The first three games of the Dallas Cowboys defense’s Christian Parker era are not off to an especially smooth start, as the team has pretty much found itself in 2026 right where it left off in 2025. Those in and around The Star insist that things will get better, that you can see green shoots or progress emerging that will eventually blossom into a fully successful defensive unit. For now, the Cowboys rate No. 31 out of 32 on Pro Football Focus’s NFL defensive rankings, which, again, feels a lot like 2025.
No one wants to look at Parker and see Eberflus and Mike Zimmer, but that’s what the numbers say so far. There are 14 games to change that, so patience is required. but Parker is starting to feel some heat for the lack of progress. Remember, it was just six months ago that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was asked if Parker was his biggest defensive acquisition of the offseason.
Jones responded: “He certainly is right there as a contender. He is. He’s impressive. He was impressive in interviews and he’s been impressive to work with. It’s a great win-win.”
Christian Parker Has Been ‘Outclassed’
Cut to here in late September, and former Cowboys rival defensive coordinator Wink Martindale–who was most recently with the Giants but made his name with dominant defenses in Baltimore, and coached the linebackers on the Ravens‘ 2013 champs–is publicly declaring himself less than impressed with Parker, who is 34 years old and in his first year as a coordinator.
Martindale, speaking on Giants beat writer Pat Leonard’s podcast, said: “I don’t want to be an (expletive) but he is being outclassed right now. Christian Parker, the defensive coordinator. He was in the opener against the Giants and they gotta stop the run. It’s always frustrating for me when I see the simple things that guys are just letting go right by the. And watching Dallas, that’s frustrating.”
Wink Martindale: Cowboys ‘Can Call Me’
Now, we should point out that anyone who starts a sentence with “I don’t want to be an (expletive)” is almost certainly about to be an (expletive). So there’s that. But Martindale, whose 2023 Giants team was 30th in points allowed and 32nd in yards, went so far as to suggest that Jones and the Cowboys were welcome to contact him to have him come in and mentor Parker.
“Jerry can call me and I’ll go help him. I am talking about helping the coordinator,” Martindale said.
He did cite one of parker’s big mistakes from Week 3, the 27-yard Lamar Jackson completion that set up Baltimore’s game-winning field goal in Rio.
Said Martindale: “It’s like the end of the game calls, they were play essentially one rat with outside leverage, against—they run double end cuts, which is hard to defend when you are playing outside leverage. Gave up that chunk pass, Lamar was smart enough to call the timeout, and they got that field-goal unit out there.”
Cowboys’ Christian Parker Ripped by Super Bowl Coach for Being ‘Outclassed’