ASHBURN, Va. – Dan Quinn left his office and turned left.
The head coach of the Washington Commanders walked the increasingly well-worn path to general manager Adam Peters’ office.
The short walk to his partner-in-crime as they strive to return a franchise to its winning days, both on and off the field.
But as Quinn looked at the door to his left, he thought to himself: Do I really need to ask this question? Does he really need this reminder?
No.
“So I didn’t even walk in,” Quinn told Yahoo Sports during a recent visit. “I started walking down the hall, turned around and came back.
“I went there and thought, ‘No, he has.’ … I don’t want to micro-manage everything.”
Quinn focuses instead on checking his blind spots.
He knows How to become head coach after more than five seasons at the helm of the Atlanta Falcons from 2015-20. Quinn also knows how to call a defense, from his Super Bowl-winning Legion of Boom days in Seattle to his more recent era as defensive coordinator of the Dallas Cowboys.
Quinn thinks back to the schematic deep dive he faced after the Falcons fired him, his realization that he needed to adjust his vision defense to handle more multiple, spread offenses. He thinks back to his reflection on what he most wanted to change as the five words he kept saying to himself: “as I get another chance” – once achieved: improving his delegations.
As he takes over as commanders, Quinn accepts that doing less in some areas will allow him to think more in others. It’s not his job to call the defense or lead every drill; it’s about creating a culture and making informed decisions.
“The essence of being a head coach is to bring everything together,” Quinn said at his introductory press conference in February. “It’s the chemistry, it’s the message, it’s the playing style. It’s the attitude. It’s the swagger.
“The essence of this work [is] to tie everything together. And then I am at my best.”
Quinn gathers different perspectives to inform his decisions
Developing players is an established art for Quinn, who has coached at the college and NFL levels before most of his players were born.
But in Quinn’s 21 NFL seasons, he hasn’t teamed up with a rookie first-round quarterback. Drafting Jayden Daniels second overall creates a dynamic that is different than what Quinn has seen with Dak Prescott, Matt Ryan and Russell Wilson.
So Quinn’s intention was to hire offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, whose resume includes drafting and developing 2019 first overall pick Kyler Murray. He officially hired Anthony Lynn as Commanders’ run game coordinator and running backs coach, but made sure to ask Lynn about his time as head coach when the Los Angeles Chargers drafted quarterback Justin Herbert sixth overall.
“I want you to think about your time with Justin: What did you do that was too much? What did you do that wasn’t enough?” Quinn asked Lynn on June 5. “Don’t answer me now.”
They met the next day to discuss how rookie quarterbacks handle schematic volume and how Lynn tried to protect Herbert from the potential “bust” label he knew armchair critics would like to give young quarterbacks entering pro football at a historic pace to get used to.
“Guys like Justin or Jayden who have the work ethic to do things right, everyone still has their moment where they still pour water into the cup and it overflows,” Quinn said. ‘That position is very strange. So I want to make sure that I find that place with Jayden, that it’s just the right amount.
The more accurately the Commanders strike that balance, the better their chances of securing the franchise’s first winning season since 2015 and first playoff victory since the 2005 season. A contingent of D.C., Maryland and Virginia residents remember the Washington teams of the late 1980s and early 1990s that won three Super Bowls in a decade and played in a fourth. Quinn has been communicating with Joe Gibbs, the architect of those teams, as Quinn tries to restore the success the Hall of Fame coach once established.
Success won’t look the same – Quinn’s teams will look to use pace and a dual-threat, pass-first quarterback to set an aggressive tone on offense, while ballhawking and tension characterize a defense that Quinn hopes will can steal a few belongings. with takeaway magic that mirrored his recent Cowboys teams (who led the league all three of Quinn’s years in Dallas). Even special teams will look different in the first years of a new set of rules; that’s where Quinn sees veteran Austin Ekeler excelling.
Those dreams of scoring, swiping and returning are still months away.
