DALLAS — Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy has hired three defensive coordinators in his five seasons at the helm.
In between the record-book bad defensive performances from Mike Nolan and Mike Zimmer were three years of historic playmaking from Dan Quinn’s defenses.
There were times it seemed possible that Quinn might eventually succeed McCarthy as the Cowboys’ head coach. It never happened.
On Sunday, Quinn and McCarthy – whose partnership created three consecutive 12-win seasons in Dallas – will find themselves in direct competition. Quinn will be on the Washington sideline calling defenses for the Commanders, while McCarthy decides the offensive plays for the Cowboys.
Circumstances bring them together as opponents. Their situations, however, are unimaginably different.
Quinn is just beginning in Washington – his team positioned to make a playoff run in his first season as head coach. McCarthy is almost certainly coaching his final seven games for Dallas, rejecting questions this week about whether he should delegate offensive play-calling responsibilities.
McCarthy and his coaching staff are working on expiring contracts. Quinn and the Washington coaches have financial security for years beyond the current season.
What McCarthy endures might appear similar to Quinn’s final season as head coach of the Falcons, although he was fired during the season following a blowout loss to McCarthy and the Cowboys.
“What you do as a friend is lend support and all that stuff," Quinn said when asked about his communications with McCarthy of late. "But that’s all out the window this week with a division game and both teams battling their a---- off to go win it."
In our 20-minute conversation, Quinn reflected on his time in Dallas with both appreciation and regret.
Quinn is grateful to McCarthy for providing him the chance to coach again. He also emphasized how much he values his relationship with Cowboys Vice President of Personnel Will McClay, with whom he made trips to evaluate draft prospects, improved in that regard and created a lasting friendship.
“It’s going to sound usual, but it helped me recapture my joy,’’ Quinn said. “You can imagine the let down of being let go, and so Mike calling me to come there, and (wife) Stacey and I going there and, you know, building a relationship with him and guys like Will McClay ... they just kind of put their arms around me and said, 'Let’s go.' And I really enjoyed, with the defensive staff, building the confidence of the players, their belief about what they could be. And it was so fun, man, to bring that kind of joy back into it for me.’’
"It was a good gig, and that’s why I wasn’t in a hustle to leave it unless it was for somewhere I thought could be set up to do big things," Quinn added.
When the Commanders hired Quinn off the Cowboys’ staff, it marked the first time in 16 years that another NFL team hired a Dallas assistant as head coach.
Washington has a first-time NFL franchise owner, a first-time general manager, a first-year head coach and a rookie quarterback. Washington has already won three more games than it did all of last season, so Quinn has surpassed most expectations. The Commanders are 7-4 as they prepare for McCarthy’s 3-7 team.
In Quinn’s first year in Dallas, the Cowboys drafted Micah Parsons.
In his first season in Washington, the Commanders drafted quarterback Jayden Daniels.
“This was once one of the Crown Jewels, but it’s been stuck,’’ Quinn said of Washington. “I knew it was a big task and a big job, but that never swayed me. I kind of thought, 'Can you go win it all there?' 'Can you go win big and sustain it and do good things?' And so that was always the driving force behind me wanting to go somewhere, not for like a quick fix but to say, 'Can you really create an atmosphere and a program that can stand tall and strong over time?’"
Quinn accomplished that briefly in Dallas, creating a specific defensive identity and a play style his players embraced.
In a second-floor defensive meeting room at The Star, Quinn and his players created what they called a “Takeaway Wall.’’ A room with walls that were empty when each season began was soon filled with signed game-action photographs of players with each intercepted pass or recovered fumble.
The actual footballs were collected to be signed by the player who created the takeaway and placed in a container in the front of the room.
In Quinn’s three seasons, the Cowboys ranked first in the NFL in takeaways and defensive touchdowns. Cornerbacks Trevon Diggs and DaRon Bland both led the NFL in interceptions, with Bland setting an NFL record last season for pick-6s.
The Cowboys allowed 19.9 points per game under three seasons with Quinn as defensive coordinator, fifth-best in NFL. This season, Dallas is allowing 29.3 points per game, second-to-last in the league.
Even McCarthy, an offensive coach, recognized that the strength of those teams was the defense. The Cowboys led the NFL in scoring two of the past three seasons. It wasn’t just McCarthy and Dak Prescott. The defense contributed significantly with takeaways that provided extra possessions and short fields and sometimes just outright put points on the scoreboard with defensive touchdowns.
