After Abraham Lincoln defeated three rivals for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination, he later hired the trio for prominent Cabinet posts. The “Team of Rivals” became Lincoln’s closest allies during the Civil War.
Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn’s stunning early success mirrors Lincoln’s approach. Unlike most NFL coaches who hire buddies for assistant jobs, Quinn largely went outside his past coaching tree to hire those who never worked with him.
The Team of Rivals is now 7-2 and rocking the NFL.
Oh, Quinn hired longtime assistant Joe Whitt Jr. as defensive coordinator after stints together in Atlanta and Dallas. Yet, offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury and running game coordinator Anthony Lynn plus offensive line coach Bobby Johnson and linebackers coach Ryan Kerrigan are among those on the large staff whose only connection to Quinn was staring across the field.
Hiring top assistants who are strangers takes guts. Their failure gets head coaches fired. That’s why many head coaches hire friends they can trust.
"It's brotherhood and there's a space for that too to be the best functioning staff that we can. And that's a huge goal to take on,” Quinn said. “They can be the best functioning staff in the NFL. There has a lot of support and a lot of communication with one another. And just like in a locker room with a team, a lot of alphas who have a lot of opinion.
“Well, it's no different on a coaching staff. And so, finding that narrative together, doing what's best for the team and those are things that we talk about.
“If you can make players better, that's a really powerful thing. And that is right at the core of what we do as a coaching staff to say, can Dan Quinn or Kliff Kingsbury or Joe Whitt or [special teams coordinator] Larry Izzo, [assistant head coach/offensive pass game coordinator] Brian Johnson, can they make me better? And it takes time to prove that and earn trust with one another. But that's what I'm looking for from that group to never back off of that, and the coaches are a very big piece to this connection."
Kingsbury was Quinn’s prize hire. He wanted the former Arizona Cardinals head coach badly enough to outmaneuver Las Vegas for him.
Maybe it was because Kingsbury was 2-1 against Quinn’s Falcons as Arizona’s head coach. The Cardinals beat the Falcons 40-14 in 2018 and 34-33 in 2019. When Quinn moved to Dallas in 2021 as defensive coordinator, Kingsbury’s offense won 25-22.
Lynn went 1-0 against Quinn. The Los Angeles Chargers head coach oversaw a 20-17 victory over Atlanta in 2020.
Lincoln assembled a top Cabinet with rivals William Seward (State), Salmon Chase (Treasury) and Edward Bates (Attorney General) plus another Republican rival in Edwin Stanton (War) who oversaw the capture of assassin John Wilkes Booth. They became legendary leaders.
Can Quinn spin another tree of success? His Atlanta staff includes four NFL head coaches Kyle Shanahan (San Francisco), Matt LaFleur (Green Bay), Mike McDaniel (Miami) and Raheem Morris (Atlanta) plus Charlie Jackson at Kentucky State for three years.
It seems rivals can succeed.