Scheme Wars: Cowboys DC Dan Quinn, 49ers HC Kyle Shanahan set to battle for NFC bragging rights once again

FRISCO, Texas —  Hop in a time machine and wind the clock back seven years to the 2016 NFL season. The Atlanta Falcons soared to an 11-5 record and an NFC title as quarterback Matt Ryan piloted the NFL’s highest-scoring offense (33.8 points per game). Ryan posted the greatest season of his 15-year career, leading the NFL in yards per pass attempt (9.3) and passer rating (117.1) in offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan’s offense, who was a part of head coach Dan Quinn’s coaching staff in the 2015 and 2016 seasons. After that season, Shanahan got his head-coaching shot after being hired by the 49ers. Quinn joined head coach Mike McCarthy’s Dallas Cowboys staff as the defensive coordinator in 2021 after being fired six seasons into his Falcons tenure that included a 43-42 record, two playoff appearances and a 34-28 overtime defeat in Super Bowl LI against the New England Patriots. 

In Week 5 this season, the two enter their third high-stakes matchup in the last 18 months, each as play-callers for high-powered units, as the Dallas Cowboys (3-1) travel back to the Bay Area to face the San Francisco 49ers (4-0) on “Sunday Night Football.”

“They have a big line, two strong backs, so we thought that was one of the ways they [the Patriots] would attack for sure,” Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn said Monday. “That has been the formula for San Francisco, you can see the effectiveness of their [4-0] start just in the run game, scoring and finishing. [Running back Christian] McCaffrey is at the top of that list for sure. We have a lot of work cut out for us for sure. Still getting into the planning, but it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

The Cowboys’ last two seasons, both of which were 12-win campaigns, came to an end against Shanahan’s 49ers come playoff time. First, there was the 23-17 defeat in the 2021 NFC wild-card round at AT&T Stadium. Last season, it was a 19-12 slip-up in Santa Clara, California at Levi’s Stadium in the 2022 divisional round. Those are the only matchups Quinn has had with Shanahan since coming to Dallas. The 49ers haven’t been an easy mountain to climb under Shanahan as the team has reached as far as the NFC Conference Championship Game in three of the last four season, including a Super Bowl LIV appearance to conclude the 2019 season. They came up just short against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs that night, falling 31-20 after taking a 20-10 into the fourth quarter of that game. 

“Absolutely,” Quinn said when asked if he knew his former OC was going to be a good head coach. “He is really squared away. Kyle can coach any position on the offense. He could be an offensive line coach, a quarterback coach, tight ends. He is that equipped. I thought that was one of his rare things from a coordinator standpoint that he had such good detail in every area, especially in the run game. Often times an offensive coordinator may have gotten their acumen on the way up being a quarterback person or someone who had great strength in the passing game. One of Kyle’s superpowers was he had every job on the way up, so he knew the run game. That is a real advantage for him and why their run game is so strong. He is at the front and center of it. That is one of my biggest compliments for him and that carries over into the head-coaching spot for him.” 

Shanahan’s 49ers have had a top 10 scoring and total offense in three of the last five seasons including 2023 in which they have the number three scoring offense (31.3 points per game)  and number two total offense (398 total yards per game). Pro Bowl running back Christian McCaffrey is the engine that powers the 49ers offense as he has become only the third player in NFL history with 600 or more scrimmage yards (600, leads the NFL this season) and seven or more scrimmage touchdowns (seven, tied for the most in the NFL this season) through his team’s first four games to start a season. He is now the third member of that club along with Pro Football Hall of Famers Jim Brown (1958 and 1963) and Emmitt Smith. Smith took home the MVP in that 1993 season while Brown claimed the award in his first such season with that hot start back in 1958. 

“I think Christian is the most versatile back in the NFL when it comes to how the 49ers use him,” Dallas Cowboys All-Pro linebacker Micah Parsons said Wednesday. “You can almost say he’s a running back that plays receiver, you can say he’s a receiver that plays running back. The way he gets open the way, you can’t just put anybody on him. Sometimes you might want to put a DB on him with just how good he is with his routes and things like that. How dynamic he is and then the way he’s able to make people miss, there’s nobody better in the NFL. You look at what he does and how explosive he is. It’s something we have to be watchful of.”

