It seems Mike Zimmer may have beaten out a popular in-house candidate for the Cowboys defensive coordinator job.

Mike Zimmer is the defensive coordinator of the Dallas Cowboys. It took a bit for that to finally become official, but it did so on Monday. In fact, the Cowboys are set to hold a press conference on Wednesday afternoon to commemorate the reunion.

As far as the search that Dallas conducted for someone to take the post left behind by Dan Quinn, Zimmer was one of the first names to pop up. Throughout the entire process it always seemed like he had a strong chance of winning the job.

Zimmer’s primary competition felt like other external candidates in Ron Rivera and Rex Ryan, but there were some in-house names that a lot of fans wanted to see in the mix as well. Joe Whitt Jr. never really entered the running as he almost immediately followed Dan Quinn to the Washington Commanders to serve as their defensive coordinator, but even with him gone the most popular name mentioned across our site and on social media was Al Harris.

It seems that another name may have been the one that gave Zimmer the biggest run for his money.

The Cowboys may have ultimately chosen Mike Zimmer over Aden Durde

While the Cowboys formally agreed to terms with Mike Zimmer on Monday, it was initially reported that they were set to hire him (in so many words) last Thursday evening. That is significant in the overall timeline involved.

Why is that so? While we were all waiting for “official” word to drop on Zimmer the Seattle Seahawks chose to hire Cowboys defensive line coach Aden Durde as their defensive coordinator. He joins Mike McDonald who was Seattle’s choice to lead their franchise in a post-Pete Carroll world over the aforementioned Dan Quinn.

During the mothership’s episode of Talkin’ Cowboys on Tuesday, Nick Harris noted that Dallas may have ultimately chosen Zimmer over Durde when asked about the last two names specifically. The conversation we are referencing happens in the first three and a half minutes of the video below.

“If it came down to the last two… Mike Zimmer and Aden Durde. Aden Durde. I can say that confidently. Aden Durde made a big impression during his interviews. He was on the edge for the Seahawks DC position, and you see how quick that developed as soon as Mike Zimmer was announced on Thursday night. We’re talking Friday morning, 11am, Seahawks DC is when he was getting announced. That’s still not finalized so, kind of wait on that for this week, but Aden Durde impressed a lot of people in the interviews. It seems like he has a lot to bring from a scheme standpoint as well.”

Durde was formally announced as the Seahawks DC shortly after this episode, funny how things like that happen, but it stands to reason that he moved forward with Seattle as an option after finding out the Dallas job was going to Mike Zimmer.

Aden Durde has never been a defensive coordinator in the NFL, and given that Mike McCarthy needs to perform this season, it makes sense that he would want somebody who has done the job before. Obviously Durde has had high levels of success with the Dallas Cowboys defensive line during his time with the club, but the level of unknown does feel like an unfair risk to ask McCarthy to take given the circumstances.

Assuming these were indeed the final two choices, which direction would you have preferred the Cowboys to go? Let us know.