First comes maximizing the training camp schedule, a task for which Quinn brought in assistant head coach/offensive game coordinator Brian Johnson to check his blind spots. Decades-long Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett also attended OTAs at Quinn’s invitation, offering another set of eyes that Quinn trusted as “someone who would give me an honest assessment of what he saw.”
And when Duke women’s basketball head coach Kara Lawson visited for her own professional development, Quinn turned the tables and briefed her on both endgame situations and tough coaching.
“There’s a level of transparency that might be a little bit different than when it comes to your own sport [we’re] not in direct competition with each other,” Lawson told Yahoo Sports. “Teaching, coaching and leadership transcends the sport and sector.
“Most good leaders can be good leaders in any sport or industry.”
Quinn’s message: ‘Having hard sex with good people’
A visitor might be struck by how often Commanders players praise the “vibes” and “energy” that Quinn radiates, until they remember what has defined the last half-decade of Washington football.
Changes in the team name, Congressional investigations into sexual harassment and workplace misconduct, and an ownership sale not unrelated to these investigations (and money laundering) have overshadowed one season after another.
Quinn knows the relatively uphill battle he faces to recapture both victories and integrity, walking the potentially impossible tightrope of respecting the legacies of former players and understanding the sensitivity to the Commanders’ history. He doesn’t view his daily interactions with players through the lens of what happened before he arrived, he said.
I started walking down the hall, turned around and came back. I went there and I was like, ‘No, [GM Adam Peters has] have it.’ … I don’t want to micro-manage everything.Commanders coach Dan Quinn
But he discovered that the window for history and present to merge was smaller than he thought after a training session in early May. Quinn arrived at his press conference wearing a T-shirt with a feather reminiscent of Washington’s old logo, hanging from the burgundy and gold “W” of their new logo. A firestorm ensued from the reference to a long-deemed offensive.
“There are many layers to this organization,” he said. “You have to be able to look back to move forward. I do [former players and coaches] Be around.
“Football here at the DMV is super important and even though it’s been dormant, that would probably be one way of putting it, our job is to bring it back to life and make it super fun.
“Because when a community gets behind a team, it’s just as fun as it is.”
Quinn is sure the road to getting there will require hard work. He emphasizes effort, exertion and attention to detail as he implores linemen to perfect their hand placement and length, and as he calls out not only players but also coaches during practices when they are not up to standard, or as players worked together this spring to write: their “Commander Standard.”
“If you’re not going to put in extreme effort and stress, and it should hurt a little bit right now — and if you’re not going to compete in everything we do, then this isn’t the place for you,” defensive coordinator Joe Whitt said . Yahoo Sports. “The way we live is not for everyone. It really isn’t. We will find out who wants to be here and who doesn’t.”
Even when smiles are plentiful, Whitt warns Quinn, “Don’t take his kindness as any kind of weakness. He is the strongest man I have ever met.”
So Quinn delivered spring messages to his players of pushing the boundaries of their work ethic and embracing, as Lawson said in a video clip he played for the team the day after her visit, that the job won’t get easier — instead, they will learn to ‘deal better with difficult things’. They’ll also learn to deal with it together, with Quinn not only talking about brotherhood but also assigning lockers to shuffle players into position, with Daniels between safeties Percy Butler and Jeremy Chinn, while receiver Jahan Dotson is flanked by linebacker Frankie Luvu and defensive end Efe Obada.
“He really cares about his players, he really cares about the little things,” Dotson told Yahoo Sports. “He didn’t come across as super aggressive, but it just resonates with you, sticks with you and when you do the hard things it doesn’t get any easier. You have to adapt to it.
“DQ loves to do hard sex with a great group of people.”
So much so that, after Quinn announced that passion at his introductory press conference, the equipment staff printed shirts in front of the building that read: “DOING HARD S*** WITH GOOD PEOPLE.”
The gold lettering is vibrant on each piece of black fabric, but fittingly they cover the back of the shirt rather than the front. Players and coaches can only see them in each other – if they check each other’s blind spots.
They know Quinn will.
