Jayden Daniels and Commanders are one win from the Super Bowl thanks in part to Dan Quinn checking his blind spots

Editor’s Note: This story was updated and republished after its original publication date of June 25, 2024.

ASHBURN, Va. — Dan Quinn walked out of his office and turned to the left.

Washington Commanders head coach took an increasingly familiar route toward general manager Adam Peters’ office.

He walks the short distance to his partner in crime, as they aim to return the franchise to its winning days on and off the field.

But as Quinn looked toward the door approaching from his left, he thought to himself: Do I really need to ask this question? Does he really need this reminder?

no.

“So I couldn’t even get in,” Quinn told Yahoo Sports last summer. “I started walking down the hall and then turned around and came back.

“I was going in there and saying, ‘No, he’s got that.’ … I don’t want to get into the details of everything.”

Quinn instead focuses on checking his blind spots.

He knows how to be head coach after more than five seasons at the helm of the Atlanta Falcons from 2015-20. Quinn also knows how to call a defense, from his Super Bowl-winning Legion of Boom days in Seattle to his more recent takeaway-driving era as the Dallas Cowboys’ defensive coordinator.

Quinn reflects back on the schematic deep dive he faced after being fired by the Falcons, and the realization that he needed to adapt his vision defense to handle more multiple, spread-out attacks. He thinks back to his thoughts about what he most wants to change if the five words he kept telling himself were – “if “I get another chance” – ever achieved: improving his delegations.

Since taking over as leaders, Quinn has accepted that doing less in some areas allows him to think more about others. His job isn’t to call defenses or lead every drill; It’s creating a culture and making informed decisions.

“The essence of a head coach is to put everything together,” Quinn said in his introductory news conference last February. “It’s the chemistry. It’s the messaging. It’s the style of play. It’s the attitude. It’s the swagger.”

“The essence of this job [is] To tie everything together. That’s when I’m at my best.”

Now, Quinn has the leaders on the verge of a Super Bowl berth that would shock almost everyone outside the building. They play the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship game on Sunday with a trip to New Orleans on the line.

The habits he started building last summer worked.

Quinn brings together diverse perspectives to inform his decisions

Player development is an established art for Quinn, who has coached at the college and NFL levels since before most of his players were born.

But in Quinn’s 21 seasons in the NFL, he has never teamed up with a rookie quarterback in the first round. Drafting Jayden Daniels second overall It creates a dynamic unlike what Quinn saw with Dak Prescott, Matt Ryan and Russell Wilson.

So Quinn was intentional in hiring offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, whose resume includes drafting and developing 2019 No. 1 overall pick Kyler Murray. He officially hired Anthony Lynn as the Commanders’ running game coordinator and running backs coach, but he made sure to ask Lynn about his time as head coach when the Los Angeles Chargers drafted quarterback Justin Herbert sixth overall.

“I want you to think about the time you spent with Justin: What did I do that was too much? What did I do that wasn’t enough?” Quinn Lin asked on June 5. “Don’t answer me now.”

They met the next day to discuss how rookie midfielders managed scheme size and how Lane sought to protect Herbert from the potential “bust” tag he knew armchair critics would be keen to bestow on young midfielders who were adapting to professional football at a historic pace.

“People like Justin or Jayden who have the work ethic to go in and get things done right — everyone still has their moment when they keep pouring water in the cup and it’s overflowing,” Quinn said. “This situation is pretty crazy. So I want to make sure I find this place with Jayden that is just the right amount.”

Striking that balance was crucial in securing the franchise’s first winning season since 2015 and first playoff victories since the 2005 season. A group of D.C., Maryland, and Virginia residents remember the Washington teams of the late 1980s and early 1990s that won three Super Bowls in a decade and played in Fourth match. Quinn reached out to Joe Gibbs, the architect of those teams, as Quinn seeks to recapture the success the Hall of Fame coach once achieved.

