Cowboys Country

Cowboys' Dan Quinn Wins NFL Assistant Coach of the Year

Quinn entered this offseason as the hottest candidate head-coach candidate in the cycle, and the reasons are obvious.

Mike Fisher

FRISCO - Dan Quinn has a motto that I suggest to him surely must been a life-long credo and one that's gotten him through highs and lows.

"I want to be right where my feet are,'' he says often, and he mentioned it again in our recent 1-on-1 interview on the heels of his decision to exit the NFL Coaching Carousel and remain the Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator. "But that doesn't mean I've always been fully happy where my feet are.

"I'm happy here.''

The happiness has paid off in a new way. At Thursday night's NFL Honors awards show, Quinn won "NFL 2021 Assistant Coach of the Year."

Quinn, 51, is clearly comfortable in Dallas - and in his skin. His presence during our visit is as always punctuated by his distinctly-Dan look: The rumpled blue "COWBOYS'' T-shirt and the backward ball cap offset by the perfectly-trimmed silver goatee.

And I'm told his job interviews were as sharp as that facial hair.

Quinn entered this offseason as the hottest candidate head-coach candidate in the cycle, and the reasons are obvious. He was an architect of the Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl "Legion of Doom,'' was the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons Super Bowl team, and in his one season in Dallas, used his force-of-nature personality and his X-and-O's acumen in putting players in position to succeed to oversee a complete turnaround of the Dallas defense.

Well, maybe not complete ...

"I have unfinished business here,'' Quinn tells CowboysSI.com in his first media interview of his whirlwind offseason. "We have the right people in place to accomplish the things everyone in this building is working to accomplish. We're doing that right now. We're doing it today - grinding toward a goal.''

Quinn winning an individual award probably wasn't on the list of goals. But it is deserved, nevertheless.

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Mike Fisher
MIKE FISHER

Mike Fisher - as a newspaper beat writer and columnist and on radio and TV, where he is an Emmy winner - has covered the NFL since 1983 and the Dallas Cowboys since 1990, is the author of two best-selling books on the Cowboys.

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