Dan Quinn’s head coach appeal for Seahawks now in question
After Jordan Love and the Packers destroyed Dan Quinn’s Dallas Cowboys defense, the Seattle Seahawks may reconsider employing him.
Pete Carroll’s successor as head coach of the Seattle Seahawks was Dan Quinn, the former “Legion of Boom” defensive coordinator who is currently a DC for the Dallas Cowboys.
Regretfully, the Green Bay Packers destroyed Quinn’s defense for 48 points and six touchdowns in a significant playoff upset shortly after his name became well-known.
Those offensive fireworks came against Matt LaFleur, a branch of the Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay coaching tree.
This raises the question whether Quinn is the best candidate for the Seahawks after all, considering they have to go through the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers twice a year in the NFC West.
Quinn vs. the Shanahan/McVay Tree
Building top-10 defenses with the Cowboys helped Quinn polish his head coaching resume when he was in Dallas. He was the 2021 AP NFL Assistant Coach of the Year winner as well. But in order to thrive in Seattle, he’ll have to overcome two coaches who may know his number.
Richard Sherman, a former cornerback for the 49ers and Seahawks, was interviewed by Kevin Clark of the Ringer in December 2022. They talked about how Shanahan had worked under Quinn as his offensive coordinator in Atlanta and was therefore very familiar with his defensive policies. Sherman clarified:
Shanahan broke our rules, one time in a game. (..) He brought in two tight ends to the single receiver side. So there’s a receiver on each side and two tight ends to the left and both are connected to the line of scrimmage. He just ran a simple one-step slant by the receiver and when you have one receiver, it’s man-to-man. It’s cover three but if that guy stays in there and he runs a slant, I got the slant.
So he (Shanahan) ran him on the one step slant and he ran the tight ends on the seams, touchdown. Uncontested. Like it just broke the defense. It was literally against every rule that we had, so we had to change the rules of the defense to combat that situation. But nobody had ever done it.
Obviously, Quinn has adjusted his defense since his days as the Seahawks’s DC, but if you’re a Seahawks fan, the idea of Shanahan potentially owning your future defensive head coach sends a shiver down your spine. Especially after what happened this season.
Quinn’s defenses vs. motion
A huge part of the Shanahan offensive tree involves presnap motion. It clues the quarterback to what type of defense he’s facing on that particular snap and muddies the water for defensive players trying to read out the play. Former quarterback and ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky broke down how teams used simple motion to great effect against Dallas all season.
Through Week 12, the Cowboys had been allowing a 58 completion percentage, 42 QBR, and an 11-13 TD-INT ratio when there was no presnap motion. However, when there was motion, all of those numbers shot up, with the completion percentage at 67 percent, the QBR up to 73, and the TD-INT ratio sitting at 6-0.
LaFleur thoroughly dominated movement on almost every play in their Super Wild Card Weekend showdown against Green Bay. As a result, quarterback Jordan Love concluded with an impressive 73 percent completion percentage, 1.13 EPA per dropback, and a QBR close to 100.
Additionally, running back Aaron Jones ran riot over Dallas, gaining first downs on 41% of his rushes and achieving a 50% success rate on carries. Jones made three trips to pay soil and ended the day with more than 100 yards on the ground.
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