Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has already said the team will not be making a change with head coach Mike McCarthy and felt it was ludicrous that it would be considered a possibility after one season, despite the disappointments of a 6-10 record.
Defensive coordinator Mike Nolan was not given the same grace.
Sources confirmed that Nolan was fired by the Cowboys on Friday.
The team officially announced that Nolan and defensive line coach Jim Tomsula would not return for the 2021 season.
“I am appreciative of my relationships with both Mike and Jim, and I am grateful for the contributions that both of them made to our team under difficult circumstances in 2020,” McCarthy said in a statement. “These are never easy decisions to make, and we wish them, and their families, the very best in the future.”
Considering the Cowboys defense allowed the most points in franchise history and the second-most yards ever, the moves came as no surprise, especially with Nolan.
Jones had intimated as much for weeks.
On Tuesday, two days after the 23-19 season-ending loss to the New York Giants, Jones reiterated his regrets for allowing McCarthy and Nolan to change defensive schemes from a 4-3 to the 3-4 in the offseason with no mini camp and a limited training camp due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The result was confusion and communication breakdowns.
But Jones said that had nothing to do with the litany of big plays allowed by the defense, which he blamed on a lack of discipline, and that goes to the heart of coaching. The defense allowed 69 plays of at least 20 yards or more.
That doesn’t even include the infighting and finger pointing that nearly tore the team apart early on.
Even though the defense got better as the season went on, forcing 12 of their 23 takeaways in the last four games, it was not enough to save Nolan.
Not only did the Cowboys allow a franchise-record 473 points, but their average of 164.8 rushing yards per game allowed only trailed the defense from their expansion season of 1960 as the worst in franchise history.
The Cowboys allowed more than 260 yards rushing three times in 2020, including 307 to the Cleveland Browns and 294 to the Baltimore Ravens, the first- and third-most rushing yards allowed in a single game in franchise history.
One in-house option to replace Nolan is senior defensive assistant George Edwards, a former defensive coordinator with the Buffalo Bills, Minnesota Vikings and Washington Football Team.
Other possibilities on the market include former Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Dom Capers, former Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips, former Atlanta Falcons head coach Dan Quinn and former Los Angeles Chargers defensive coordinator Gus Bradley. Capers was McCarthy’s defensive in Green Bay for nine seasons.
With Nolan gone, it could also mean more changes to a defensive staff that brought in five new coaches last season along with Tomsula.
