Following the departure of defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, who is off to Washington to become the 31st head coach in Commanders franchise history, the Dallas Cowboys are now left with a big vacancy on their coaching staff. However, that void may soon be filled by a long-time NFL coach who is very familiar with what life is like as a defensive coordinator for America's Team.
“Former Vikings’ head coach Mike Zimmer, who last worked in the NFL in 2021, is meeting with the Cowboys about their defensive coordinator job,” according to sources of ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter. In his tweet, Schefter went on to note, “Zimmer and Dallas are quite familiar with each other; Zimmer worked as an assistant coach in Dallas from 1994-2006.”
Mike Zimmer started with the Cowboys as a defensive assistant under head coach Barry Switzer. By his second year in Dallas, Zimmer had been bumped up to defensive backs coach, and the Cowboys, following the addition of Deion Sanders in free agency, won the Super Bowl. In his last seven years in Dallas, Zimmer served as the Cowboys defensive coordinator. Only once in those seven seasons did the Cowboys finish with a top ten scoring defense.
As Schefter notes, the 67-year-old Mike Zimmer has been out of the league for the last two years after he accumulated a 72-56-1 record in eight seasons as the Minnesota Vikings head coach. During a very successful stretch in Minnesota, the Vikings defense finished in the top ten in points allowed for five consecutive seasons.
2024 could prove to be a make-or-break season for Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy, and potentially even MVP candidate quarterback Dak Prescott, a duo that can't seem to get the Cowboys over the hump despite three consecutive 12-win seasons. Whether Mike Zimmer's presence on the sideline as defensive coordinator would be enough to move the needle would
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