Cowboys DC Dan Quinn informs interested suitors that he’s staying in Dallas

© Jason Parkhurst-USA TODAY Sports “Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” — Bruce Lee Bruce Lee would probably appreciate the Cowboys’ defense. Lee was an evangelist for the idea that one should not be beholden to one’s familiar systems or previous thought processes, and I don’t know if anybody in the NFL has done those kinds of switches with more success in the young season than Quinn has. The Cowboys can attack you with all kinds of personnel packages. They can throw man or zone at you, depending on the situation. More often than not, what you see pre-snap is not what you will see post-snap. Middle of the field open or closed? Sure, and you never know which is coming under which circumstance. Demarcus Lawrence talked about the “next him” him every week in this defense, but that wouldn’t be possible without the “him” who has been completely on point every week. Dan Quinn is leading the way because he recognized the need for change, even when most in his position would have stayed with the status quo.

Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn has had quite the last decade as a coach. He was the defensive coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks in 2013 and 2014 at the height of the Legion of Boom era, which got him the head coaching job with the Atlanta Falcons in 2015. Quinn led the Falcons to their second Super Bowl at the end of the 2016 season, which of course they lost to the New England Patriots in the infamous 28-3 collapse. Quinn stayed in Atlanta through most of the 2020 season, but was fired along with general manager Thomas Dimitroff after an 0-5 start. He has spent the last two seasons turning the Cowboys’ defense into one of the NFL’s best.

That last job put him back on the radar as a head coach, and Quinn had interviewed with the Arizona Cardinals, Denver Broncos, and Indianapolis Colts. But per Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network, Quinn has decided to keep running Dallas’ defense, at least in the 2023 season.

In 2023, the Cowboys — who lost in the divisional round of the playoffs — had the NFL’s second-best Defensive DVOA, behind only the 49ers team that beat them in the playoffs.

It’s a big win for a Dallas team that has a lot of offseason questions to answer — starting with the future prospects of head coach Mike McCarthy.

Coaching is about the little things. Is it any wonder the Cowboys fell short?

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