New Falcons Coach Dan Quinn Must Prove Talent Didn't Carry Him in Seattle

When it is soon confirmed that Dan Quinn will become the 16th head coach in Atlanta Falcons history, the mandate will be as clear as the task will be large. 

That's because Quinn will be leaving a Seattle Seahawks defense that in 2014 ranked first in football for a Falcons D that ranked dead last, both in terms of total yards and yards per play allowed.

Category	Seahawks	Falcons
Points allowed	1st	27th
Yards allowed	1st	32nd
Yards/play allowed	1st	32nd

Quinn may have been one of the most highly respected defensive coordinators in the game, but there isn't a mastermind out there who could account for the difference between these two defensive units. That type of assumption wouldn't be fair to Seahawks general manager John Schneider or head coach Pete Carroll, who assembled a defense that featured four 2014 Pro Bowlers, three of whom were All-Pros. 

Team	Pro Bowlers	All-Pros
Seahawks	9	7
Falcons	0	0

It is fair to wonder if you or I or the left shark from Katy Perry's halftime show could have experienced similar success with such a stacked defense. After all, the Seahawks surrendered a league-low 15.3 points per game in 2012 before Quinn arrived from the University of Florida. 

The common denominators are Legion of Boom defensive backs Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor and Earl Thomas, rather than those who coached them. 

Gus Bradley, who was in charge of that 2012 defense, also leveraged his Seattle success into a head coaching role. But two years into his tenure with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Bradley's got just seven wins under his belt, and only three teams have surrendered more points than the Jags. 

Teams	Points allowed	Yards allowed	Takeaways
2011/2012 Seahawks	3rd	6th	5th
2013/2014 Jaguars	29th	28th	25th

It wouldn't be totally fair to suggest that Quinn's riding into Atlanta on the shoulders of Sherman, Thomas, Chancellor, Bruce Irvin, Bobby Wagner, et al. He's earned a reputation as a defensive line guru, and he deserves credit for boosting Seattle's sack rate ranking from 18th to fifth after taking over in 2013. 

But Seattle's defense has for several years now been famously uncomplex. Bradley and Quinn should be praised for not overthinking, but it's not as though Quinn brings any sort of creative schemes or concepts to Atlanta. His trademark is his ability to mix and match up front and coach defensive lines, but he's known best for putting good players in position to make good plays. 

The problem now is that he'll lack good players. 

The Falcons haven't had a defensive player elected to the Pro Bowl since 2011. In 2014, Pro Football Focus ranked Paul Worrilow 59th among 60 qualified inside linebackers, and cornerback Desmond Trufant was the only player to rank in the top 20 at his position. 

Could Trufant serve as Quinn's Eastern time zone version of Richard Sherman? Although he might lack the physicality, it's remains a possibility. But even if he, safety William Moore and corners Robert McClain and Robert Alford turn into a miniature Legion of Boom, the Falcons face major questions everywhere else on defense. 

That was once the case in Seattle too, but that doesn't mean lightning will strike twice, and it's not as though Quinn was making major personnel decisions in his former job.

He did champion 2010 fifth-round pick Kam Chancellor long before Chancellor became a superstar and likely had a hand in defensive draft and/or free-agency decisions while serving as the team's defensive line coach in 2009 and 2010, but this is a different city with different decision-makers, and Atlanta personnel men Thomas Dimitroff and Scott Pioli don't have strong recent track records. 

As Vaughn McClure and Adam Schefter of ESPN pointed out Monday, Falcons owner Arthur Blank also implied recently that Quinn could have plenty of say when it comes to personnel decisions. It wouldn't be fair to suggest right now that some control over personnel would be a good or bad thing for Quinn, but it's worth noting that he's never had that type of power before. 

Not only has Quinn never been a head coach, but he wasn't even a college coordinator before going to Florida in 2011 (after his initial stint with the Seahawks), and he wasn't even an NFL coordinator before rejoining Seattle in place of the departed Bradley in 2013.  

The task is tall strictly in terms of coaching up a bad defense, but it becomes towering when you throw in that Quinn will be dealing with personnel on both sides of the ball while trying to work with Dimitroff and Pioli as well as offensive and defensive coordinators who were hired before he arrived. 

That last part is never ideal, especially when you consider that Blank spoke last week of the responsibilities that come with taking over as head coach, noting specifically that hiring assistants came with that territory.

"You're really hiring a CEO for a football team and a leader who can hire the best coordinators and position coaches," he said, per McClure. 

Then again, hiring a coach five weeks after Black Monday isn't ideal, either, but the Falcons must have been so convinced that Quinn was the right man for this job that they were willing to wait for him to finish his second consecutive Super Bowl run with the Seahawks.

Blank, Dimitroff and Pioli have been doing this a long time. Blank and Dimitroff sort of gambled on Mike Smith in a similar situation in 2008, and that paid off. Like Quinn, Smith had no head coaching experience at any level, but he became the winningest head coach in team history. 

With supposed franchise quarterback Matt Ryan further along now, and with recent successful regular seasons/playoff failures casting extra pressure on a half-century-old franchise to win its first championship, the onus on Quinn will be particularly hefty. 

The key is to keep in mind that every great head coach had to start somewhere. The Falcons see something in Quinn, and it presumably goes beyond Seattle's defensive success. Now it's up to Quinn to prove that the Seahawks don't just find and breed great players, but also great coaches. 

Brad Gagnon has covered the NFL for Bleacher Report since 2012.

Follow @Brad_Gagnon