Cowboys Sign DC Rod Marinelli To A Three-Year Deal

Update:

Todd Archer of ESPN, citing a league source, reports that Cowboys DC Rod Marinelli has signed a three-year agreement with the team.

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Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network reports that the Cowboys have reached an agreement with defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli on a new contract that will keep him in Dallas for the foreseeable future.

Reports from over the weekend mentioned that Marinelli was expected to take a position with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but the team had maintained all along that they wanted to keep him in place as their defensive coordinator.

“Rod’s just done a fantastic job, not only for our defense but our whole football team,” HC Jason Garrett said. “He made our players better. He made our coaches better. He’s just a great football coach, and he’s a great person to have in your organization. He represents all the right things and I thought the defense played remarkably well. We had a lot of questions coming into this season and we had some injuries and at every turn that group just continued to overcome the different adversities that cropped up and handled the situations well and played very well.”

Garrett is reportedly closing in on a five-year extension of his own, so there appears to be a good shot that the Cowboys will be able to retain most of their coaching staff from their successful 2014 season.

The Cowboys defense has shown a considerable amount of improvement since Marinelli took over as coordinator. This season, the Cowboys ranked 19th in yards per game and 15th in points per game, but also managed to be 2nd in takeaways.

Dallas is still in need of several upgrades on the defensive side of the ball, so there will likely be high expectations for the team as they enter the 2015 season.