After the NFL awards were announced, most of the debate centered around whether Josh Allen deserved his 2024 NFL MVP award over Lamar Jackson.
Washington Commanders fans, meanwhile, are more upset about a separate honor that they feel should have gone a different way.
Minnesota Vikings head coach (and former Washington offensive coordinator) Kevin O'Connell was perfectly deserving of the NFL's Coach of the Year accolade. He took a team projected to win 6.5 games and went 14-3. Quarterback Sam Darnold emerging from journeyman obscurity to look like a borderline NFL MVP candidate at times under his guidance.
It can be argued that what Dan Quinn did with the Commanders was even more impressive. He took over a team that had gone 4-12 last season (the Vikings were 7-10) and led Washington to the NFC Championship game after winning 12 regular season games.
Commanders head coach Dan Quinn's award snub doesn't detract from superb achievments
More importantly, Quinn was the emotional heartbeat of the Commanders' locker room, turning around a culture that had been broken to the point of being unrecognizable. Even after Josh Harris' ownership group bought the team in 2023 from the tyrannical Dan Snyder, his imprint remained all over Washington. It was reflected in the losing on-field product.
Former head coach Ron Rivera was a supposed 'culture hire'. Despite an admirable first year in which he took Washington to the playoffs while overcoming a mountain of off-field distractions, it was clear his energy was gone. The Commanders were going through the motions by the end of his tenure. They needed a coach who could ignite a fire into the franchise.
Quinn, aided by the key additions of quarterback Jayden Daniels and general manager Adam Peters, helped do exactly that. They awakened a Washington fanbase that had been dormant for decades.
The Quinn effect in D.C. is not dissimilar from what Dan Campbell — another perfectly reasonable NFL Coach of the Year choice — built with the Detroit Lions. He took a downtrodden franchise and restored passion and pride to it.
It often seems forgotten today that coaching isn't just about drawing up plays and making the right adjustments. It's about leadership first and foremost. Quinn is the type of strong and charismatic leader who tangibly makes his team better.
Quinn is not a 'player's coach' in the sense that he takes a backseat in the locker room and lets his pupils run the show. But he knows how to inspire them to give their best effort every time they head into battle.
If there's any moral to the story here, it's that perhaps these awards shouldn't be voted on until after the playoffs.
Even though they're not announced until Super Bowl week, they are considered regular-season awards, which devalues the most important part of the campaign. The fact that Quinn's team made the NFC Championship game while O'Connell's was eliminated on Wild Card weekend should matter in the grand scheme of things.
Nevertheless, awards aren't a big deal. Quinn doesn't need a shiny trophy to validate the job he did during his first season in D.C. and the exciting future ahead.
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