Cowboys DC Dan Quinn: Will be ‘a lot of fun’ to battle Mike McCarthy as play caller once again
This summer will mark Dan Quinn’s third training camp as the Cowboys’ defensive coordinator. But when he oversees his unit in intrasquad work in Oxnard, Calif. against the Dallas offense this year, there will be a key difference from both 2021 and 2022.
Leading the other side now will be head coach Mike McCarthy, in his first season as the team’s offensive playcaller.
Quinn is already salivating at the thought.
“Yes, 100 percent,” he told reporters with a smile after Thursday’s conclusion of mandatory minicamp. “No question about it. And he is as well. That’s kind of what makes coaching fun. It’s not just the player-to-player oftentimes; it’s the coaches-to-coaches. I’ve coached against Mike for a long time. He’s one of the very best. Hopefully we have a lot of fun out in California.”
Historically speaking, the head-to-head battles between the two thus far have really only been fun for Quinn.
As a defensive coordinator or head coach, Quinn holds a 6-0 career record over McCarthy-led offenses.
Their first meeting came in the 2013 preseason when Quinn’s “Legion of Boom” Seattle defense beat McCarthy’s Packers by a 17-10 score. In 2014 as defending Super Bowl champs, the Seahawks opened the season with another victory over Green Bay, this time by a 36-16 margin. The two teams met 19 weeks later in the NFC Championship, with the Seahawks once again getting the better of McCarthy in a 28-22 overtime win.
That loss and the widespread criticism that came with it prompted McCarthy to give up calling the Packers’ offensive plays for the 2015 season, but he had re-assumed the role by the time he faced Quinn again, midway through the 2016 season.
Quinn was head coach in Atlanta by then and not calling the defensive plays, but the results were the same. His Falcons pulled out a 33-32 win over McCarthy in Week 8. Quinn took over the defense once again late in the year, and the Falcons were far more convincing in their 44-21 routing of Green Bay in the NFC Championship.
For the 2017 campaign, Quinn had handed the defensive reins to a new coordinator, but Atlanta topped McCarthy yet again, winning 34-23 in a Week 2 showdown.
Quinn’s Falcons did eventually lose to the Packers, during the 2018 season, but, coincidentally, it happened in the first game after McCarthy had been fired in Green Bay.
An offer for Cowboys fans
For the best local Austin news, sports, entertainment and culture coverage, subscribe to the Austin American-Statesman.
Now the two men will square off once again, both wearing the star, and with McCarthy calling offensive plays for the first time since coming to Dallas in 2020.
“It’s really cool to see Mike get into that role,” the 52-year-old Quinn said of his boss. “Sometimes as a head coach, when you’re not the playcaller, man, you’re yearning for it, to be in that space. So I’ve seen that with him, the energy that he has for it, and it just looks like he’s having a blast.”
McCarthy has confirmed that he’s enjoying having those duties back on his plate.
“That’s the guy that gets to compete on game day with the coordinator on the other side of the field,” the coach said this week. “It’s been a lot of fun to get back into it.”
The fun will continue next month when McCarthy’s offense and Quinn’s defense finally go mano-a-mano and in pads, not just at the walkthrough pace of OTAs and minicamp.
“We’ve thrown a good offseason,” Quinn said. “But him, specifically, I’ve felt some happiness and some joy for him going out there. You can see his competitive juices going. We’ll have some good battles.”
