Would Dan Quinn be a scary hire in the NFC West?
Would Dan Quinn be a scary hire in the NFC West?
The Cardinals could work to secure him as HC this week: Seaside Joe 1422
As I wrote on Monday, when I tallied the number of playoff appearances and postseason wins by each NFC West team in recent years, Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay have both been more successful with their teams than Pete Carroll has since 2015. There has been one “easy out” in the division for most years (and the previous 100) and that is the currently-coachless Arizona Cardinals.
With former Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator Dan Quinn flying to Arizona on Tuesday night for a second interview—and I believe that after spurning offers in 2022 that Quinn must make a decision to leave the Cowboys this time—would that increase Carroll’s level of difficulty next season, if hired?
I think there’s a few reasons to believe that it would.
First of all, before anyone says that they know that Quinn or anyone else will be a “bad hire” or a “good hire” let’s just chill on the crystal ballin’ this time. The diminuitive Gregg Rosenthal ranked Anthony Lynn and Vance Joseph as better head coaching hires in 2017 than Shanahan, with Sean McDermott ranked as the worst hire of the cycle; in 2013, SI’s Chris Burke ranked Chip Kelly and Mike McCoy ahead of Andy Reid; two years ago, CBS Sports’ Jason LaCanfora ranked Urban Meyer ahead of Nick Sirianni.
It’s nice to clown on people’s grade articles of any form—it truly, really is—but ultimately I see these as broadly accepted opinions and I see the coaching cycle as the same roulette wheel as the NFL Draft. You roll the dice and see what happens; Pete Carroll was not a widely praised or locally-accepted coaching hire in Seattle in 2010. It took time and 2.5 years before more than 50% of Seahawks fans were chewing the gum.
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I also do not want to discourage anyone from expressing any emotion over who the Cardinals hire, whether it’s anger, joy, sadness, or fear, because that’s part of the reason we engage with one another over football news.
And share your opinions on whether you believe Quinn (or DeMeco Ryans or Sean Payton or Phil Indablank) would be the best or worst in-division hiring that Arizona could make. That’s what I’m writing this article for, after all.
All I mean to convey is that no matter how we feel now, anything could happen in the future. In the case of Quinn, he could be a dangerous threat to Seattle if he repeats some of the specific success he had in the past. That’s why I say that Dan Quinn could be a more complex hurdle for the Seahawks to cross than some other coaching hires that the Cardinals could make.
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