Dan Quinn’s quarterback takes were the hot topic of his visit with the Junkies on Wednesday – specifically his sort of non-answer on Sam Howell, and then calling Jayden Daniels a ‘game-changer’ during word association – but he did give a lot of insight on DQ the man and his coaching journey, and of course, ‘remembered’ meeting Bish back at Salisbury State back in the day.
And, Quinn once again went into, as he has in prior interviews locally, the interview and hiring process here in DC, and much more – and you can hear it all in the full interview above.
One thing that also stuck out to the Junks, though, was Quinn’s comment on Jamin Davis, who could hopefully be something like DC’s version of what DQ had with Micah Parsons in Dallas.
Of course, Parsons is a ‘unicorn’ and ‘a freak’ in EB’s words, but in asking DQ about molding the Commanders’ defense, Quinn does think he can tap ino the potential hat made Davis a first-rounder.
“When you come into a spot like this, you wanna get all the tape on the players to find out what makes them unique. And so, finding for a guy like Jamin, can I see all of his blitzes and rushes so I can see what does that look like for him going forward?” Quinn said. “What is the burst? Can we teach him hand usage if the burst and the acceleration is right? You’re exactly right to find, basically, what is somebody's superpower, and then how do you get to go feature it, because it doesn't have to be one size fits all. And if there's some things that somebody can do better than anybody else, then you try to make sure you feature that player in that, whatever the skill set is.”
Quinn’s influence in that idea? Basketball.
“If a guy is a catch and shoot player, you put him on the perimeter and you get options for him to go take those shots,” Quinn said. “It's no different in football. If somebody's excellent at guarding a tight end, if there's somebody who's got unique rush ability, if there's a unique blitzer, if there's a wide receiver that can really carry the ball and do things from the backfield or a running back that can split out wide to do stuff, if there's a quarterback that can use his legs to be a dual threat…you feature that player in the things that they do great. So that's the kind of the secret sauce to me, is finding on our own team the unique traits, and the same thing here in the draft, to make sure that's how we do it.”
And Davis isn’t the only potential diamond in the rough, given Quinn’s system
“The key is to find the players to say, okay, what if this position change happened? Using the example of playing man to man, that's a pretty easy one to see what happened when the player was targeted – so you can literally check those plays and say, hey, this guy is really good at, you know, guarding a running back or he's really strong playing into the slot,” Quinn said. “Same thing as a wide receiver, what happens when he carries the ball or runs screens? So I am looking at that and I have found some things into players and say, let's see if we can feature this over and over and over again.”
That’s just the start of the process, though.
“The other part is you also have to develop it, because sometimes you'll try it and say that's not the right thing, let's keep going,” Quinn said. “The offseason and training camp gives some time to explore that with players, both who are here and who will be new to the roster. Not all of those changes work out, but a lot of them do, and then once we know that this is what we're gonna ask you to do, that’s when the roles start to develop; if you can do this one thing better than anybody else, that's how we're gonna feature you here, and it's been successful when we were able to find the guys that can do that.”