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Mike Zimmer's plans for defense as he fills Dan Quinn's shoes

Dan Quinn left to take the head coaching role with the Washington Commanders, leaving behind massive shoes for the Dallas Cowboys to fill. Quinn earned his new role, having led a defense that capitalized on the names and talent it boasted, ranking seventh, fifth, and fifth in the last three years (2023, 2022, 2021, respectively) in opponent points allowed.

Since Quinn's takeover and throughout his tenure, the team ranked first in EPA per play at -0.087, allowing just a 43.6 percent success rate on dropback plays (third in the league in that period). The rushing defense has been lackluster at times, but in all, the defense has done its primary job as far as limiting total points goes.

So, with Quinn out and Mike Zimmer recently hired to the role, he is stepping into a role with massive boots to fill. So far, he's approaching it with the right mindset, telling reporters recently that he's not, "trying to reinvent the wheel."

Zimmer recognized, H/T Pro Football Talk, that the team has been good and there's no need to reimagine things on the defensive side or tear down to the studs.

"I mean, they’ve been pretty good. I’ve been in some situations where things that haven’t happened, but that happens in coaching. It happens a lot. We’re going to look at the players, try to figure out the best way to use them, put the scheme together and, again, we want to take the good things that they’ve done and maybe add a few more other things we’ve done good in the past"

For now, it's a fine and respectable approach from Zimmer, who is breaking back into the NFL for the first time since he was fired as Minnesota Vikings head coach after the 2021 season. The defense has the right pieces in place and the strategy for the last several seasons has worked. So why switch it up? Just for the sake of doing something new?

His approach to the new role is absolutely a reasonable one... for now. Zimmer should certainly take this approach until it proves to not work anymore. If the strategy proves to have gone stale, the Cowboys won't have weeks to wait out Zimmer's new plan mid-season, so he should be drawing up contingency plans now and identifying potential weak spots in the strategy, even if he doesn't implement fixes for those weak spots right away.