The Dallas Cowboys have opened up the man purse and ponied up for a three-year contract for Dan Quinn to be the club’s new defensive coordinator. Quinn has been out of work since October, when the Atlanta Falcons turned off his key card to Mercedes-Benz stadium in Week 5 of the NFL season.
The Falcons were 0-5 at that point, and were either being blown out or blowing huge leads, including to the team that just hired him, when Dallas pulled off the Watermelon Kick game in Week 2 to win 40-39. The next week the Chicago Bears ran off 20 unanswered fourth-quarter points to win 30-26.
Quinn wasn’t the DC of those clubs though, he was the head coach who hired Raheem Morris to do that job. Quinn brings an impressive resume to the fold, as a defensive line coach for several years and teams before leaving the NFL to be University of Florida’s DC for two seasons. He returned to Seattle to be their defensive coordinator and the club promptly won a Super Bowl, then returned to the big game the next year to defend the title.
So what will Dallas be getting with Quinn? It will be interesting to see how he fares as a DC to an offensive minded coach, as opposed to under Pete Carroll who cut his teeth on the defensive side of the ball as well. With what we do know about Quinn’s past, here’s what we came up with as an initial list of what there is to like about the hire, and what remains a question mark.