Diving deeper into Dan Quinn’s defense

Taking a deeper look at the style of defense Dan Quinn is looking to run in Washington

With new Commanders head coach Dan Quinn officially introduced yesterday, I thought I could take a deeper look at what kind of defensive system he’ll bring to Washington. Last week, I broke down Quinn’s defense in Dallas over the past few years and how he’s evolved his system from the zone-heavy Cover-3 days with the Seahawks to a much more aggressive style with extra rushers and plenty of man coverage. If you missed that overview, be sure to check that out as it goes over some of the basics of what Quinn did with the Cowboys defense and how he built his unit around his best players. 

Today though, I thought I’d dive a bit deeper into that system, the strengths and weaknesses of it, and how it might fit with Washington’s current personnel. Now there are some caveats to start with. Quinn announced at his press conference yesterday that he’ll be taking a more CEO style approach and overseeing the whole team, meaning he’ll allow new defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. to call the plays on defense and set the defense up as he sees fit. 

Obviously, Washington doesn’t have the same personnel that Dallas has, so the system will have to change at least slightly to fit the new personnel. But Quinn did mention in his press conference there will be a lot of similarities with the system he ran in Dallas and what Washington will do, rather than reverting back to the old Seahawks Cover-3 scheme. So with that in mind, let’s take a closer look at what we can expect from the Washington defense under Dan Quinn. 

The first thing that stands out when watching Quinn and Whitt’s Cowboys defense is how aggressive they are. The style is to attack and try and make plays, but you can only do that effectively with total buy in. You can immediately see when watching the Cowboys defensive backs, for example, that they are ready to jump any route without any hesitation or fear. They trust their eyes and go hunting for the football. 

On this play, Cowboys cornerback Stephon Gilmore aligns in off coverage against a quick out route from Lions receiver Josh Reynolds. Now typically when you think of man coverage, you think of press coverage with corners up on the line of scrimmage looking to play physically and jam receivers as they look to release into their routes. The Cowboys certainly do this at times, but they’re also very happy to let their corners sit back in off coverage and play with a wider field of vision. From this position, the corners can drive down on any route underneath, like this out route. Gilmore is able to use the extra vision to read the receiver and the quarterback. As soon as the quarterback starts his throwing motion, Gilmore begins to break on the route. The speed at which Gilmore is able to break and close on the ball enables him to arrive before the ball does and break up the pass. 

That aggression is great and makes it really tough for offenses that look to dink and dunk their way down the field to operate in that style. Those quick completions underneath get broken up and contested a lot more often, which leads to those styles of offense getting into third and long situations where they struggle to convert and stay on the field. However, this style certainly comes with risks. One way teams will look to attack aggressive corners is with double moves, and the Cowboys are no different. 

Here, the Chargers motion receiver Keenan Allen across the formation just before the snap, and then have him run a double move against Cowboys cornerback DaRon Bland. Bland uses the same technique we just saw with Gilmore, reading the receiver through to the quarterback and anticipating a break outside. Allen begins to break outside and the quarterback throws in a little pump fake to help get Bland to bite on the move. Bland does indeed bite on the fake and Allen suddenly takes off vertically. Bland falls over trying to turn and recover and Allen is wide open down the sideline, but unfortunately for the Chargers the throw just misses him. 

This is a real risk with playing in such an aggressive fashion on defense. It’s fantastic when the ball is thrown underneath, but a double move can burn the defense for a huge explosive play. The Commanders corners, particularly rookie Emmanuel Forbes, struggled with double moves a lot this past season and so you might be thinking that this style doesn’t fit Washington’s personnel. However, the success of this type of aggressive style requires total buy in from the entire defense, not just the cornerbacks. The reason Dallas is able to get away with playing so aggressively in the secondary and not get burned by things like double moves is that Quinn has the pass rush set up to be just as aggressive. 

You’ll often hear defensive coaches talking about pressure and coverage being in sync or going hand in hand. In Washington last year, that wasn’t the case, with the cornerbacks struggling to cover long enough for pressure to get home and the pass rush struggling to get home quick enough to help the coverage. The plan was disjointed. In Dallas, Quinn matched up his aggressive coverage with an aggressive rush plan in order to ensure the entire defense was in sync and working to help each other.