Practice notebook | Quinn prepares for difficult conversations on roster cut day
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Next Tuesday is not going to be a happy occasion for about half of the players on the Washington Commanders’ current roster. It’s going to be a day full of hard conversations for head coach Dan Quinn.
TheWashington Commanders will cut their roster down from 90 players to 53 on Tuesday. It will be the most difficult task Quinn and general manager Adam Peters will face since their arrival earlier this year, and while it does mean that the regular season is just around the corner, it also involves having to decide which players to keep and which to release.
Quinn knows that he won’t be delivering much good news to players on Tuesday, but that doesn’t mean the conversation can’t be constructive.
“What you do also want to do is give the player feedback,” Quinn said. “If you come back here, these are some of the things we would like to see moving forward. If the player’s not coming back here, at least give them some things that if they get another [opportunity] somewhere else, these are some things I think could really help you to move forward.”
There are still “quite a few” but “less than 10” roster spots on the back end of the roster still up for grabs, Quinn said. Part of why he loves the final week of training camp and the final preseason game is that several players are still competing for those jobs. Quarterback Jayden Daniels and likely most of the Commanders’ starters will not play Sunday, meaning that those players will get plenty of snaps to prove themselves.
Quinn wants to let the competition play itself out naturally, but he has tried to give his players the best advice possible for them to success. For starters, he’s told them that he doesn’t want to see them play anxious on Sunday, because that will not lead to them playing their best.
And the players who are still competing for those spots have been given clear instructions on what they must do to stand out.
“We’ve had plenty of those conversations to individual players,” Quinn said. “This is what we would like to see in this game, and we’re gonna give you some calls and…plays to go do that.”
Still, difficult decisions loom for Quinn and Peters, even if players do their jobs on Sunday. Washington’s roster, most of which consists of new players, is a mix of youth and experience. So, how does Quinn decide between a player who has an established resume and one who doesn’t but could develop into something more if given the opportunity.
Those are the calls that Quinn wrestles with most often.
“That is absolutely where the art of this is,” Quinn said. “There’s like a razor-thin line to stand on … It’s always a hard conversation for either ball player, whether it’s a veteran or the rookie, but at the end of it, we’ll always decide on the competitive nature of it, what we’ve seen and make the decision from there.”
Quinn and Peters have already had some of those conversations over the past two weeks, as they’ve had to either trade or release players in favor of signing others who could add more competition to certain spots. Quinn said he felt disappointment from players when he told them about the team’s decision, not just because they will need to find more opportunities, but also because they were excited to be part of what Washington is building this season.
“There’s something here; they can feel it,” Quinn said. “They wanted to express that to us, and so when you miss that [opportunity], you can just feel their tension leaving the room, not missing a moment or missing an opportunity. Sometimes, somebody can get wrapped up in that. That’s my job to help them [realize] it’s normal, man. You want it badly. Of course you do. You love it, but you’re not gonna be at your best that tight.”
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