The Dallas Cowboys are hiring Mike Solari as their new offensive line coach.
Solari has spent most of his career as an offensive line coach with occasional stints as an offensive coordinator.
“We have a unique opportunity to get the very best here,” owner Jerry Jones told the media at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama, earlier this week.
Solari’s resume certainly fits that bill.
In total, Solari has over 30 years of NFL coaching experience and an additional nine years of experience as a college assistant.
Dallas gave Solari his first job in the NFL when he joined Tom Landry’s staff as the assistant offensive line coach and special teams coordinator in 1987. His other previous NFL stops included the Phoenix (now Arizona) Cardinals, the San Francisco 49ers, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Green Bay Packers, the New York Giants, and, most recently, the Seattle Seahawks.
His time in Kansas City briefly overlapped with Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy at the beginning of his career, and Solari later joined McCarthy’s staff in Green Bay.
He is replacing another former Packer assistant with previous ties to McCarthy in Joe Philbin, the Cowboys’ offensive line coach for the past three seasons.
Under Philbin, Dallas’s offensive line produced three Pro Bowlers (two this season) and excelled in run blocking but had trouble with the pass rush.
According to ESPN Analytics, the Cowboys were a top-15 team in run-blocking win rate in each of those years but were among the bottom ten teams in the NFL when it came to pass blocking.
Solari’s Seattle unit was in the top half of the league in pass blocking in 2020 and 2021, and the Cowboys’ run blocking should be able to maintain its playing level with the players returning to the roster.
He has previously worked with players like Joe Staley, Mike Iupati, Alex Boone, Will Shields, Willie Roaf, TJ Lang, Corey Linsley, and David Bakhtiari.
Now, he rejoins McCarthy in Dallas — the third team with which he has had multiple stints throughout his career.
The team has not released an official announcement on the hiring, but ESPN’s Todd Archer and Calvin Watkins of the Dallas Morning News confirmed the news on social media earlier this week.