When Mike McCarthy was hired as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys in 2020, he brought former San Francisco head coach Mike Nolan with him to coach the defense. That wound up being a complete disaster as they were 28th in the NFL in points surrendered that year as Nolan seemed to struggle with every phase of the game.
Unsurprisingly, they let Nolan go that offseason, and in came Dan Quinn, the former head coach of the Atlanta Falcons. Quinn instantly improved the defense and was somehow retained despite heavy interest this offseason as a head coach.
Now with eight games in the books this season, the Dallas defense is again playing well. But how does Quinn grade out when looking at their performance in 2022 as a whole? Here, we will grade each aspect of the defense.
Grading Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn midway through 2022
Cowboys run defense
We’ll start out with the weak spot. Dallas hasn’t been great this season when it comes to stopping the run. Only six teams have given up more yardage on the ground than the 1,081 that the Cowboys have. They did add Johnathan Hankins to play the nose tackle position and hopefully slow opponents down, but they were gashed for 240 yards in his first appearance against the Bears.
That wasn’t on him, especially with Justin Fields running for 60 yards mostly by escaping the pass rush. Having said all that, the run defense needs to improve going forward, especially considering they’re going to eventually have to beat the Philadelphia Eagles who have been strong on the ground thanks to Miles Sanders and Jalen Hurts.
Grade: D
Cowboys pass defense
As frustrating as they have been against the run, their ability to shut down the pass has more than made up for it. The Dallas defense is currently fourth in the NFL in yards surrendered, fifth in passing touchdowns given up, and first in sacks with 33 — seven more than the second-place San Francisco 49ers.
Micah Parsons leads the way with eight sacks but what’s really been impressive is the play of Dorance Armstrong who has five through eight games. He was tasked with replacing Randy Gregory and has done so, and then some.
Quinn has also gotten the most out of Dante Fowler — four sacks in a rotational role — and even brings the heat on the blitz with three sacks from safety Donovan Wilson.
They’ve also broken up 28 passes and recorded seven picks on the year. That’s lower than the 26 they had last year but we might have been a bit spoiled in that regard since that was an insane number thanks in large part to Trevon Diggs hauling in 11 on his own.
Grade: A+
Cowboys third-down defense
Before the game against Chicago, Mike McCarthy preached the importance of third-down conversions. Oftentimes, games are won based on who performs best in this area. Dallas improved drastically on offense in that game while the defense held the Bears’ defense to a 40 percent conversion rate.
On the year, that’s below their average as they’ve given up the first down just 35.71 percent of the time which places them in the top 10. They’re trending in the wrong direction over the past few games, but only slightly. Still, being top 10 is admirable and will keep them winning, especially if the offense continues to convert on their own third-down attempts.
Grade: A
Cowboys defense as a whole
As good as Quinn was in 2021, he’s been even better overall this year. For instance, last season, they were seventh in points surrendered and have improved four spots to No. 3 so far in 2022. That’s why they went 4-1 with Cooper Rush under center as he only once needed more than 20 points to win a game, which happened against the Eagles and they lost 26-17.
They slowed down Tom Brady in Week 1, holding Tampa Bay to just 19 points despite the offense constantly giving them the ball after stalled drives. From there, they held Joe Burrow and the Bengals to 17, the New York Giants to 16 then gave up just 10 in back-to-back games against the Washington Commanders as well as the defending champion Los Angeles Rams.
In all, they’ve surrendered just 133 points which is an average of 16.6 per game. Any team that has Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, Ezekiel Elliott, and Tony Pollard should be able to win every weekend with such a performance from the defense.
Expect there to be more interest in DQ as a head coach in 2023 because he’s completely rehabbed his image following the way things fell apart in Atlanta. Here’s to hoping Jerry Jones can pull off his magic again and keep him around because he’s an excellent coordinator.
Dan Quinn Overall Grade: A-
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