Commanders Coach Dan Quinn Reflects on Cowboys, Falcons History

The Washington Commanders are giving Dan Quinn a second chance to lead an NFL franchise and his evolution as a coach began more than 10 years ago.

The Washington Commanders hired Dan Quinn to be the new coach of the franchise and usher in an era of winning after so many before him failed to recapture the glory of football in the Nation's Capital.

Serving him in his mission to do so will be a new outlook on defensive scheme and play-calling that he flexed against teams like the Commanders while coordinating the Dallas Cowboys defense for the past three years. 

And that new outlook came because of what he saw dating back to his days as part of the famed 'Legion of Boom' defense as the coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks in 2013 and 2014.

New Washington Commanders coach Dan Quinn says he studied tape of his defenses dating back eight years to spark the evolution that ultimately led to his arriving in Washington, D.C / USA Today

"I'll tell you a quick story of why you have to evolve and it does have to change," Quinn said when we asked him about the evolution of his defense from even fronts during his earlier NFL days to more odd fronts with the Cowboys. "During that time of reflection between leaving Atlanta and going to Dallas...(I) did a 360 on myself. The other thing I did during that time defensively was we put the tape together from 2013 to 2020. So that included Seattle and it included Atlanta because it was really the same system in those eight years of defense. And what had once been good was no longer good enough...So, coming back for that second lap (with Dallas), I knew I wasn't gonna rinse and repeat."

That desire to change only comes from first getting to a place of true self-scouting, something we hear people in production-based businesses talk about all the time, but sometimes fail to do at an effective level.

For years, the 'Legion of Boom' defense was the best unit and defensive approach in the NFL. Ultimately, as it always happens, the offensive minds in the business caught on, learned, and developed ways to defeat it.

Unfortunately for Quinn, he wasn't able to identify early enough that the league had figured him out before it cost him his job with the Falcons. 

"The offense and the quarterbacks were moving ahead faster than that scheme would allow," Quinn continued in his reflection of that time. "And so that is why having that space for me, although it sucked and it was depressing and pissed you off, there was this silver lining in that that made me become a better coach. Because I had to look at myself, not just from the lens of the head coach, but I also had to look at it from a lens on defense...I wanted to go back and find it through those years. And so that's why I was so adamant about when you get those lessons, like you want to go and run with them to prove it. And so, they've been in my pocket."

Quinn said he got to exercise some of those lessons with the Cowboys defense the past few years. And through doing so there's a noticeable shift from even front (typically four down linemen) to odd front (typically three down linemen) looks from his unit. 

Of course, that's just the bottom floor so to speak, and the ripple effects of the lessons learned reach all the way back to how his safeties are employed and how often he dials up a blitz. 

But Quinn also says there are more lessons he's taken away that he hasn't been able to fully employ yet. He and new Washington defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. will no doubt strategize on how to best employ and deploy those in the coming months. 

Regardless of what comes of Quinn's first season leading the Commanders, however, perhaps the biggest part of his evolution as a coach is the understanding that the growth and honest self-scouting can't wait for another lull in his employment. 

"In five or six years from now, it won't be the same exact things anymore either," Quinn also said. "So, you have to constantly keep pushing. You've gotta be innovative, you gotta be on the edge of things, not all the things that you try work, you know...There's some trial and error, but it is part of coaching that makes this profession so much fun. Because it's always evolving...And so that's why evolving and having a plan of how to do that each off-season, that's a really big deal.”

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When coaches can be honest about their own past shortcomings and show the ability to grow from them - run with the lessons instead of from them - they can inspire players to do the same. 

And through that, all involved have a fighting chance to reach the peak of their potential.

The goal here we assume is for Quinn to someday leave Washington on his own terms, likely into retirement or a front office job or whatever he and his wife Stacey see for his future. 

If he's successful in doing so it won't be in spite of being fired from the Falcons job that was his first as a head coach. It'll be because of it, and his willingness to study the rise and fall of his own career at the time, and the lessons born from that honest investigation.