Dan Quinn’s a rule breaker. He’s an NFL head coach — a man with bald head and a graying goatee — and he wears his hat backward.
If you haven’t noticed, NFL head coaches, at least in public, typically follow Colin Cowherd’s strict bylaws for hat wearing. The league has skewed younger at the top, but I can’t envision Sean McVay patrolling the Los Angeles Rams practice fields wearing his hat backwards without looking like a ‘bro who lost his way to the beach. And heaven forbid if veteran head coach Sean Payton flipped his to the back. We’d have to burn all ball caps forever to avoid another such fashion catastrophe.
Somehow, though, Quinn can pull it off. His signature look is a hat turned backward and a pair of Jordans. It’s the uniform of a middle-aged man who landed on his individual style years ago, but chose wisely because it’s trendy again. He may be a coach who possesses high standards, yet his aesthetic shows a flexibility in appreciating personal expression.
This was noticeable in Dallas, when cameras showed Quinn and his backward hat coordinating the Cowboys’ defense from the press box. And it’s noticeable now, as Quinn, the man in charge of the Commanders, helps remake the culture while wearing his black “W” hat turned to the back.
“That’s his swag, man,” special teamer Jeremy Reaves said.
“Yeah, I love it,” offensive lineman Sam Cosmi said about Quinn’s flipped lid.
“Look at him talking over there and tell me that’s not a vibe?” punter Tress Way said, nodding toward the field where Quinn was looking like a boss. “And you see the way he bounces around practice. I challenge you to tell me he is not a vibe.”
I traveled to the Washington Commanders’ mandatory minicamp for something more important than checking out coordinator Kliff Kingsbury’s new offense, or finding out who got the most first-string reps in the secondary. Oh wow, rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels was throwing some absolute darts to his receivers … in shorts. Who cares. Wake me when it’s September.
Instead, I visited camp to learn the psychology behind the backwards hat. Like, what compels a man to turn his headwear away from his face? Could it be his way of hiding unkempt hair? Or is it a rebellion against norms that bind men of a certain age to a rigid standard of adult fashion?
Or, could it be he just looks cool?
“She likes it when I have my hat backwards, she prefers it for my hat to be backwards,” Cosmi said of his wife. “She just likes it way better. It’s her preference.”
And now a bit of breaking news that should make Mrs. Cosmi rejoice: Washington players are allowed to have swag again.
Last season, Eric Bieniemy came to town to run the offense. And he brought with him a new title that gave him power — and some asinine rules that made no sense. Including a rule about hats. And how grown men should wear them.
“Last year, I was not allowed to wear my hat backwards [in the building]. So that’s a little fun fact there,” Cosmi said, revealing the shocking secret. “That was something that we as players, offensive side, we weren’t allowed to wear our hat backwards.”
Lids to the front, lads! No offense of mine will dare locate Terry McLaurin down the field, nor betray the sanctity of caps by turning them backward!
If you’re thinking that even the pastor from “Footloose” would say that’s a bit too legalistic, you’d be right. We all know the easiest way to show you’re cool is by turning your hat backwards. Don’t debate me on this. When my editor Dan Steinberg flops his canvas ball cap over his shiny dome, bill to the front, he looks like a father of three ready to tackle the yard work. But when Editor Dan flips his hat to the back, even he looks youthful and hip. Defiant and enigmatic. He’s a guy who might roll the minivan straight through that yellow light.
And Football Dan? When Quinn wears his hat like a basic 53-year-old man, he looks — well, like a basic 53-year-old man. When Quinn wears his hat his way, however, then he looks like a man being his authentic self, a man who doesn’t care what anyone else thinks.
Besides backwards hats, he’s also big on slogans. After the change at the top — first, with new general manager Adam Peters, followed by Quinn’s hiring to replace Ron Rivera — the walls in the building began to look different. “Anybody. Anywhere. Anytime.” are the words that adorn one side of the Commanders’ meeting room. Quotes attributed to no one decorate the other side: “Sit with Warriors, the Conversation is Different” and “The Only Fight that Matters is The One We are in.”
One day during minicamp, Quinn wore a black Commanders shirt with the saying: “Doing Hard S#%& With Good People” — his knockout quote from his introductory news conference. Some team staffers wore shirts with the slogan, “Ball Is Life.”
“You should have your own reason as to why, what pushes you come out here every day and play 100 percent. Nobody should have to tell you. You shouldn’t have to see stuff on the wall. But at the same time, subconsciously though, all of those things are seen,” Reaves said. “You might not directly look at it but you see it every day. You might not acknowledge that you’re picking up on it, but you actually are. Your mind is processing that every day. Those are the things you think about sometimes when those reps get hard and it’s hot and you’re tired. ‘Doing hard stuff with [good] people,’ right. That’s the mantra you’ve got to live [by] in this game because this game is hard.”
These are more than meathead mantras. They’re Quinn’s intentional way of communicating an expectation, and an identity. Quinn wanted to inform players how business will be conducted. Before any system or scheme could be put in place, the standard came first.
“Some of the things that you see about the ball, a mind-set, some of those bumper stickers are easy ways to communicate and talk in a language that is important for everybody to know,” Quinn told me. “It doesn’t all have to be coachspeak of: ‘Using the best fundamentals.’”
While saying that last part, Quinn changed his voice, imitating someone who sounds taut and stuck in his ways. Quinn is definitely not that. The coach with the backwards hat and the Js will let an f-bomb or two fly when correcting a player. And yet he’s the same man who will high five and chum it up with assistant defensive line coach Sharrif Floyd’s young son after practice. (By the way, Floyd didn’t wear his hat to the back; his dreadlocks hang down low. But on the practice field, special teams coordinator Larry Izzo, who turns 50 by the end of this summer, turned his hat backward.)
“I respect people’s individuality and things that mean something to them,” Quinn said. “So whether it’s a hairstyle or no facial hair — like, all the rules that we’ve all heard throughout our life, I don’t necessarily see it that way. I like that people are unique and different.
“I don’t want everybody to wear their hat like me. They don’t have to,” Quinn continued. “Part of what makes being in a locker room fun [is] different tastes, music or cars, or whatever they like. If it’s all the same, it’s not as fun. I embrace [that] people are unique and they have special ways that they do things. To me, that’s okay, as long as it’s in the team.”
Quinn wasn’t aware of last year’s hat mandate, which probably didn’t help Bieniemy’s relationship with players. There’s nothing about Quinn’s preferred style that will magically help his team win 10 games. Still, if players wearing their hats to the back gives them space for more authenticity mixed in with a little more individuality, then at least the Commanders might be more comfortable this season.
Quinn’s a vibe, as Tress Way put it, and so could be the Commanders. So all those rules about…
