No guarantee that Dallas Cowboys DC Dan Quinn gets head coaching job this offseason
After the Dallas Cowboys’ season-ending defeat, the dust has settled, and we are currently awaiting word from Jerry Jones regarding his future.
Given that the NFL playoffs are still ongoing, the coaching staff is now the only major aspect of the team that could be changed.
Dallas may decide to part ways with head coach Mike McCarthy (more information on this later this week), and over the past
few weeks, we have accepted the notion that a new defensive coordinator would be required.
Dan Quinn has, for the third year in a row, generated a lot of attention and is theoretically a wanted commodity.
To date Quinn has been requested by five different teams (we are tracking this for you right here) and while he makes sense
with one specifically (Seattle) there is a world where he is not chosen by any of them.
What happens then?
It is not necessarily a guarantee that Dan Quinn will get a head coaching job this offseason
Over each of the last two offseasons, Dan Quinn has chosen to return to the Cowboys and serve as their defense coordinator
which sounds great on the surface.
But would it be a leap to say that no team has made Quinn an offer that he couldn’t refuse? Clearly not since he refused them all.
Quinn has had remarkable success overseeing Micah Parsons and Co. but on some level everybody who has considered him a
head coaching candidate since has let him leave the building, so to speak.
Coupling that reality with our current one in that Dan Quinn has faltered for the Cowboys down the stretch, is it not another
logical leap to conclude that maybe everyone will feel called more in other directions?
It is not helping Quinn’s case that his most recent stretch was one of his worst and that his unit collapsed further and further as the season wore on.
While it would be unjust and irrational to include only Dan Quinn’s last seven games’ worth of work, they do important and
may even end up carrying more weight than anything else.
When someone has been fading at an extremely high pace, why hire them?
Quinn has done a fantastic job developing a kind of “secret sauce” with the Cowboys, but it has relied on a few essential
components, including one that is vital to turnover production.
The Cowboys are 3-9 in his three seasons with the team when they do not force a turnover.
While this is pretty typical for contenders, it nonetheless indicates that they are not always able to hold on and force enough
stops that are not directly related to taking the ball away.
A big reason that Quinn has been able to generate so many turnovers with the Cowboys has been the defensive talent that he
has to work with, namely Micah Parsons.
Others may not have that key piece on their roster for Quinn to benefit from, so again it seems conceivable that every team
could potentially pass on him.
For what it is worth, ESPN’s Dan Graziano predicted who will be the head coach of every team with a vacancy on Wednesday
and did not have Quinn filling a single post.
The Seattle job went to Mike Vrabel in the prediction, if you are curious.
This would mean that Quinn would be available, and while we recently had a conversation here at BTB about him potentially
filling the head coaching job in the building that he already works in, what if the only option is for him to return as defensive
coordinator? Would anybody want that?
It is clear that changes are necessary for the Cowboys in a macro sense but this one felt out of their control.
Are they willing to get rid of Dan Quinn themselves? Is he the fall guy for everything that has happened?
It is clear that changes are necessary on defense, but again what he has done over three seasons as a whole is impressive.
Moving on may sound like the best idea but is hardly a slam dunk sort of proposition.
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