The Cowboys fire defense coordinator Mike Nolan after a season

The Cowboys fired Mike Nolan on Friday as their defensive coordinator, a long-awaited decision after arguably the worst defensive season in the franchise’s 61-year history.

Nolan confirmed the development via text message.

Defensive line manager Jim Tomsula was also fired, and other changes to the defensive technical team are likely.

The last three defensive coordinators that coach Mike McCarthy hired – Dom Capers, Mike Pettine and Nolan – dating from his time with the Green Bay Packers were all NFL coaches at one point. Former Atlanta Falcons coach Dan Quinn is a name that deserves attention. It was discussed internally as a possible replacement, the sources said. Senior defensive assistant George Edwards also needs to be monitored as an internal candidate.

A wrong approach condemned Nolan’s one-year term.

In January, he inherited a defense that, in recent years, has sometimes been criticized for being too schematically simplistic and predictable. Nolan transformed a Toyota Prius manual into a Porsche, presenting volumes of conceptual and technical sophistication.

Perhaps the transition from the scheme had gone well in other years.

Not 2020.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, NFL coaches and players had less instruction time out of season, missing spring training on the field before a truncated training camp without a preseason. In this critical area, Nolan and coach Mike McCarthy failed to adapt, continuing at full steam.

Only after several games of the season, when mental errors and lost assignments accumulated at an alarming rate, did the Cowboys begin to reduce their defense.

The results stabilized in the middle of the season.

Still, Dallas conceded 218 points in its first six games, tied with the New York Giants in 1948 as the third worst in NFL history. Only the Baltimore Colts of 1950 (235 points) and the Washington Redskins of 1954 (223) scored worse. Nolan called up the first four games from a stand at the stadium before moving to the sideline.

The Cowboys ended 2020 having allowed a franchise record of 473 points. Decision-makers believe that any staffing deficiencies they had in defense did not reach a historic scale, as many of these players have been part of more successful defenses in the past.

Nolan’s group underperformed.

McCarthy wasn’t going anywhere, one season on a five-year contract.

So for weeks, without a shocking turn of events, it seemed inevitable that Nolan and several other defensive assistants would bear the consequences. Several coaches hired by McCarthy in January were disappointed with the Star and are considered unlikely to be hired.

The Cowboys’ season ended on Sunday with the defense allowing three first-time touchdowns for the New York Giants in a 23-19 defeat.

“I think it was evident that it was difficult to implement a new system and not be able to practice it,” said linebacker Leighton Vander Esch this week. “I think we were finally starting to get the hang of it at the end of the season, and I think it really appeared when we were starting to understand things a lot better, it was showing up in the film. But it was difficult not to have an off-season and not be able to really be on the pitch and go through it all. “

Improving race defense will be a focus in this off-season.

Dallas allowed an average of 164.8 yards per game, the second worst in the franchise’s history, behind only the inaugural 1960 defense (186.8 yards).

In 2020, there were three cases against the Cleveland Browns, Arizona Cardinals and Baltimore Colts in which the Cowboys allowed at least 260 running yards and at least 7 yards per pass in the same game. In comparison, in the first 60 years of the franchise, there were only four of those occurrences, and those occurred in 1960, 1961, 1963 and 2008.

The Cowboys became the first team since the 1973 New England Patriots to allow three of those efficient performances and high-yard runs in the same season.

Nolan appointed McCarthy as his offensive coordinator in 2005 during his first year as coach of the San Francisco 49ers. The arrangement lasted for a season before McCarthy left to guide the Packers. In 2020, McCarthy returned the gesture and made Nolan his defensive coordinator.

The arrangement lasted for a season.

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