Jim Harbaugh has long been the preferred candidate of choice for Chargers fans after the team fired Brandon Staley. While an interview with Harbaugh has been confirmed for this week, there is no guarantee that the Chargers will be able to convince him to leave Michigan for a second run at the NFL.
For that reason, the Chargers need to come up with backup options at head coach and the team has cast a wide net of interviewees to find the best backup plans. It is clear that the team is not going to rush this decision, much like it did with Staley.
One of the most talked-about coaching options was Dan Quinn. Quinn has led multiple elite Cowboys defensive units and has previous head coaching experience (even making the Super Bowl). Add in the fact that Quinn has ties to Kellen Moore and it seemed like a perfect fit for the Chargers on paper.
Unfortunately, while the lights were the brightest and with his potential future employers watching, Quinn and his side of the ball collapsed. The Dallas Cowboys turned in their worst game of the entire season, losing to the Green Bay Packers 48-32 at home.
Dan Quinn blows his chance to be Chargers head coach
Teams shouldn't solely judge candidates off of one game but there were already reasons to be concerned about the Chargers hiring Quinn. Quinn turning in his worst performance when the lights were the brightest only confirms those concerns and should ultimately lead the Chargers in a different direction.
Forty-one of the Packers' 48 points came on offense with the team eclipsing over 400 yards of offense. If the Packers really wanted to and didn't take their foot off the gas then they probably could have picked up over 500 yards of offense and scored well over 50 points. It was an awful, awful showing for the Dallas defense.
Jordan Love turned in his most impressive game of the year. While he definitely deserves credit, the Cowboys didn't do much to make his day any harder. Aaron Jones was even able to turn back the clock to 2021 and put together his best game in quite some time.
With Quinn building up a resume over the last several years there will naturally be a team (perhaps the Seattle Seahawks) that ignores this one ugly outing and still gives him a chance. But for the Chargers, it should confirm what us pessimistic fans already knew.
Quinn is simply not the guy to be the next head coach of the Chargers. He is a lifetime .500 coach who has been really good as a coordinator but failed to accomplish much without Kyle Shanahan calling his plays.
Quinn had just one defense in the top 10 during his head coaching tenure with the Atlanta Falcons and had multiple in the bottom 10. He has the worst loss in the history of the sport under his belt. These are all massive red flags that some fans simply looked past.
Hopefully, those fans (and the team itself) is seeing those red flags clear as day after Quinn's defense failed to show up in the playoffs.
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