Cowboys hire ex-Falcons coach Dan Quinn as defensive coordinator

The Cowboys considered Dan Quinn the favorite to become their defensive coordinator when moving on from Mike Nolan last week.

Multiple interviews affirmed that preference.

On Monday, the team announced Quinn as its new defensive coordinator. He agreed in principle to a three-year contract, a source said, after arriving in Frisco on Monday morning for an in-person interview. The former Atlanta Falcons coach, who interviewed on a video call last weekend, inherits a defense that allowed the most points in the Cowboys’ 61-year history.

Coincidentally, this won’t be the first time Quinn, 50, overtakes a Nolan-led defense.

Nolan served as the Falcons’ coordinator from 2012 to 2014 before Quinn was hired in 2015 to replace Falcons coach Mike Smith. Nolan was not retained on staff, as Quinn implemented a new defensive scheme. Atlanta improved across a number of categories, although Quinn did not call plays that season.

He will here in 2021.

Quinn coached the Falcons from 2015 to 2020 before being dismissed last October. Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy long has considered Quinn on his wish list to join the 2021 staff. Internal discussions at The Star date back to at least December, sources said.

On Monday, McCarthy got his man.

Quinn becomes a coordinator for the first time since the 2013 and 2014 seasons on the Seattle Seahawks. There, with a loaded roster, he succeeded Gus Bradley and led a pair of banner defensive units, winning a Super Bowl at the conclusion of the 2014 campaign.

Seattle allowed 231 and 254 points per game in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Both marks led the NFL. By comparison, Dallas surrendered a franchise-worst 473 points last season, just 12 points shy of those Seahawks teams’ two-year total.

There, of course, is a sizable talent gap between those Seahawks units and the one Quinn finds in Dallas. His challenge will be to achieve success with less talent during an offseason when McCarthy expects, for a second straight year because of COVID-19, there could be less on-field instruction opportunity between players and coaches.

Of course, the Cowboys can help Quinn.

They hope to address their most major deficiencies, such as run defense, in free agency and the draft.

Offensive coordinator Kellen Moore recently signed a three-year extension. He and Quinn are both under contract through the 2023 season. McCarthy’s five-year deal, signed last January, runs through 2024.

Defensive line is Quinn’s primary background.

The New Jersey native was a defensive lineman at what is now called Salisbury University, a Division III program in Maryland. He steadily climbed the coaching ranks as a defensive line coach, first holding that title at the NFL level for the San Francisco 49ers in 2003 and 2004. He spent the next two years with the New York Jets and following two with the Seattle Seahawks.

In 2013, following a two-year stint as Florida’s defensive coordinator and defensive line coach, he returned to Seattle as coordinator.

That is when Quinn demonstrated he could guide an elite NFL unit as a coordinator and play-caller.

The Cowboys are far from one today.

Quinn is McCarthy’s pick to help change that.

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