The Dallas Cowboys continue to round out their coaching staff in the wake of the Mike McCarthy hire Monday morning. Tom Pelissero of NFL Network is reporting that the Cowboys have settled on a new Special Teams Coordinator as the second hire to McCarthy’s staff; John Fassel, son of former New York Giants Head Coach Jim Fassel.
Fassel, was most recently with the Los Angeles Rams where he’s been since 2012. Prior to that, he coached in the same capacity for the Oakland Raiders for four seasons from 2008-2011. In his first coaching stint in the NFL, Fassel served as Assistant Special Teams Coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens from 2005-2007.
That’s 15 years of experience as a special teams coach in the NFL.
Fassel is widely regarded as one of the best special teams coaches in the NFL. Though their special teams haven’t ranked very high in 2018 or 2019 in DVOA (Defense-adjusted value over average), but back in 2017, were the second ranked special teams unit. In 2016 they ranked third in the league and in 2015, seventh.
They’ve had creative units that were able to have success on fakes. Teams will have to be on the read for the Cowboys on special teams especially with Chris Jones, who has had success on fakes in his time as the Cowboys punter.
The Dallas Cowboys struggled in 2019 on special teams to get any kind of production. Among the things that went wrong last season, special teams was one of the biggest culprits as the Cowboys were one of the worst teams in the NFL in starting field position.
Fassel will bring a lot of success and experience to a unit that was lacking just that in 2019, making life difficult on both the offensive and defensive units.
Though we don’t normally think of special teams, this coaching hire just made the Dallas Cowboys much better moving forward.
