Pete Carroll’s answer to the idea of Seahawks re-hiring Dan Quinn now for the defense
Pete Carroll and the Seahawks love Dan Quinn.
They love him so much, their thoughts are with their former Super Bowl defensive coordinator and his wife Stacey more than whether Quinn might return to Seattle.
Asked Monday about the possibility of the Seahawks hiring back Quinn to their defense the day after the winless Atlanta fired the 50-year-old Quinn as its head coach after nearly 6 1/2 seasons, including leading the Falcons into the Super Bowl at the end of the 2017 season, Seattle’s veteran head man dismissed that idea.
And its timing.
“Can we give Dan a chance to just kind of (be) real with it?” Carroll said.
“I haven’t talked to Danny yet. I don’t know what’s going on with him. But we love Dan, and all that. And...let’s see what happened in his world.
“I”m not even thinking anything about that right now.”
Carroll, 69, has been fired twice in the NFL as a head coach. The first time was after one, 6-10 season leading the New York Jets at age 43. That was in 1994. The New England Patriots fired Carroll after he led them through three seasons (10-6, 9-7, 8-8), the last one in 1999.
Monday, Carroll was reminded of the upheaval Quinn is going through right now. That makes football secondary..
“This is about him getting reset and balanced,” Carroll said. “It’s an enormous undertaking to get let go, in the program like that, and the profile of all of that.”
Carroll kept Quinn on the Seahawks’ coaching staff in 2010 as their defensive line coach when Carroll arrived from USC to lead Seattle. Quinn left a year later to become the defensive coordinator at the University of Florida for two years. Carroll hired him back to be the Seahawks’ defensive coordinator for the 2013 and ‘14 seasons—Seattle’s two Super Bowl seasons under Carroll. Quinn coordinated Seattle’s dominant “Legion of Boom” secondary, emerging star linebackers Bobby Wagner, K.J. Wright and Bruce Irvin and a deep defensive line that had nine pass rushers and run stoppers and overwhelmed offenses.
After the Seahawks’ second consecutive Super Bowl appearance, at then end of the 2014 season, Atlanta made Quinn a first-time head coach.
The post-Legion of Boom defense in Seattle is today nothing like Quinn’s Super Bowl units.
Seattle allowed 201 yards rushing by Minnesota Sunday night and 449 more in all. The Seahawks allowed Minnesota to run 83 offensive plays and allowed the Vikings to control possession for almost 40 of the game’s 60 minutes.
But two key turnovers—K.J. Wright’s interception and Damontre Moore’s forced fumble in the third quarter—then third- and fourth-down stops by defensive end Benson Mayowa with 2 minutes left allowed Russell Wilson’s latest rally to another win.
Seattle is last in the NFL in total defense and passing defense. That has some wondering about the future of defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. Norton was the linebackers coach in Seattle for Quinn a half-dozen years ago.
Yet the Seahawks are the league’s only 5-0 team, off to the best start to a season in franchise history.
That—and Carroll’s personal care for Quinn—are why any move on his staff during Seattle’s bye this week or beyond is for now unlikely.
“I’m just going to try to support him,” Carroll said Monday of Quinn, “and help him in any way that I can.”
This story was originally published October 12, 2020 at 11:21 AM.
