Jerry Jones Explains Why Cowboys Are Moving Christian Parker Upstairs

FRISCO, Texas — Christian Parker will call the Dallas Cowboys’ defense from the coaches’ booth instead of the sideline, owner and general manager Jerry Jones said Tuesday.

Jones made his weekly appearance on 105.3 The Fan on Tuesday morning, which was also his 84th birthday. The change comes five days after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ran for 241 yards in a 24-16 win at AT&T Stadium that dropped Dallas to 2-3. It also comes one day after Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer announced the hiring of Mike Pettine as a senior defensive assistant.

Dallas has allowed 136 points through five games. Jones said the evaluation the Cowboys ran over the weekend was about finding adjustments that would improve on what the defense has produced over the last few weeks.

“I think you search for what we can do differently that would give us better results,” Jones said. “That’s the main emphasis that would spend some, let’s say, specific attention to areas. And you’d look at such things. We’re going to coach the defense from not on the field but up above. Parker’s going up above.”

“And so you should be looking for ways to adjust and make changes to improve,” Jones continued. “That’s the point of improving from the results we’ve had the last few weeks.”

Parker will work from the booth moving forward. Dallas made the same move with Parker’s predecessor last December, when Matt Eberflus went from the sideline to the booth with three games left in the 2025 season. The Cowboys fired Eberflus in January after the defense allowed a franchise-record 511 points.

Parker is in his first season as an NFL defensive coordinator. Pettine gave him his first NFL job as a defensive quality control coach with the Green Bay Packers in 2019, when Pettine was Green Bay’s defensive coordinator, and Jones said he does not look at the Pettine hire as a verdict on Parker.

“No, I don’t think that’s the right word. I think he’s covered a lot of ground,” Jones said. “And I had mentioned when the season started, I’ve never been involved in this much change on the defensive side of the ball or the offensive side of the ball either. But I’ve never been involved in this much change except for our first year, my first year in pro football. And we won one football game with Jimmy Johnson as our head coach.”

Dallas went 1-15 in 1989, Jones’ first season as owner and Jimmy Johnson’s first as head coach.

“But we’ve changed out scheme. We’ve changed out, for all practical purposes, all the coaching. We’ve changed out a great number of players. And those are not all rookie players,” Jones continued. “They’re veteran players. So you put all that together and you’ve got some work to do in putting that all in place relative to the challenges you have when you really get in the ballgames and are sitting here competing at the level we are right now in the main part of the season.”

Dallas acquired defensive tackle Quinnen Williams from the New York Jets last season, received defensive tackle Kenny Clark in the Micah Parsons trade, and added edge rusher Rashan Gary from Green Bay this offseason. Clark and Gary both played for Pettine with the Packers. Tampa Bay’s 241 rushing yards on Thursday came against that front.

“I know what we put into it, as some of the tactic, if you will, strategy, implementation that we’ve done, and I have a lot of confidence that we’re going in that direction in the right way,” Jones said. “I’m obviously disappointed in our results so far, but I think that we’re a long way down the road.”

“I had mentioned after the game that we were back to square one. I really probably think that we’re better off than that, but we are back to square one relative to what it looks like at this point relative to last year,” Jones added. “But I think that to answer your question, we’ve made some big headway. We’ve just this week added Mike Pettine to our coaching staff, and that was something that we would have done had we had the opportunity earlier.”

The Cowboys visit the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, Oct. 18, at Lambeau Field. Kickoff is set for 7:20 p.m. CT on NBC.

This article first appeared on Dallas Sports Journal and was syndicated with permission.

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