However, Dallas did limit McCaffrey to 35 rushing yards, including one rushing touchdowns from two yards out, on 10 carries in their most recent postseason meeting. The key for the Cowboys defense: live in the backfield. 

“The main purpose is to live in the backfield,” Cowboys defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence said Thursday. “If you live in the backfield, you keep him going sideline-to-sideline instead of cutting up [field] on inside zones and stuff, I feel like we can have a pretty good day. We can’t sit around on blocks and wait for him to make his move or get upfield. Meet him in the backfield.”

Quinn has kept a close eye on how Shanahan’s run game has evolved schematically over the years as he works to figure out how McCaffrey may be utilized on Sunday. He initially ran an offense very similar to his father Mike’s, a two-time Super Bowl champion head coach with the Denver Broncos, but the junior Shanahan has now branched off to his own variation of the under-center, zone scheme offense his father pioneered that has now proliferated across the league today. 

“Early on [in Shanhan’s head-coaching tenure with the 49ers, there was some things that were probably like we were in Atlanta,” Quinn said. “Wide zone [runs] and keepers [play-action passes] off of that. Now, it’s a gap scheme with a lot of pullers, which his dad didn’t do, and they [the Broncos] had a tremendous offensive line coach at the time in Alex Gibbs. You couldn’t get him [Gibbs] to pull a lot, that wasn’t part of his process… In any system, whether you are a gap scheme or zone scheme, you better be excellent at those things. Then, you have the play[-action] passes go off of that. When you make your passes not look like your run game, they really aren’t that effective. One of the things Kyle and his father certainly had were the run looked like the keeper [play-action pass] coming out…When you can marry a run look with a pass protection look, that’s something. That’s where you get the advantages. As a linebacker, do I run downhill and take this on and then they rip one behind me? Or, do I stay back and they’re trying to run the ball. When you can make those too married together, the run looks and the play-passes, that’s when I think you can really get humming. If you’re just one or the other, you can scheme through that: this is an all-passing team and deploy everyone back. Or this is an all-running team and you put everybody down [at the line of scrimmage]. When you have the ability to do both, that’s what makes an offense special.”

Another critical component of Shanahan’s scheme is motion as nearly 70% of their plays incorporate pre-snap movement, 69.7%, the third-highest rate in the NFL trailing only one of his pupils, Mike McDaniel’s Miami Dolphins (74.9%), and future Hall of Famer Andy Reid’s Kansas City Chiefs. Communication will be paramount for Quinn’s defense in order to limit explosive plays, plays of 25 or more yards. The 49ers have 10 such plays this season, tied for the eighth-most in the NFL entering Week 5.

“It’s a challenge when you have guys that aren’t communicating,” Cowboys safety Jayron Kearse said of defending against motion-heavy offenses. “When you talk ahead of the snap and the guy next to you knows what you’re thinking and what you’re seeing, that makes everything very easy. We just have to have clean communication pre-snap and post-snap with movement and things like that. We have to have good communication in that aspect, and then I think that will take care of itself. You’re playing in sand when you’re not talking. You’re seeing things and the other guys might be seeing it differently. When you’re talking to the guys next you and your buddy understands you give him a tip on this guy that might be in motion and this guy might be swinging or whatever the case may be. It allows you to play ahead of the snap.”

Having a player like Micah Parsons also helps the Cowboys play ahead of the snap. The 24-year-old’s 25.7% quarterback pressure rate is the highest in the NFL among 109 players with 75 or more pass rushes this season. He also co-leads the NFL in quarterback pressures with 27 alongside the Raiders‘ Maxx Crosby and the Detroit Lions‘ Aidan Hutchinson following his explosion against the Patriots on Sunday in which he recorded 10 quarterback pressures despite not having a sack. That is tied for the most in a game this season along with Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Trey Hendrickson’s 10 against the Los Angeles Rams on “Monday Night Football” in Week 3. 

