Dan Quinn on Commanders developing winning 'habits' and 'attitude' with Kevin Sheehan

Almost every time new Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn speaks he mentions competition and energy. And that was true right off the bat during his Thursday appearance on The Kevin Sheehan Show.

"There's a lot of energy here – in our building, at practice, the way the guys are competing – and honestly, I hope that what you and the fans and families and friends see from us, these guys are absolutely bringing it," Quinn told Kevin Sheehan. "That's the play style and the identity that I'm hoping you and everybody else is gonna see when we get this thing rocking."

With just one preseason game remaining – Sunday at Commanders Field against the New England Patriots – the preparation time before the season is almost over. Is it possible for the head coach to have a good sense of how his team will perform in his first season in Washington?

Quinn said that first, you want to know where the health of the team is because "that's a real factor," and since it his is first season and not having played meaningful football with this group of players and coaches, "it makes it a little harder to predict."

"But what I can tell you, what I see at practice: good practice habits, the finishing, taking care of the ball," Quinn told Team 980. "The habits that you have, they don't get tacked on at the end of a championship season, they get tacked on when you put in the work to go.

"Honestly, I can't tell you where we're at in terms of win, we're not in the regular season, but I can tell you that I think you'll like what you're gonna see from the guys in terms of the attitude and effort and play-style. If you get that part right, then you can add a lot of other things on to it."

But if you miss the attitude and effort part, "all the scheme or the offense and defense in the world isn't gonna matter if you don't absolutely bring it."

With the NFL seeing teams making big leaps year-to-year – and the league being able to change almost week-to-week – Sheehan asked, how long does it take into the season before a head coach knows what kind of team he has?

"I'd say you probably have to go through a couple of reall adverse, tough situations," Quinn told Team 980. "What you're gonna know is there's gonna be a lot of close games in the NFL, I think last year there mighta been damn near 70 percent of our games were decided by a score or less. In those close fights, in those moments when you see yourself coming out on the top of those, then you can tell.

"Usually your run games a little bit behind and tacklings not as sharp as it needs to be – because you haven't tackled a lot [during training camp] – those are things that I think you get better as it goes. But you have to be in some fights, man. I'd say it's probably half way through before you really have your team's identity for this season.

"You've been in some fights, you know who's gonna come through in these big moments. It takes more than a quarter of the season for your identity to take shape."

In those big moments of adversity, what does Quinn look for in his team? Well, Quinn spoke to his team about that after the second preseason game in Miami.

"To say, we didn't come out on the other end like I hoped we would in terms of the score, but there were some cool lessons about what it takes, how to do things, I thought physicality and finishing, those things felt like it should becuase that's what playing in our league is about," he said. "It's about winning these small margins – these big third downs and big moments in a two minutes to go – you literally have to be in those fights.

"We got better in the two days down in Miami, one at a practice and one at a game, it didn't show it in the win-loss column after the game, but I would say there were some players that we needed to find out about. Maybe it was an undrafted player, maybe it was the third or fourth running back, maybe it was the third or fourth tackle to say, 'Man, it got hard and he was every bit down for it.' And so, sometimes the evaluations come just to a moment or just to a player where he gets to prove and demonstrate what he wants to be, how he's gonna do things and when you do that, there's some good things that come out of these moments."