Dan Quinn Reveals Goal With Commanders: 'Best That Anybody's Done'

Dan Quinn has lofty goals for his tenure as the Washington Commanders' head coach.

Few teams have set the standard for winning in sports like Bob Myers during his time as the Golden State Warriors general manager. 

During his 12-year tenure running the Warriors, they won three championships, including three in four years from 2015-2018. With Myers as a part of the Washington Commanders' coaching and general manager search, it's clear what owner Josh Harris was looking for in those two people to lead the franchise. 

For new Commanders head coach Dan Quinn, it was clear what he saw in Myers during the interview process. And given Quinn's familiarity with Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, it wasn't hard to see why the NBA franchise became the gold standard of the 2010s.

Now, with another shot at being a head coach, Quinn hopes that he and general manager Adam Peters can replicate the success Myers and Kerr had with Golden State. 

Dan Quinn and Adam Peters / USA Today Sports

"I saw what good looked like between a head coach and a general manager, and there's other sports, I've seen it obviously as well," Quinn said. "A goal years from now to say, ‘Dan and Adam, they did it the best that anybody's done in professional sports.’ And that's a super high bar, but that's the standard that we want to get it to because at the end of it, it's not about the credit or what it is, it's just about us over the long-term kicking ass for a long time together."

Quinn got his first shot at being a head coach with the Atlanta Falcons and came within an eyelash of winning the Super Bowl in 2016 before his team blew a 28-3 lead to the New England Patriots in a 34-28 loss in overtime. In Quinn's five years in Atlanta, he led them to two playoff appearances in four-plus seasons and went 43-42 before getting fired after a 0-5 start to the 2020 season. Since then, Quinn has rebuilt his reputation as the Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator from 2021-23 and turned them into a top-10 defense in each of his seasons as the playcaller. 

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How Quinn improves from his time with the Falcons will determine his success with Washington. If he can learn from what led to his downfall, it'll go a long way toward having a successful second stint as a head coach. Having Peters, who is viewed as one of the top talent evaluators in the sport, will certainly help Quinn as they embark on rebuilding a Commanders team that hasn't finished over .500 since 2016. 

Coming off of a 4-13 season, turning Washington into a team that can compete in the NFC East won't be easy, let alone turning them into a franchise on par with the success Golden State has had. But if Washington can make the most of the 2024 Draft and Quinn uses the lessons he's learned from his previous coaching stints to make the most of the Commanders roster, who's to say they can't one day be the class of the NFL?