Washington Commanders Selection Of Dan Quinn As New Head Coach Comes With Significant Irony
No Bill Belichick in 2024 NFL
The Washington Commanders hope they've saved the best for last in hiring Dan Quinn as their new head coach.
The Commanders are the last of the eight teams that went searching for and hired a new coach for the 2024 season.
And Quinn's hiring is stunning in that it solidifies the fact this hiring cycle showed no deference to sitting head coaches with great reputations and experience. Today it becomes official that Bill Belichick will be out of the NFL for the first time since 1975, unless he lands a job as an assistant or consultant somewhere.
Mike Vrabel is out of the NFL and could take a year off from coaching.
Pete Carroll is out of the NFL – except for the idea he might help on the periphery with the Seahawks after being fired there.
So, yes, interesting. And maybe a little weird.
Quinn, 53, isn't like most of the other new head coaches hired this cycle in that he has been a head coach before. Only Quinn, Raheem Morris with the Falcons and Jim Harbaugh with the Chargers were hired after having previous full seasons with NFL head coaching experience.
: Head coach Ron Rivera. (Photo by Nick Cammett/Diamond Images via Getty Images)
Quinn assumes the role Ron Rivera lost when he was fired in January. He inherits a spot filled with tradition, as Vince Lombardi, Joe Gibbs, George Allen and Mike Shanahan are among the previous coaches to lead the Washington franchise.
And the job for Quinn?
Be as good as those previous guys. That's right. Bring back the good old days. Because the Commanders have been roaming the desert of also-rans for decades now.
Commanders look to restore a winning tradition
The franchise last had a winning season in 2016 when they were still the Redskins. Indeed, the "Commanders" have never had a winning season. And the franchise has not been elite for decades, having last won the Super Bowl in 1991.
Quinn seems as well-equipped to lead Washington as any candidate the Commanders interviewed.
He's spent the past three seasons as the Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator. He coached the Atlanta Falcons from 2015-2020 before that.
Quinn's most successful season with the Falcons came in 2016 when he led the team to Super Bowl LI. But that accomplishment was overshadowed by the fact the Falcons built a 28-3 lead in that Super Bowl game, then lost the game anyway in surrendering the largest lead in Super Bowl history.
That game also seemed to have a lasting effect Quinn could not figure out how to overcome. Atlanta would make the playoffs only one more time under Quinn, leading to his firing early into 2020. The Falcons, true to their Super Bowl performance, would blow leads multiple times in the second half of games during that time.
Quinn came to prominence as the defensive coordinator of the Seattle Seahawks from 2013 to 2014, serving as the play-caller for the team's Legion of Boom defense. The Seahawks went to consecutive Super Bowl appearances back then. And the memory of that success and other things led the Seahawks to interview Quinn for the vacant head coaching job this hiring cycle.
But there is irony in Quinn's time with the Falcons and Seattle as it pertains to his new gig:
The Falcons lost their Super Bowl in Feb. 2017 to the New England Patriots. The Seahawks lost their second Super Bowl try in Feb. 2015 to the Patriots.
Quinn lost both opportunities for a Super Bowl ring to Belichick – a coach the Commanders apparently didn't consider for the job Quinn now takes over.