 51 sacks, third-highest in the league.
Context: The Cowboys finished 11th against the run (103.5 yards per game) and 19th in sacks (39). No club recorded fewer interceptions (7) than Dallas, who also ranked 15th in forced fumbles (14). Game-changing plays were few and far in-between despite star power at each level.
The talent starts and ends with $105 million pass-rusher DeMarcus Lawrence, who totaled just five sacks last season, his lowest output since 2016. Nolan is tasked with unlocking Lawrence’s massive potential and, more difficult, harnessing it for an entire 16-game campaign.
An unenviable task for some. A welcome challenge for Nolan.
“I had the chance to meet him the other day and I was impressed as an individual goes,” he said of Lawrence, per the Dallas Morning News. “He’s bright eyed and he’s excited and I imagine he’s been that way all along.”
Nolan has long been a proponent of a 3-4 setup, whereas the Cowboys ran a 4-3 under ex-coordinator(s) Rod Marinelli and Kris Richard. He seemingly confirmed McCarthy’s previous claim that Dallas, when they aren’t in nickel looks, largely will remain a four-man front; the scheme is tailored to the players, not the other way around.
“3-4 and 4-3 is really just a personnel decision to get your best 11 on the field,” Nolan said, per 105.3 The Fan. “Outside of that, it’s just spacing between the 11 players you have.”
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Tomsula Echoes Nolan, Speaks on D-Line
One of Nolan’s biggest allies in Dallas is new defensive line coach Jim Tomsula, who, like Nolan, was once-upon-a-time the head coach of the 49ers. Tomsula, like Nolan, is a better assistant than he is the main honcho. Cut from different cloths, they have football fabric as commonalities.
So, unsurprisingly, the two already share a brain regarding the Cowboys’ defensive mindset, and it has nothing to do with how they line up. It has everything to do with putting round pegs into round holes, an elementary concept bungled by the previous coaching regime.
“It will fit around players,” Tomsula said Monday, per The Athletic. “That’s what I know about Coach Nolan. This isn’t a one-way street, it’s a two-way street. The guys with the helmets win games.”
While personnel may change over the coming months, Lawrence is penciled in at defensive end with reigning Cowboys sack leader and impending free agent Robert Quinn, or perhaps midseason addition Michael Bennett, bookending him. The tackles are question marks as incumbent starters Maliek Collins and Antwaun Woods, too, are headed to the open market.
McCarthy has correctly noted, however, that the Cowboys will deploy sub-packages as the de facto base defense, same as most teams do in today’s pass-happy, offensively-oriented NFL. This means a ton of burn for three-down linebackers Jaylon Smith and Leighton Vander Esch, provided he’s healthy.
“We’re a sub defense because we’ll play it 80-85 percent of the time,” McCarthy said on Jan. 16, via The Athletic’s Jon Machota. “But we’re a four-man line defense.”
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Follow Zack Kelberman on Twitter: @KelbermanNFL
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