“He impacts the game even when it doesn’t show on the statsheet,” Kearse said. “He impacts the game a lot, and that’s good. He has been impacting the game at a high level. He’s one of those guys that draws attention from a lot of people whenever he is on the field. He is just being who he is and he is ready for this matchup. I could tell after the [Patriots] game, it’s the first he said ‘we know who we got this week.’ He has been ready for it, so I know it’s going to be a huge one for him.”

The attention Parsons attracts can open other opportunities up for the rest of the Dallas’ top-ranked ranked scoring defense (10.3 points per game allowed. As evidenced from their 38-3 beatdown against the New England Patriots in Week 4, Parsons is a magnet for opposing offenses. 

“When a team tries to isolate you and tries to make an example saying ‘you won’t ruin the game’, it leaves guys to eat and do what they do, and it’s important they’re going to get paid and they’re gonna get theirs,” Parsons said. “That’s always important because it makes other teams play them.”

The Cowboys also lead the league in quarterback pressure rate (55.6%, no other team is above 45%) and passer rating allowed (55.2, no other team has a rating allowed under 65) as others besides Parsons also eat. They rank second in the league in total yards per game allowed (259.8), passing yards per game allowed (148.0) and rank tied for second in takeaways (10).   

Shanahan was equally complimentary of his former boss’ defense on Wednesday ahead of another critical reunion.

“It’s a huge challenge, Dan is as good as it gets,” Shanahan said Wednesday, via The Athletic. “His schemes are always tough. He makes adjustments well, but the one thing that’s always  the same is how his guys play. Those 11 guys play with their hair on fire. They generate a lot of chaos, especially up front, and that’s usually what leads to them getting all their turnovers.”

The 2023 49ers only have one giveaway this season, tied for the fewest in the league through the first month of the season. The Cowboys defense has forced 10 turnovers this season, tied for the second most in the NFL. Dallas’ current defense joined the “Iron Curtain” Pittsburgh Steelers (1972-1974) as the only defense since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger to lead the NFL in takeaways in consecutive seasons (2021-2022), and they certainly looked like it on Sunday, forcing three more turnovers against the New England Patriots in a 38-3 victory. Quinn said forcing a turnover on Sunday would be “a turning point” in the game. San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy hasn’t thrown an interception in 219 passes dating back to last season, including the playoffs, and McCaffrey hasn’t lost a fumble since Week 1 of the 2018 season, against the Cowboys,  when he was still with the Carolina Panthers. Of the two, Dallas sees more of an opportunity to shake Purdy, who has only nine regular season starts, even though he leads the NFL in regular season touchdown-to-interception ratio (16-2) and regular season passer rating (117.1) since his first career start in Week 14 last season. 

“Something has to give, especially with Purdy,” Parsons said. “I don’t think he’s played perfect, I think he’s played really good, and I think there are opportunities there. People just haven’t capitalized on it. He’s been really terrific through the past two years, and he’s definitely solidified himself as one of them guys you have to watch, one of the top 15 quarterbacks and things like that.”

To Parsons’ point, Purdy was a different player last postseason when Parsons and the Dallas pass rush got into his grill.

Brock Purdy vs. Cowboys in 2022 postseason

Ultimately, neither Quinn nor Shanahan believe their time spent together in Atlanta gives them an upper-hand comes Sunday. That will have to be determined in between the lines. 

“No, I don’t think so,” Quinn said. “I wish it did. Hell, I would use that if I had that [knowledge] as a superpower. It’s always a good matchup. I have faced Kyle a couple of times, and he is just one of the very best there is. Not just from a game plan, but calling the game. That’s just as important because you go into a game thinking it’s going to be one way, but then you have to be able to adjust, move and go. That’s what makes him strong and unique. He may start one way, but if  that ain’t working, he’s going to go attack another way. That’s the mark of a good play caller. The first part is what you thought and then you have to adjust  and do it. He is fully equipped to do that.”

“A little bit,” Shanahan said when asked if it’s tough to face Quinn because of their shared history. “It’s different when you’re in the division, at least it’s not twice a year, unless you meet in the playoffs. I think Dan, and I got to go against each other twice here in Dallas, and it’s always a huge challenge.”