Hello from a Falcon fan!

[monoxide]

First of all, let me say that the entire town of Lebanon Missouri is Seahawk blue. A friend of mine growing up is now your starting right tackle, and I'm proud to call him an accomplice. Justin Britt has grown up being told he wouldn't make it, and he's always proven people wrong. He was a 2-star recruit in high school going to Mizzou, and I remember him eating it up. It gave him an opportunity to be the underdog.

With all of that said, I didn't register to talk about Justin, but instead...

Dan Quinn! As a moderator on the Atlanta Falcons Message Board, we are beyond pumped for the soon-to-be new Head coach. I wanted to get opinions from Seahawk fans. A few questions:

1. A lot of those against the hire said that he was merely a product of Gus Bradley's defense. Is there any truth to this?

2. On the topic of Gus Bradley, which defensive coordinator would you take to be your head coach if Carroll left? This is simply for my curiosity.

3. Which Seattle defensive coach do you see Quinn taking with him to be our D-Coordinator?

Thanks for the answers guys! I'll definitely be rooting for you in the Super Bowl! Congratulations my friends.

-Monoxide (Roger)

 

[Jazzhawk]

First of all, let me say that the entire town of Lebanon Missouri is Seahawk blue. A friend of mine growing up is now your starting right tackle, and I'm proud to call him an accomplice. Justin Britt has grown up being told he wouldn't make it, and he's always proven people wrong. He was a 2-star recruit in high school going to Mizzou, and I remember him eating it up. It gave him an opportunity to be the underdog.

With all of that said, I didn't register to talk about Justin, but instead...

Dan Quinn! As a moderator on the Atlanta Falcons Message Board, we are beyond pumped for the soon-to-be new Head coach. I wanted to get opinions from Seahawk fans. A few questions:

1. A lot of those against the hire said that he was merely a product of Gus Bradley's defense. Is there any truth to this?

2. On the topic of Gus Bradley, which defensive coordinator would you take to be your head coach if Carroll left? This is simply for my curiosity.

3. Which Seattle defensive coach do you see Quinn taking with him to be our D-Coordinator?

Thanks for the answers guys! I'll definitely be rooting for you in the Super Bowl! Congratulations my friends.

-Monoxide (Roger)

Dan Quinn is terrible! Your team should stay far, far away from him!!!! Look, we'll keep him here in Seattle for your sake, k?

 

[thebanjodude]

I think it's safe to say most of us think he was an improvement over Bradley.

 

[Hawks46]

Welcome !

LOVE the pic, funny as hell.

I think Quinn is going to be a great DC. He was our DL coach, then went to Florida and became their DC. THeir defense immediately improved, and when he left, it seemed to decline.

Bradley ran a good defense, and most of the personnel was already in place, but Quinn's defenses were historic. He probably can't take all the credit, but he could've screwed it up a lot worse as well.

I don't know how good he is with the offense, but I'm betting he picked up a lot from Pete, so you guys are going to emphasize the running game more and become more balanced. That will make you truly scary on offense. You already have the QB and the pieces outside.

Good luck next season and feel free to come back and visit, we love to talk intelligent football with other fan bases.

 

[HawkFan72]

I don't think Quinn is a product of Bradley's system. Both Bradley and Quinn were running Pete's system.

Quinn is a great D-Coordinator. He takes the talent we have and uses it within Pete's system to get the most out of them that he can. Uses our player's strengths well. He will be missed.

I'm not sure who he would try to take with him to Atlanta, hopefully not Kris Richard or Rocky Seto (our secondary coaches). But I could see him trying to poach one of those guys. Since Quinn is a D-line guy, if he combined with one of our secondary coaches that could be a great combo to replicate what he has going in Seattle.

 

[SnoCoHawk]

Welcome to the .Net!

I'm really interested to see how Quinn does as a head coach (and how we do without him). Pete Carroll has his hands in everything here so it's hard to know where he ends and Dan starts. But I'm sure some of that mojo has rubbed off, and I'm definitely sure that Dan Quinn knows how to give the Saints the yips.

So congratulations, but could keep your greedy mitts off of our D-coaches?

 

[monoxide]

Thanks for the responses guys! I'm definitely forwarding over to others at our message board.

I hope to stick around and share some insight while gaining some. Have always had a huge respect for Seattle since the Steve Largent days.

 

[SomersetHawk]

Quinn over Bradley all day. Many put our loss to you two years ago on Bradley. FWIW I do not think we lose that game with Quinn.

