Dan Quinn’s “Brotherhood” was easy to mock. Here was a coach of professional football players preaching about playing for something bigger than themselves. Quinn sounded as if he were running a college program. Surely, Falcons players wouldn’t take his rah-rah approach seriously.
But they did. It turned out Falcons players were buying what “DQ” was selling. There was an intangible spirit that helped the team become more than the sum of its parts. The Falcons rode that feeling closer than the franchise had ever been to winning the Super Bowl, before Quinn’s strategic blunders became too much for even his strong culture to overcome.
Now Quinn has developed another Brotherhood in Washington. The Commanders finished 4-13 in 2023. They hired Quinn to turn things around, and he has. The Commanders will play for the NFC championship in Philadelphia on Sunday.
“It’s definitely been a different vibe, just the atmosphere, the culture is different,” Commanders wide receiver Jamison Crowder told reporters before Washington stunned top-seeded Detroit last weekend. “A lot of that’s a credit to ‘DQ’ and what he’s done to kind of restructure and revamp the energy in the building.”
The Falcons haven’t been able to recapture that feeling. Doing so might be key for Raheem Morris in Year 2. I don’t mean that Morris, a Falcons assistant under Quinn, should copy the Brotherhood blueprint. Morris’ approach must be his own. Somehow, someway he must find way to create a team culture that elevates the Falcons, as Quinn once did.
Of course, it will take more than that for Morris to make the Falcons winners again. Quinn’s Brotherhood wouldn’t have worked without the right players and assistants. His pairing of offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan with quarterback Matt Ryan produced an all-time great offense for the Falcons. Quinn got great results in Washington by hiring Kliff Kingsbury to call plays for rookie sensation Jayden Daniels, the No. 2 overall pick in his draft.
But, like he did in Atlanta, Quinn has enhanced the player and coaching talent in Washington with his brand of culture building.
“(It’s) the ability to play for something bigger than yourself and knowing that your skills can get you to a certain level, but there’s a whole other spot to tap into if you’re doing it for the guy who’s right next to you,” Quinn told reporters after Washington’s 7-2 start. “And a lot of people would say, ‘Well that’s not possible in pro ball’, and I would tend to disagree with them.”
I was one of those people. Quinn was right, and I was wrong. I saw him do it here, and now he’s doing it in Washington.
When Commanders players talk about it, they sound just like Falcons players did back then.
“This team came together tremendously in this year,” running back Brian Robinson said after the playoff victory in Detroit. “A band of brothers, for sure, that are definitely ready to go to war for each other.”
The Falcons last made the playoffs in 2017, the season after their Super Bowl collapse. Quinn’s Brotherhood would eventually grow stale as the team got older and his coaching strategies faltered. But no Falcons coach since then has managed to equal Quinn’s on-field success or re-create his off-field vibes.
Quinn’s successor, Arthur Smith, was not a rah-rah guy. He had a more button-down approach to building team culture. Smith spoke derisively of what he considered to be “fake” energy from players. His approach was far from the Brotherhood. It was much closer to the Patriots Way made famous by Bill Belichick: Just Do Your Job.
Morris’ coaching style seems to be somewhere in between. His infectious and positive energy permeates the building, but he also can have a harder edge behind the scenes. Morris had to navigate a potential crisis when he decided to bench quarterback Kirk Cousins. The Falcons lost two of three games with rookie Michael Penix Jr., but there were no signs of the team splintering over Morris’ decision to make the change.
It took two years for Quinn to help the Falcons become winners again. Surely, Morris will tweak his team-building tactics for Year 2. He already has made some major staff changes. Morris fired defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake and replaced him with Jeff Ulbrich, who was on Quinn’s 2020 Falcons staff with Morris. Morris replaced defensive line coach Jay Rodgers with Nate Ollie and added Mike Rutenberg to be the defensive pass game coordinator.
Morris and his staff will be tasked with reviving a losing culture. Quinn’s two years of success are outliers over for the Falcons over the past 12 years. Quinn got them to the playoffs the year after the Super Bowl collapse. The Falcons gained a first-and-goal in the final moments of a divisional round at Philadelphia but couldn’t score a touchdown.
That turned out to be the beginning of the end for Quinn’s run with the Falcons. Arthur Blank fired Quinn when his 2020 team was 0-5. Quinn went on to coordinate very good Cowboys defenses for three seasons before the Commanders hired him as head coach. At the time, Commanders GM Adam Peters called Quinn “unquestionably one of the best leaders in the NFL.”
It didn’t take long for Quinn to prove Peters right. The Commanders began the season 7-2, wobbled with three consecutive losses, and then closed the regular season with five consecutive victories. Washington’s win at Tampa Bay in the wild-card round was the franchise’s first playoff victory since the 2005 season. The Commanders went to Detroit as eight-point underdogs and won by two touchdowns.
After that game, reporters told Quinn that veteran offensive lineman Sam Cosmi spoke highly of the team culture that Quinn has developed.
“That’s awesome to hear because it is about the connection, and if the connection is stronger, the commitment is also stronger,” Quinn said. “So, when he and his teammates are that connected to one another (it’s), ‘Man, I’m not going to let you down. I’m absolutely going to take the extra step, go the extra mile.’ …
“If you’re kind of on the fringe (of) neighborhood to brotherhood, there’s a big difference. Neighborhood (is): ‘How you doing? OK, good. Nice, see you,’ and you keep on walking. Brotherhood, you don’t do that, and so the fact that he recognizes that connection, that’s a big deal.”
That kind of talk from a pro football coach is easy to mock, but Quinn has used his method to turn around two different NFL franchises. Morris must find a way to do the same for his Falcons team.
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