Dan Quinn Is Here To Stay, For Now
By Deke Lloyd
Dan Quinn, as of Tuesday morning, remains the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons. Arthur Blank, clearly, is pushing for a top-three draft pick, and sticking with Dan Quinn at head coach is the clearest path to that goal. Dan Quinn is here to stay.
Going into the bye week, with a 1-7 record, it was widely assumed that Dan Quinn would coach his last game as the Falcons head coach against his old team, the Seattle Seahawks. Now, two days removed from said loss, Dan Quinn still remains the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons. Arthur Blank stated, he will ‘think hard’ about what to do with his head coach over these next two weeks. At the moment, it seems pretty clear Blank is sticking by Quinn, for now.
Arthur Blank sticking beside his head coach while the walls are falling around the franchise shouldn’t come as much of a shock. I spoke on this earlier in the season, when things looked like they were heading in this direction, and now, here we are. Blank gave Mike Smith the entire season to finish before pulling the plug once the season ended. It feels like we are in similar territory here.
Even with things around this team being about as bad as bad can get, there are arguments for keeping Dan Quinn. Like, if we are going to keep Quinn to lock up a high draft pick for next year’s NFL Draft. It’s possible if Quinn was to be fired midseason, that an interim head coach would leave this team to some unnecessary victories. By keeping Quinn for the full year, the Falcons are all but guaranteeing a top-five draft pick at the minimum.
The argument for getting rid of Dan Quinn is pretty simple, too. It’s plain to see Quinn has to go after the start he got off to last season and this season. Last season can be chalked up to massive injuries on the defense and offense. That’s fine, and while there are some key injuries this season, the blame has to fall on Quinn for the way this team is bottoming out. After firing Marquand Manuel, for a poor defense last season, Quinn was going to take the defense over to fix the problems of Manuel. Well, the defense has looked worse than ever, and Quinn is the only guy to blame this season.
While we don’t need to look far to find ways to criticize Quinn, it’s not even about that at this point. The Falcons, the way they are assembled today, are flat-out underachievers. It’s now back-to-back seasons this team, which is very similar to the team that made the Super Bowl, has just looked bad and undisciplined. That falls on the head coach. Even if Quinn makes it through the season, his days are numbered.
For now, Quinn remains the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, and it doesn’t look like anything will change when the Falcons take the field after the bye week. Quinn, in a presser yesterday, stated, “Well, I can honestly say all the time and all the attention I have, I couldn’t think of a bigger waste of my mental health and space … all I want to do is see if we can get it right. That’s what we want to deliver for [owner] Arthur [Blank]. That’s what we want to deliver for the fans, for the team. [To] have performances that the city deserves, that’s really important. So to spend any time or moments thinking, ‘What if I don’t?’ that would only take away from that.”
Quinn feels bad about what’s happened in Atlanta, but he’s focused on his job. Okay. Focus on your job, for now, Dan. You’ll be looking for another job very soon.