Make no mistake, this is PCs defense but there have definitely been some areas of improvement under Quinn, it feels like our rush has been more consistent, and in Clinton McDonald and Jordan Hill it seems he and Travis Jones (also rumoured to be off with Quinn) have taken a couple of average interior guys and turned them into stout tackles, more than capable of getting to the QB.

I think he is a good hire for you. You should see results on your line pretty immediately, and that will help your secondary who it would seem got no help this year and could really benefit from a better front.

Have a hard time seeing the Falcons being -.500 again under Quinn.

 

[Seahawk Sailor]

Quinn is the one guy I think many Seahawks fans would least like to lose. Quite a number of us really, really don't like losing him, even as we know it's a great and well-deserved opportunity for him to take. And that should tell you all you need to know about the hire.

 

[hawknation2015]

Gus Bradley's defense? LOL.

This is Pete Carroll's defense, which is really a variation of Monte Kiffin's defense at North Carolina State in 1980.

Truthfully, I can't predict how Quinn will do as a HC. Most of the position coaches are Pete Carroll lifers (i.e. Ken Norton, Rocky Seto, and Kris Richard). DL Coach Travis Jones and Defensive Assistant Marquand Manuel are the only "Quinn guys" on the staff. They might be willing to leave the Seahawks for a promotion, making Jones the DC and Manuel your secondary coach.

Atlanta was probably the most desirable opportunity for Quinn, given you already have a franchise QB, have plenty of room for improvement on defense, and play in the league's weakest division. I wish him luck.

 

[lukerguy]

Here's the good and the bad.


Good:
- The players love him.
- He's learned how to build a program from the best (Pete).
- He's a DLINE expert. I personally think this is where all good D starts from (even more than secondary). Houston has a below average secondary but a top 5 D because of their DLINE. Stop the run, get to the passer. This is probably the part I'm going to miss most, and I believe we will fill our DC spot with another DLINE guy.


Bad:
-I don't think you can credit more than 5% of the success to him. They were good with Bradley and they were bad with Bradley. They've been good with Quinn and bad with Quinn (see KC). This is PC's scheme, and PC's motivational leadership that brings the team together. After we lost Mebane it looked like the season was over at KC. We couldn't stop Charles. It wasn't Quinn that turned it around; it was the guys in the locker room that decided to stop worrying about themselves and play as a team- for each other.
- He's not nearly as charismatic as Bradley and Pete. Both have HC charisma- I don't see it to quite the extent.
- Falcons don't have the personnel or anywhere near it and they never will.

 

[Jerhawk]

One of my best friends is a falcon fan, and he keeps asking about Dan Quinn.

I don't really have much to say other than he sits up in the press box, calls plays to help our star studded defense win, but really it's Pete Carroll's defense.

No disrespect to Quinn, I'm sure he's a great guy and a great coach, but it's hard to say what you'll get out of him as a head coach of a defense that's not quite up to Seattle's talent level. Trufant and Alford are very good, but without the safety help of an Earl Thomas or Kam Chancellor.

 

[kearly]

Quinn was an outstanding DL coach for us before he became a very good defensive coordinator. He is very good at making adjustments. He appears to have HC level communication skills and work ethic.

He's a good fit for Atlanta's defense. His biggest talent development strengths cover the Falcons biggest deficiencies.

Nobody can possibly know how good of a HC Quinn will be, but I think it helps that he won't need to match Carroll's defensive prowess to turn Atlanta into a perennial playoff team.

While I deeply respect Quinn and will miss him, the Hawks are Pete Carroll's team and quite honestly I do not think you can copy Pete's formula without actually having Pete Carroll on your team. He is one of, if not the greatest talent developing coaches of all time. It is very unlikely that Quinn will be able to replicate what Pete has done.

That said, getting your defense to league average should be within Quinn's ability. And his predecessor, Mike Smith, was an utterly average head coach with terrible leadership. If Mike Smith is the bar, Quinn should be able to clear it, but I would be surprised if he's the next big thing as a HC.

I think Rex Ryan would have been a much better hire for Atlanta. It actually made me sad to see him not get the job.

One other thing, I am concerned by the owner meddling a bit with the GM position, effectively splitting power with Scott Pioli and Thomas Dimitroff. Dimitroff is a solid decision maker, if a bit 'by the book'. Stripping power away from him punitively to a guy that was a failed GM in Kansas City seems like the kind of bad idea that only a late-in-life impatient owner would do. Cohesion with the GM and coach is of critical importance, and now it's going to be three different guys competing for the players they want? I would feel uncomfortable with that arrangement. If you want to copy Seattle's formula, you need to get a GM and coach who are connected at the hip. And that's hard to do with two competing executives.

