Falcons coach Dan Quinn, who has been thoroughly preparing for his first draft as a head coach, keeps leaning on a message that was passed along early in his career from the great Bill Walsh.
“I can remember vividly, my first year in San Francisco and coach Walsh talking (about) how can this player play on our team,” Quinn reflected Thursday. “Would he play on third down? Would he be a short-yardage fullback?”
Quinn was a young quality-control coach in 2001 while Walsh was retired from coaching and serving as the vice president and general manager of the 49ers. Quinn went about his coaching career before rising to become Seattle’s defensive coordinator in 2013. He started hearing Walsh’s message again. But this time from Seattle coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider, a Ron Wolf disciple from the Green Bay regime.
“I didn’t always remember that message as loud and clear, but then I got reconnected with the same philosophy with Pete; it was hammered back home again,” Quinn said.
Working closely with general manager Thomas Dimitroff and assistant general manager Scott Pioli, Quinn plans to put those teachings to the test during this year’s NFL draft, which is set for Thursday through Saturday.
“One of the main things, I learned it early on in my career, even way back at San Francisco, but maybe it got accentuated again during my time with Pete and John, was trying to find the qualities of what a player can do and how he can be featured on your team,” Quinn said.
Sometimes things just don’t pan out in the draft. The Falcons selected Arkansas defensive Jamaal Anderson with the eighth pick in the 2007 draft. Quinn was with Seattle when they used the fourth pick on linebacker Aaron Curry in 2009. Curry started 39 or 48 games, but was out of the league in four years.
Quinn was a holdover when Schneider and Carroll took over in 2010. They hit with the 14th pick in 2010, Texas safety Earl Thomas. They also added cornerback Walter Thurmond in the fourth round and safety Kam Chancellor in the fifth.
Quinn left for Florida and wasn’t around in 2011, when the Seahawks hit it big by selecting Richard Sherman in the fifth round, nor in 2012, when they picked quarterback Russell Wilson in the third round.
The Falcons hope Quinn brought some of that mid-round magic with him.
“The great thing about Dan’s scheme, in my mind, and we’ve seen it in Seattle, they were able to play with a lot of players,” Dimitroff said. “You didn’t just have to go after guys in the first and second rounds. They were great about making sure that they looked at all of the talent.”
Quinn has enjoyed the scouting, tweeting while on college visits to Florida, Missouri, Washington and UCLA.
“It’s been awesome,” Quinn said. “The fact that we got a chance to visit more prospects from a bigger area and connecting with those guys all over has been great.”
The Falcons heavily scouted Missouri outside linebacker Shane Ray, the reigning SEC defensive player of the year. He worked out for them, but there is a concern over a foot injury.
“We are in the process of looking at all of the players that we have on our board of interest,” Dimitroff said. “We deal with not only our own medical people, but the medical people at the respective schools. In our opinion right now, a guy like Shane and guys like other people who have issues like that, it’s our belief that they will be ready to play at the beginning of the season.”
If the Falcons believed a player couldn’t play until the middle of the season, that would be a legitimate concern and could affect how high a player might be drafted, Dimitroff said.
Quinn enjoyed Ray’s workout.
“I thought he looked terrific,” he said. “If you followed us at all on social media this spring, there have been some trips that we’ve had and it was just a way for us to connect with fans and the media, to leave some bread crumbs of where we have been. We’ve had some great workouts, but it always comes back to the tape.”
Quinn is a defensive line coach by trade, so scouting the offensive players was new to him.
“I tried to gain and learn as much as I could this offseason,” Quinn said. “I’ve had an absolutely awesome process going through this from the combine, through the workouts and now leading up to this work. I can’t wait to see which guys we can potentially add to our team and see how uniquely qualified that they are to fit in a specific role.”
While the Falcons are expected add a passer, running back and wide receiver in the draft, Walsh taught Quinn not to look for a savior.
“Dan and his approach is what is going to turn this football team around,” Dimitroff said. “Is it important that we acquire someone with the eighth overall pick or earlier? It’s very important that that guy is a legitimate contributor to this football team now.”
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