Quinn’s philosophy was to make everything competitive, something he learned in Seattle from Pete Carroll, where he coached the famed Legion of Boom defenses and twice coached in the Super Bowl, winning against Peyton Manning but losing to Tom Brady.
For all of his accomplishments, the goal of reaching the Super Bowl was never realized by Quinn in Dallas.
“That’s my biggest regret, not to see that through,’’ Quinn said. “To not be able to deliver that for everyone there – for the (Jerry) Jones family, for Mike and Will and for Dak. He left an incredible impression on me as a leader, as a teammate, as a competitor. There were a lot of people there, and I’m sure there still are, and I was one of them who wanted to win it for him just because I knew what he stood for and what he was about. That’s how highly I regard him.’’
What proved to be Quinn’s final game as a Cowboys assistant was one of the most embarrassing playoff defeats in franchise history.
The Cowboys allowed a Green Bay Packers team that was the youngest in the league and led by a quarterback with no postseason experience to score 42 points – the most the Cowboys ever allowed in a postseason game. It was the only game Quinn’s defense played last season without recording a sack or a takeaway.
It happened on the Cowboys' homefield where they had won 16 consecutive games, which created a backlash against Quinn among many in the fanbase and possibly cost him support in the front office. The Cowboys were never able to control opponent running games when they played quality opponents, losing to San Francisco, Buffalo and finally to Green Bay.
Quinn was criticized for his defense emphasizing personnel with speed over size – playing too many defensive backs at the expense of linebackers.
Nobody wanted to remember that Quinn inherited from Nolan a defense that allowed the most points in franchise history. Or that in Quinn’s three seasons as defensive coordinator, the Cowboys created 93 takeaways – 13 more than any other team.
Remarkably, Quinn’s defenses led the NFL in takeaways in both 2021 (34) and 2022 (33), becoming the first team to lead the NFL in takeaways in back-to-back seasons since the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1972-74.
Zimmer has replaced Quinn and Zimmer's season has produced results closer to those that forced McCarthy to fire Nolan after just one season. Zimmer’s first Dallas defense has allowed the second-highest point total in the NFL and the most rushing touchdowns through 10 games in Cowboys history.
Perhaps Quinn would have failed just as Zimmer has if he had been forced to coach for months without Micah Parsons, DeMarcus Lawrence and Bland among others.
As it is, the Cowboys defense has only forced nine turnovers – and only six interceptions – all season.
But Quinn created a mindset with his defensive players and enjoyed unique relationship with many. One of the first things you notice about Quinn beyond his bold enthusiasm is that while he’s 54 years old, he speaks like a much younger man, a characteristic that no doubt helps him connect with his players.
In fact, Parsons was accused of disloyalty to Zimmer for comments he and Diggs made on Parsons’ podcast earlier this season.
"Confidence, that's what Dan represents," Parsons said. "People don't realize how high the morale he had on our team. The spirit he gave the defense. The energy he kind of gave all the players. Shark week. Fight night. Showing us boxing clips. And I see it in that Commanders team now."
“Dan had me ready to run through a wall," Diggs added. "The Commanders don't have superstars, but they play as a team and they play hard for one another. They look good."
Whether Quinn would have returned for a fourth season with McCarthy had the Commanders not made him the final head-coaching hire last offseason is a question Quinn was unable to answer definitively.
“I didn't have a plan of, you know, leaving or staying or any of that stuff … Man, I just wanted to be smart and make good decisions," Quinn said. "I wouldn't put myself into a spot that you didn't have a chance to go big and win it. That's what I love about being here.’’
Quinn called working with Cowboys players a “blast’’ and still values his experience with McCarthy. In fact, Quinn sold his North Texas home to McCarthy upon leaving the organization for their division rival.
“My office was just two doors down from him, so I had a chair in there. 'Come on in, man.' Sometimes we talked football, sometimes we wouldn't,’’ Quinn said. “I know that seat can be challenging. And so I just want to be a person there that would support him, and basically just make sure I can help see around the corners, and, you know, helped do a good job for him because he took the chance to bring me there.
“He had a guy (Nolan) he was close to but had to make a change in his staff," Quinn remembered. “For me coming in, that was a big deal, and I didn't want to let him down. We hadn’t worked together so it took a lot of trust on his end to say, “What’s this crazy guy doing over there?’’
Quinn will wear his backwards ball cap and be trying like crazy to beat McCarthy and the Cowboys on Sunday.
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