Grading Dan Quinn's performance in year one as Commanders head coach

Head coaches may or may not be involved in play calling and personnel decisions. They may be gung-ho or reserved. They may be flashy headline hogs or strong silent types who lead by example.

Regardless of style or method, first and foremost, a head coach sets the tone — the agenda for what a football team will be. By that measure, and by almost any other you may choose, Dan Quinn had a magnificent first year with the Washington Commanders.

Quinn was hired to be Washington's 31st head coach. The team was coming off a disastrous 4-13 season — the second-worst record in the league. He came from a successful stint as defensive coordinator with the Dallas Cowboys. Previously, he had been head coach of the Atlanta Falcons.

Not too many in the media were excited about the hire.

Quinn was not a young genius. Though he had transformed an atrocious Cowboys defense into an aggressive, ball-hawking unit, his final game with Dallas was a 48-32 playoff embarrassment at the hands of the Green Bay Packers. And even though he had taken the Falcons to their only Super Bowl, fans still mostly remembered the way his tenure ended in 2020 when the team finished 4-12.

Fans and media alike considered Quinn a retread. He presided over the biggest turnaround in the league.

The Commanders went from 4-13 to 12-5 and advanced to within one game of the Super Bowl. Every unit improved under his guidance. He blended an almost entirely new roster, led by a rookie quarterback, and had them playing as a cohesive unit.

How exactly did he do it, and how much credit does Quinn deserve for the turnaround?

Dan Quinn relied on culture-building, trust to turn the Commanders around

One thing stood out more than anything in 2024. Every time a player speaks about the team, he references brotherhood, respect, and love. Most of the time, they cite Quinn as the primary reason for the camaraderie.

For the better part of the past decade, Washington’s previous ownership tried to sell the public a fantasy story about improved culture. The word itself became a joke. Quinn demonstrated what true culture change means.

Quinn brought in a lot of players he had coached before. He got bedrock starters like Tyler Biadasz and Dorance Armstrong Jr. from the Cowboys, as well as key contributors like Dante Fowler Jr., Noah Brown, and Noah Igbinoghene.

Olamide Zaccheaus played for Quinn in Atlanta. He knew Bobby Wagner from his days on the Seattle Seahawks. Those were all high-character players who knew what the coach expected.

The rest — the ones experiencing Quinn for the first time — uniformly praise the fact that he genuinely cares about his players. They feel it and it makes the buy-in all the better.

Quinn allowed the players a lot of say in determining the team’s culture. He had them draw up lists of concerns and merged their ideas into a unifying statement of purpose that stressed accountability and respect.

That showed on the field.

Jayden Daniels has gotten justified praise for how even-keeled he has remained in the roller-coaster ride of a typical NFL season. Quinn deserves the same credit.

The team played well at times. They also played poorly. Washington was overmatched from a talent standpoint against some opponents. But they never got too high or too low. They always rebounded from adversity.

Quinn recognized what he had in Daniels and trusted the signal-caller to convert fourth downs. That red confidence and got the players excited.

It is the same thing Dan Campbell achieved with the Detroit Lions. Even when things were going poorly, troubled words never filtered out to the public. Just take veteran defensive tackle Jonathan Allen as one small example.

The team leader seemed so worn down by years of dysfunction that he was lashing out late in 2023. An injury almost ended his season in 2024, but Allen fought hard to return and played a sensational game in the playoffs against the Lions. It is hard to imagine that happening pre-Quinn.

Best of all, Quinn assembled a great staff.

He showed very little ego or insecurity. His staff includes two men who had been head coaches and several others who had been coordinators. Quinn built an outstanding support staff around his prize rookie quarterback with offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, quarterbacks coach Tavita Pritchard, assistant quarterbacks coach David Blough, and pass game coordinator Brian Johnson all playing a part in his development.

His two primary coordinators — Kingsbury and Joe Whitt Jr. — are now firmly in the head coaching picture somewhere down the line.

Quinn may not be the best X’s and O’s coach in the league, but he surrounds himself with very smart lieutenants. He may not always make the right decision — such as failing to ride the momentum and go for a two-point conversion at the end of the first Cowboys game — but more often than not, he is rewarded. His bold call on a fake punt against the Eagles temporarily kept the Commanders alive in the conference championship.

Grade

The Eagles’ talent eventually overwhelmed Washington in that game, but Quinn got the most out of a team in transition. He gets a solid A for the season, and he is set up to do even better in the coming years.