Dan Quinn couldn’t have been much more fired up for his first press conference as Washington Commanders head coach.
Quinn, who was lured away from the Dallas Cowboys last week, secured his second career head coaching opportunity in Washington, where he’ll be expected to rebuild a long-suffering NFC East team.
In Monday’s presser, Quinn got the ball rolling with a memorable NSFW sound bite during his introduction speech to the media.
“I’m going to give myself a little grace and allow one swear word here because I’ve done a good job so far, I haven’t had any, and I swear a lot,” Quinn said. “But there is nothing I enjoy more than doing hard s— with good people. And these guys here, they’re some really good people.”
"There's nothing I enjoy more than doing hard shit with good people." – New Washington Commanders HC Dan Quinn pic.twitter.com/Y4r8fByV0x
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 5, 2024
After some drama surrounding the Commanders’ coaching search, Quinn apparently is seeking to hire more “good people” in the process of building his staff. The former Cowboys defensive coordinator noted that hiring Kliff Kingsbury as offensive coordinator reminded him of his decision to hire Kyle Shanahan when he was head coach of the Atlanta Falcons.
Quinn said, “Shanahan was hard to go against. … Going against Kliff, you had those same feelings.”
Quinn also cleared up Washington’s offensive coordinator logjam and revealed that the franchise would be parting ways with previous OC Eric Bieniemy, who coached just one season in Washington.
On Monday, the Commanders hired former Cowboys secondary coach and defensive passing game coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. as defensive coordinator. Quinn and Whitt worked together for the past three seasons and hope to turn around a Commanders’ defense that ranked last in the league in points and yards allowed in 2023.
