Countless mentors shaped Dan Quinn’s football journey. Citing a single one as the hinge toward the two-time NFL head coach’s upward career trajectory minimizes the influence of other guides. Working under Nick Saban for two seasons isn’t another resume line.
“It was like going to get your PhD in football,” Quinn recalled. “The details he went through. Knowing every part of the program he touched.”
Quinn’s first job in professional football — defensive quality control coach — came in 2001 with the San Francisco 49ers in the final years of Bill Walsh’s prolific tenure. Promotions to assistant head coach and defensive coordinator occurred over two stints with the Seattle Seahawks, under Jim Mora Jr. and football impresario Pete Carroll. In between, Quinn joined the Miami Dolphins for Saban’s lone attempt at tackling an NFL head-coaching job.
Before being recognized as arguably the greatest head coach in college football history — the recently retired Alabama leader won six national championships and 88 percent of all games over 17 seasons with the Crimson Tide — Saban thrived at Michigan State, won his first national championship at LSU and tested his skills in the NFL. He went to Miami to coach the Dolphins in 2005. Quinn arrived after four educational seasons in the “Niners Way.”
Walsh stepped down as general manager of the 49ers in 2000 but helped set the roster that Steve Mariucci coached to a 22-10 record from 2001 to 2002, Quinn’s first two years as a defensive quality control coach. Walsh, a three-time Super Bowl-winning coach, returned to San Francisco as a consultant in 2002, as Quinn later became the defensive line coach in 2003. The subsequent jump to the Dolphins was lateral in title, but that’s when the New Jersey native’s grasp of what it would take to run his show spiked.
“I went there with Nick, and it was different in a good way for me,” Quinn said during a March interview, steps inside the posh Orlando Ritz-Carlton, the site of the league’s spring meeting. He learned from Saban “how to start a program, how to set standards” from a defensive-oriented coach whose first taste of pro football came in the early 1990s under the man who would become his NFL counterpart on the GOAT scale, Bill Belichick.
“I knew right then (Dan) had a very bright future,” Saban told the Atlanta Falcons’ team website in 2018, during Quinn’s first head-coaching experience.
Every coach lifts X’s and O’s strategies and motivational tactics from their various stops. Those who ascend to the head-coaching ranks are the individuals who establish standards. Some struggle with separating themselves from their previous teachers. It’s not hard to imagine a coach overtly or subconsciously mimicking industry heavyweights.
“I think you really have to be authentic to yourself because if you don’t, I think people can really see right through that,” said Quinn, a four-year defensive line starter at Division III Salisbury (Md.) University. “And ballplayers specifically, a lot of them have been bulls—ted their whole life. They were great (high school) players, got recruited (and heard) a lot of bulls—. In the NFL, they want to make sure this person can help me get better.”
Saban has achieved that successful teacher reputation and then some. Look at NFL rosters loaded with his former players for proof. His ability to stick with his approach and mindset regardless of circumstance made an impression on Quinn.
“I always felt like he was never rushed. He just stayed in rhythm, and that’s not an easy skill to have. I just saw it over and over again. He always had a plan for how to do it,” Quinn said. “I learned a lot from him.”
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Saban recognizes Quinn’s positive qualities. “He’s just got the right stuff. He thinks about other people. He doesn’t have a great big ego. Really, a good leader,” Saban said in 2018. “I think that’s important as a head coach.” They maintained a relationship after Saban went to Alabama in 2007.
Quinn’s coaching successes include serving as Carroll’s defensive coordinator in back-to-back Super Bowl appearances with the Seahawks, winning the trophy following the 2013 season. Hired by the Falcons in 2015, Quinn directed Atlanta to an NFC championship the following year. Dismissed in 2020, Quinn schemed the Dallas Cowboys’ playmaking defense for the subsequent three campaigns before Washington came calling in January.
That’s when numerous league sources — to borrow one of Quinn’s pet phrases — raved about the 53-year-old’s superpower: an ability to connect with others. Commanders staffers and players have joined the chorus after only a few months.
“DQ sets the tone, DQ and AP (general manager Adam Peters),” offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury said. “They want to bring positive energy, high energy, want these guys to want to be in the building and do the best job we can coaching. And, so, that definitely trickles down to all of us, assistants and all the players.”
Third-year wide receiver Jahan Dotson noticed a “completely different energy from the second we walked into the first team meeting. Coach Quinn really emphasized that we’re really a team. We got to come together as soon as possible so we can make things happen when the games roll around in the regular season. … Really good vibes around the building. It’s a really exciting time.”
There will be times in training camp and the regular season when Quinn’s stern side is required, but not always. Asked for an example of what he learned from Saban, Quinn stated an instinct to “capture what needed to be done at the time. When we won, he was hard. You thought when we lost, you’d get your ass kicked. It was just the opposite. He knew (when) to push.”
On the NFL calendar, May is an optimistic time for all teams. Regardless, Quinn and his new staff inherited a frustrated squad, especially those with many years in the program. The Commanders weren’t only coming off a dismal 4-13 season that ended with eight consecutive losses. The most recent playoff victory — the 2005 season — came a tick over five years after first-round pick and potential starting quarterback Jayden Daniels was born. Washington last finished a season with a winning record in 2016.
Jonathan Allen, the longest-tenured first-round pick on the roster, arrived the following spring. He led the team in public exasperation last season. With Quinn and Peters running the show, the two-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle this month described the scene as “reinvigorating. … This is really just a dream job right now.”
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Quinn’s tasks include helping avoid another round of Washington football nightmares. He’s had a front-row seat to gauge how some of the best to roam a sideline thrived.
“Nick and Pete gave me a great example of authenticity,” Quinn said. “They both went about it in different ways as people. But when we walked into those buildings, we knew exactly how to do things. They had a philosophy. They had a program. They just lived it every day. That made sense to me.”
Lessons from Saban, Carroll and others permeate Quinn’s teachings. The authenticity of the message is purely his.
“I wasn’t going to go to try to be Nick if I got a job. I wasn’t going to try to be Pete,” Quinn explained. “I had to make sure I took the lessons, learn how they would apply to me and then determine this is how I would do it. I try to stay authentic to me, not try to be somebody else.”
(Top photo of Dan Quinn: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)