The success won’t look the same – Quinn’s teams generally aim to utilize rhythm and a dual-threat but pass-first midfielder to set an aggressive tone on offense, while hard hitting and tension characterize a defense that Quinn hopes can steal some possessions with takeaway magic that It reflects recent Cowboys teams (which led the league throughout Quinn’s three years in Dallas).

First came maximizing the training camp schedule, a task for which Quinn hired assistant head coach/offensive passing game coordinator Brian Johnson to check his blind spots. Jason Garrett, the Cowboys’ coach of a decade, visited the OTAs at Quinn’s invitation as well, providing another set of eyes that Quinn trusted as “someone who would give me an honest assessment of what he saw.”

And when Duke women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson visited for her professional development, Quinn turned the tables, quizzing her on both end-game situations and tough coaching.

“There is a level of transparency that might be a little different than there is when it comes to your sports [we’re] “Not in direct competition with each other,” Lawson told Yahoo Sports. “Teaching, coaching and leadership transcends sport and industry.

“Most good leaders can be good leaders in any sport or any sector.”

Quinn’s message: “Have hard sex with good people.”

A visitor might find it almost cowardly how often the leaders’ players praise the “vibes” and “energy” that Quinn emits, even remembering what made him so special. The last half decade of Washington football.

Team name changes, congressional investigations into sexual harassment and workplace misconduct, and an ownership sale unrelated to those investigations have cast a pall over losing season after losing season.

Quinn knows the relatively uphill battle to restore both victories and integrity, the tightrope of respecting the legacy of former players and understanding sensitivity to the history of leaders. He said he doesn’t look at his daily interactions with players through the lens of what happened before he arrived.

But he learned that the window for integrating history and present was smaller than he thought after early May practice. Quinn arrived at his press conference wearing a T-shirt with a feather reminiscent of the old Washington logo dangling from the burgundy and gold “W” of their new logo. A firestorm erupted from the reference to a long-considered attack.

“There are many layers to this organization,” he said. “You have to be able to look back to move forward. I want [former players and coaches] To be around.

“Football here at the DMV is very important and even though it’s been dormant, that’s probably a way of saying it, it’s our job to bring it back to life and make it a lot of fun.

“Because when the community supports a team, it’s as fun as it gets.”

The road there is definitely through hard work. He emphasizes effort, grind, and attention to detail as he implores linemen to perfect their hand placement and height, and he calls out not only players, but also coaches during practice when they fall short, or when players collaborate on a write-up this spring. : Their “leader standard.”

“If you’re not going to put in a lot of effort and stress, and it’s got to hurt a little bit right now — and if you’re not going to compete in everything we do, then this isn’t the place for you,” defensive coordinator Joe Witt said. Yahoo Sports. “The way we live is not for everyone. It really is not. We will find out who wants to be here and who doesn’t.”

Even with plenty of smiles, Whit warns Quinn: “Don’t take his kindness for any kind of weakness. He’s the strongest man I’ve ever been around.”

So, Quinn delivered to his players springtime messages about pushing the boundaries of work ethic and acceptance that, as Lawson said in a video he played for the team the day after her visit, the work wouldn’t get easier — they would instead learn to “deal better.” They’ll learn to handle it together, too, as Quinn not only talks about brotherhood, but also assigns lockers to shuffle players by position, with Daniels sandwiched between safeties Percy Butler and Jeremy Chinn while the receivers are flanked by linebacker Frankie Lufo and defensive end. Ivy cult.

“He really cares about his players, he really cares about the little things,” former receiver Jahan Dotson told Yahoo Sports. “He’s not too aggressive, but he resonates with you, he sits with you, and when you’re out there doing the hard things, it doesn’t get any easier. You have to adapt to it.”

“DQ loves working hard with a great group of people.”

So much so that after Quinn declared this passion in his introductory press conference, the equipment crew printed T-shirts for the building that read: “Do Hard Work with Good People.”

The gold lettering is vibrant on each piece of black fabric, but appropriately runs across the back of the shirt instead of the front. Players and coaches can only see through each other, if they check each other’s blind spots.

They know Quinn would do it.