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The Commanders Head Coaching Thread - Commanders hire Dan Quinn, Dallas Cowboys DC


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5 hours ago, Slappy Mc said:

Not sure I believe that Morris and MacDonald were offered the job. Directly contradicts John Keim's report from this morning about the job not being offered yet.

You COULD read that statement in an entirely different way. He COULD have meant that they were offered (and accepted a job from) another team. Notice that he didn't say that WE offered them the job?

Quote

Raheem Morris & Mike Macdonald were offered & chose another gig

That sentence can be split into two sentences:

1) Raheem Morris & Mike Macdonald were offered another gig

2) Raheem Morris & Mike Macdonald chose another gig

 

So Russell and Keim may not be contradicting each other here. 

 

@e16bball, how's my lawyerin' doing here?

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The crazy part from last year’s Cowboys was actually the safety usage. The CB usage was pretty typical for the modern NFL, but I suspect you’ll never really see a team play this many safeties this much. 

Per PFR, Dallas had a total of 1070 defensive snaps. That’s the starting point.

Between Malik Hooker (826), Jayron Kearney (820), Donovan Wilson (732), Markquese Bell (649), Juanyeh Thomas (190), and Israel Mukuamu (75), they got 3,292 snaps from their safeties. Which means that they averaged over 3 safeties on the field per play.

Part of the explanation is that they were very much using Markquese Bell as a LB after losing Vander Esch and DeMarvion Overshown to injury. He is a classic safety/LB tweener, and they plugged him in closer to the LOS based largely on necessity, I think.

In 2022, they were a bit more traditional, using 2-3 safeties most of the time — that trio of Malik Hooker, Jayron Kearse, and Donovan Wilson. I think that’s more likely where they’ll usually be, when they aren’t trying to fill a huge hole in the LB corps with yet another safety type.

But versatility is clearly a big part of what they were doing, because Wilson and Kearse are also pretty much in that SS/Buffalo Nickel mold as well. I remember Wilson absolutely killing us near the LOS in one of the games last year…he made several big plays. 

It’s pretty easy to see how Curl and Forrest would fit into those sorts of roles — they’re both well-rounded players, and both have real value against the run or the pass, at pretty much all levels of the field. 

The tricky one is Hooker, the post safety in Quinn’s bread and butter, the Cover 1/3 single-high stuff that became famous with Earl Thomas. I’m not sure we have that player. Hooker isn’t actually that good (probably a big reason they started to gravitate toward more of the split safety looks), but they had an elite pass-rush to protect him — which we likely will not. I’m not sure Butler is cut out for that role in terms of instincts, and I’m not sure Forrest has the range for it. Might need to address that one.

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TL;DR of all that stuff on the secondary: Going to see a lot of nickel and dime packages. Would make a push to keep Fuller and Curl, both of whom fit well. Probably need to look for legit slot CB and legit single-high FS (what else is new?)

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1 hour ago, MikeT14 said:

Jesus Christ. We really are considering Chip Kelly for the OC job. 

But why would he take a $4-5m paycut, move from California to Ashburn, and not have his day just to write offer letters.  

This just doesn’t make sense.  

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36 minutes ago, MKnight82 said:

Hopefully Martin fills one of those roles. 

Great point, I totally forgot about him. Weird, because I was pretty on board with picking him.

Maybe they’ll just roll with him, Curl, and Forrest. I guess you’d be giving Forrest the first shot at playing the post safety.

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Just now, naptownskinsfan said:

But why would he take a $4-5m paycut, move from California to Ashburn, and not have his day just to write offer letters.  

This just doesn’t make sense.  

Because people want to run through walls for Dan Quinn.

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1 minute ago, e16bball said:

Great point, I totally forgot about him. Weird, because I was pretty on board with picking him.

Maybe they’ll just roll with him, Curl, and Forrest. I guess you’d be giving Forrest the first shot at playing the post safety.

Ya and you didn't even mention Percy Butler. He definitely has struggled but at least he's shown he's athletic enough to get to the right spot. Safety is probably one of the positions we're deepest at.

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1 minute ago, MKnight82 said:

Ya and you didn't even mention Percy Butler. He definitely has struggled but at least he's shown he's athletic enough to get to the right spot. Safety is probably one of the positions we're deepest at.

Hopefully they keep Richard Rodger’s on staff, but I think it’s doubtful at this point.  Him and Matsko were the only Rivera assistants who did their jobs well.  

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16 minutes ago, naptownskinsfan said:

But why would he take a $4-5m paycut, move from California to Ashburn, and not have his day just to write offer letters.  

This just doesn’t make sense.  

College coaches are sick of the NIL

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