FRISCO, Texas — Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Christian Parker said Thursday that he told rookie Malachi Lawrence to play without carrying the errors, because the errors are the coordinator’s. Dallas hosts the Washington Commanders on Sunday at 3:25 p.m. CT on FOX.
The two talked it through Wednesday, a day before Dallas practiced in pads.
“Me and him had this conversation yesterday. It’s like, man, just go. Young players have more success when they just go. Make your mistakes on the run. His mistakes belong to me. They belong to me,” Parker said. “If he has an error or we needed him to do something, that’s on me. We want him to just go and just play fast.”
What hesitation looks like on tape is specific, Parker said.
“When he does that and he has a clear mind and he’s just going and punching the clock, it looks really good,” Parker explained. “When he’s thinking too much and you can tell by his feet and being hesitant, that’s when you have issues. So I think for him, and that’s any young player, it’s just playing fast and going, being unapologetic about your play style, and letting me make the mistakes.”
Lawrence went 23rd overall in April, out of UCF, on a pick Dallas got from the Philadelphia Eagles. His debut came Sunday night at the New York Giants, where Dallas had two sacks and six quarterback hits in a 28-20 loss.
Christian Parker On Young Players And Game Speed
The habits a player brings with him are the ones Parker watches for.
“Trust your training, trust what’s being told, and don’t fall back into what you had done before. That’s a lot of it,” Parker said. “You can do it individually. You can do it in practice. But that game exposure, that will show you some things.”
Dallas gets after the urgency in walkthroughs and meetings, Parker said, and there is a ceiling on how close that gets.
“We try to make practice, walkthrough, meeting room as game-like as possible. Is that impossible? Yes, but we want to try to amp that urgency up as much as we can,” Parker said. “But you’ve got to get in those stadiums and feel the crowd noise, the emotions of the game, being able to stick together and being able to execute as one to really get that down.”
Jaishawn Barham And The Rest Of The Rookie Class
Jaishawn Barham, the third-round pick out of Michigan taken 92nd overall, took over the defensive communication when DeMarvion Overshown left with a hamstring injury, and he and Parker talked on the bench during the game.
“I think he was frustrated. It’s his first NFL game, and things aren’t going to be perfect. This isn’t a fairy tale at all,” Parker said. “And I think that Jaishawn cares as much as anybody in that locker room about us winning, number one, but number two, our defensive performance. So he was a little frustrated with himself and frustrated with our side of the ball as we played. But I don’t think anybody in our building has any doubt of what he’s going to do coming real soon. We welcome that passion, have to channel it better.”
Overshown and safety Malik Hooker are both expected to miss a week or two. First-round safety Caleb Downs, taken 11th overall out of Ohio State, started the opener. Parker took the job on Jan. 22 at 34, the youngest defensive coordinator the franchise has had.