 

[DavidSeven]

Pete Carroll is the de facto DC. He has been pumping out elite defenses for 20+ years all over the league and at SC. No coordinator is going to stop him from fielding one of the best Ds in the league. So, no, this is not Gus Bradley's defense, but it is not Dan Quinn's defense either. True, our defense got better after Quinn was hired, but our talent also got markedly better in that time (w/ additions of Bennett and Avril and natural progression of our young LBs and DBs). And honestly we run pretty basic stuff in terms of scheme. It relies primarily on personnel and Carroll's ability to evaluate and teach talent. I take nothing away from Quinn, though. He has steered the ship just fine and probably helped us more than we know.

At the end of the day, I think Quinn's success as an HC is really going to hinge not on X&Os but on his ability to be a "big picture" guy. I see Rex as more of that X&O type coach. Quinn will need to be a guy who can establish a culture of toughness in ATL. My sense is that he has some of that potential, but it's so hard to say. Many of us assumed Gus had those traits too, but he has struggled to establish that culture in JAX (partially because the talent is so poor). I think ATL is a good situation for Quinn, though. From what I've read and heard, he is also a great teacher of DL talent. All of our DL talent has evolved pretty well under his tutelage. That's certainly another asset he brings to the table.

He also has history with both Carroll and Saban, so he is a very interesting "coaching tree" prospect.

 

[endzorn]

Being a head coach isn't the same as being a coordinator. You need to manage and motivate both players and coaches as a head coach so it becomes less about system and more about being the right CEO for the roster. No one knows if he's that guy, but he's learned from a helluva leader and people in the organization love him.

I'm sure we'll all root for him until head to head dictates otherwise.

 

[RolandDeschain]

Welcome, Monoxide. Go re-watch the last part of the 2012 Seahawks @ Falcons playoff game. See the really soft zone defense we played that helped you guys win right at the end? That's what we "lost" when we attained Quinn as our defensive coordinator for 2013 & 2014. Our defense is even better.

I wish we could keep Quinn for another year, but it's not going to happen. I expect that you guys will be very happy with him; time will tell.

 

[hieroglyphics]

I think any of the defensive coordinators in the NFL could at least coach this Seattle D to being at worst the 3rd best defense in the NFL.

We have what looks like already 3 future Hall of Fame players (Kam, Thomas, Sherman) and another one emerging (Wagner) not to mention loads of other great defensive talent. I don't know if anyone on Atlanta's defense would even be a backup on our defense. So Quinn REALLY has his work cut out for him.

That being said I like continuity, and the unknown of who will replace Quinn is still a bit unnerving. Never know what the next coordinator will be like.

 

[endzorn]

Welcome, Monoxide. Go re-watch the last part of the 2012 Seahawks @ Falcons playoff game. See the really soft zone defense we played that helped you guys win right at the end? That's what we "lost" when we attained Quinn as our defensive coordinator for 2013 & 2014. Our defense is even better.

I wish we could keep Quinn for another year, but it's not going to happen. I expect that you guys will be very happy with him; time will tell.

We had one pass rusher in that game...Bruce Irvin. On the two pass plays, Bradley brought five pass rushers and Seattle went to a cover 4, 2 under zone designed to force quick decisions and passes inside the numbers to eat clock. That offseason Schneider signed Bennett and Avril and our pass rush took off. Bradley and Quinn run the exact same defense, but Quinn had the benefit of two extra legit pass rushers. IMO Bradley and Quinn are virtually identical coordinators, but Quinn had the benefit of a roster full of young stars guys with big game experience and two more rock solid rushers. We still run the same Cover 1, single high safety man coverage and Cover 3, 4 under zone.

Remember the Broncos game this year when we went cover 4, 3 under and got torched by the switch release? If Bradley had called that we'd be carrying pitchforks.

Head coaching comes down to the ability to relate, manage and motivate all people under you as much as system. I'm curious to see how Quinn does in a bigger leadership role because people in the organization love him.

 

[RolandDeschain]

Eh, soft zone late in games burned us a number of times with Bradley, but there's no doubt the additions of Bennett and Avril helped the pass rush angle.

 

[endzorn]

I know people think Bradley sucked, but he ran a defense that was number one in points allowed and had less talent and considerably less experience from his stars. Quinn is great, but as a designer of defense and a play-caller he's virtually the same dude as Bradley.