Different kind of speed will be key to who Cowboys' Parker wants on D

The Dallas Cowboys defense has been a mess over the past few years. It’s no wonder why changing out coordinators has been an annual event as of late. Whether that’s the cause of the defense’s problems or the result of them is a debate for a different day.

The matter at hand today is what is new coordinator Christian Parker going to do about it. It doesn’t take a film guru to see the Cowboys defense has had its issues in the brain power department. Bad reads, slow reactions and blow assignments had become so commonplace for Dallas they no longer seem noteworthy to mention.

Things got so bad last year, Matt Eberflus’ already simplified defense had to get even simpler so players could just keep up. This remedial curriculum led to a highly predictable system and to make matters worse, it still couldn’t solve the issue it set out to solve: offer an executable strategy. When Nick Eatman asked Parker about the importance of a high IQ defense earlier in the offseason, Parker didn’t mince words.

“It’s very important,” Parker said of IQ. “That’s where it starts. Anytime you’re doing something, you don’t want to beat yourself.