Tommy: Let’s take a look at the numbers to help answer this question. Christian Parker said a few weeks ago that this would be Dallas’ defense, not Vic Fangio’s or anything else, but we don’t have any data points on what a Parker led defense looks like since it’s his first time calling a defense. So, we’ll combine the personnel groupings from Dallas and the Eagles’ defenses last season and get, at least, a starting idea of what we could see.
The Cowboys ran base 31% of the time in 2025, and nickel 68.2% of the time. The Eagles were in base on 24.3% of their snaps, while they went to nickel on 73.8% of their snaps. Meeting somewhere in the middle on both metrics, that would say the Cowboys would be in base around 27-28% of the time, while they’re in nickel 70-71% of the time.
In my personal opinion, I think based on the personnel the Cowboys have on the roster today, you’ll see them in more nickel than that average would tell you. So, my prediction is you’ll see the Cowboys in, give or take a few percentages, 75% of nickel and around 25% base snaps.