One of the criticisms of Ron Rivera was that outside of his defensive coordinator, Rivera hired a very inexperienced crew – but that's the opposite now, as Dan Quinn's staff, for the most part, all have extensive resumes.
There are a couple, like the just-retired David Blough, cutting their teeth, but they'll be working under guys in Kliff Kingsbury, who has been a head coach in both college and the pros, and Joe Whitt Jr., who has 20-plus years in the game and spent the last four under Quinn in Atlanta and Dallas.
When it comes to Kingsbury, specifically, there's some similarity with that hire to Quinn hiring Kyle Shanahan in Atlanta.
"There is similarities about why Kyle was there, to say this was a person that could attack the entire field. It's horizontally with wide zone, run games, screens and perimeter stuff, and then downfield shots where you could really extend and then explode on the whole field," Quinn said. "As an offensive coordinator, you better know how to attack, and that includes the run game and all parts of it. When you can do that, that's to me where it's the tough teams to defend."
And, the fact Kingsbury has been a head coach, specifically at the NFL level, helps Quinn, too.
"As far as Kliff goes, the other part that that does light me up is he has sat in the seat, and he can see behind some of the corners that that could be coming up," Quinn said. "The one thing that I know he's excited about is it also frees you up to absolutely go for it. Becoming a head coach in the NFL is hard, and adding play-calling to that is really challenging, so I know he's absolutely lit up about just calling the plays and being in the offense and doing that, and not all the other things that go into being a head coach.
So, the best version of him is absolutely right here with us right now."
They haven't discussed whether Kingsbury will be in the booth or on the field, as even Shanahan did both in Atlanta, but 'we have enough staff to maneuver around on the field and off, and it depends on the quarterback and the communication with that.'
"I'll let that play out, and I may even take that into preseason," Quinn said, "and it depends where you go with Brian (Johnson), who's got plenty of experience as well, and how can we best support Kliff and the quarterbacks with the group that we have. So yeah, we'll work through that, but we haven't made any decisions on that part yet."
