Brian Mitchell has said all along that he is fine with whomever Adam Peters hired as the new Commanders head coach, because he was confident Peters would make the right choice.
So, does he feel any differently now that we know it’s Dan Quinn, a second-time full-time HC?
“Bill Belichick sucked in his first chance as a head coach, and in his second try, became the best coach in history. Most coaches don’t do well in their first stint, but they come back and do it different,” Brian said.
“The ultimate thing is his defenses have been good – but let’s stop worrying about sides and build a good football team. He has that ability, so let’s go from there.”
A caller brought up how Quinn’s success in Atlanta was mostly because of Kyle Shahahan’s offense, and maybe so in terms of the best season, but that’s not the whole story.
“You can’t credit all of the success to Kyle, but that offense was dynamic. Quinn gets the job in 2015 in Atlanta and goes 8-8, then they go 11-5 and make the Super Bowl run, then 10-6 without Kyle Shanahan before two straight 7-9s and an 0-5 start before they can him,” JP said. “In 2016 they had the No. 1 scoring offense and second-most yards, but defensively, they were 25th in yards allowed and 27th in points allowed. But Aaron Glenn this year, I wasn’t ready to discount him because the Lions’ defensive numbers weren’t great.”
“We know in the Super Bowl, Kyle’s offense cost them that game, giving the Pats more opportunities in their side of the field,” BMitch replied. “We can’t knock a guy and not give the whole story of it.”
There is one question the Commanders have to answer, though:
“If Dan Quinn was your guy, you could’ve hired him two weeks ago,” JP said. “They didn’t have to wait until now, and you can say you wanted to wait to interview the other guys and go through the whole process, but they’re going to have to answer that. There is Rooney Rule compliance they had to be part of, but if it was me, I’d have tried something new with Weaver or Glenn.”
“I would think that’s a fact, though,” BMitch replied. “It’s hard for me to believe in the people that are making decisions and then question everything they do. They probably won’t bring up the Rooney Rule, but you have to do that, and ultimately, the people that were hired to do it, they did it. I didn’t tell you who I really wanted, but I can tell you this: I am going to go along with them, because I believe in the people they hired to help them hire someone, so I have to sit here and at least give them the chance. The fact that we aren’t throwing a parade here might change our whole thing, because every time we wanted to do that, we sucked during the season.”
