Dan Quinn spotlights biggest issue with defense vs. Broncos

Last week wasn’t great for Dan Quinn and his Dallas Cowboys defense. They allowed 30 points to the Denver Broncos en route to a 30-16 loss.

It was their worst performance of the season, and the Cowboys defensive coordinator pointed the biggest issue in Dallas’ second loss of the season.

Cowboys DC Dan Quinn said their biggest issue against the Broncos was the finishing of plays. They had a season-high 14 missed tackles. Too many one-person tackles

— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) November 8, 2021

Dallas entered last week’s game allowing 18.9 points per game before the Broncos put up 30 at AT&T Stadium. It was a stark contrast to last year when Dallas allowed 29.6 points per game in 2020. It shows the impact Quinn has had on the Cowboys in his first year as defensive coordinator.

Quinn took over this season under Mike McCarthy after Mike Nolan was fired as Dallas’ defensive coordinator last year. Before a stint as the Atlanta Falcons’ head coach, Quinn worked as a defensive assistant. In 2013, he was the Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator when the Seahawks’ strong defense helped carry them to a Super Bowl XLVIII title. That year, the Seahawks led the league in fewest points allowed, fewest yards allowed and takeaways — the first team to do that since the 1985 Chicago Bears.

Quinn was hired as Atlanta in 2015, but was fired five games into the 2020 season. This week, the Cowboys are playing Atlanta — Quinn’s first time facing the Falcons since his firing.

Dan Quinn: ‘We got some s— to fix’

Dan Quinn has turned the Dallas Cowboys defense around this season. But before he was coaching Trevon Diggs and Micah Parsons, he was the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons.

Sunday afternoon, Quinn will face the Falcons for the first time since they fired him in October 2020. How’s he feeling about it?

His answer wasn’t exactly family-friendly.

“I have great memories from there, and I always will,” Quinn said, according to Michael Gehlken of the Dallas Morning News. “But you guys saw the performance yesterday, so there’s no time to take a stroll down memory lane. We got some s— to fix.”

Quinn’s tenure in Atlanta was quite a rollercoaster ride. The Falcons went 43-42 with Quinn at the helm, but they made Super Bowl LI in his second season in 2016-17. Atlanta was up 28-3 on the New England Patriots before Tom Brady led the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history to win 34-28.

The next year, the Falcons went 10-6 before back-to-back sub-.500 seasons. Atlanta fired Quinn after an 0-5 start to the 2020 sason.

We’ll see if Quinn’s defense and the Cowboys offense can rebound this week against his former team.