Dat Nguyen has elected not to sign a contract extension after serving as the team’s assistant linebacker/defensive assistant from 2007-2009.

He was not in Fort Lauderdale as the team was getting ready for the Pro Bowl on Sunday. Earlier in the day, the team’s owner Jerry Johnson had offered all assistants the same extension to 2011 that he had agreed with head coach Wade Phillips.

In a later story here, the Morning News reports that Nguyen left to find an opportunity to move up to linebacker coach.  The paper quotes coach Phillips: “He just felt like he couldn’t move up the way he wanted to with us. He wants to coach linebackers himself.”

Which makes sense. The current linebacker coach Reggie Herring is doing just fine, and Nguyen is not getting that job any time soon if he’s staying with the Cowboys.

A former standout at Texas A&M, , where he led the Aggies in tackles for four straight seasons, Dat was drafted by the Cowboys in the third round in 1999. He played for 7 years before knee and neck injuries forced him to retire in 2005.

The Morning News is speculating that Nguyen may be heading to Buffalo.

Dat Nguyen, born in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas a few months after his family landed in the U.S. in 1975, is the first Vietnamese American to play pro football. After a stellar career at Texas A&M where he won the Lombardi award and led the Aggies to a Cotton Bowl championship (back when there was no BCS and the Cotton was a powerhouse bowl), he played middle linebacker for the Cowboys for five seasons. Dat Nguyen is now their assistant linebacker coach.

Sa Thi Nguyen fled with Dat’s parents to the U.S. when the North Vietnamese communist forces overran South Vietnam. The family opened a Vietnamese restaurant in Fulton, Texas, naming it Hu-Dat after little Dat and his brother Hung Nguyen.

The chain now has four locations, all family-run; the original in Fulton, two in Corpus Christi and one in Ingleside.

The situation is something of a role reversal.

Excerpts:

Nguyen remembers watching Thomas beat his Aggies with a 23-yard interception return for a touchdown with 30 seconds to play.

“You know what’s amazing?” Nguyen said. “The first day we’re on the field and I’m telling him about his footwork and it caught me off guard. ‘Man, this is the guy I used to emulate,’ and now I’m telling him what to do.’ But it’s been fun.”

Thomas is two years older than Nguyen and was picked in the fifth round by Jimmy Johnson in Miami in 1996. Nguyen was a third-round pick by the Cowboys in 1999.

The two are almost exactly the same size. Dat Nguyen is 5’11″ and weighed 243 pounds when he was playing. Zach Thomas 5’11″, 242 pounds. They were both in the Southwest Conference in college; Thomas at Texas Tech, Nguyen at Texas A&M.

Thomas is in his 13th year in the NFL, the first 12 with the Dolphins. Thomas has been selected for the Pro Bowl 7 times. Dat played 7 years for the Cowboys before knee and neck injuries forced him to retire.

Dat Nguyen returned to the Cowboys as an assistant coach last year, when Norv Turner became head coach, replacing the retiring Bill Parcells. The Dallas Morning News sports columnist Jean-Jacques Taylor (here) just raved about Nguyen in his new role.