Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — It won't be a surprise if Utah Jazz head coach Will Hardy has a keen eye on Sunday's NFC championship game.
Sure, part of that is due to where he's from — the Richmond, Virginia, native's phone has been "blowing up" due to friends being excited about the Washington Commanders' run through the playoffs.
But that seems secondary at this point. The primary reason? A friendship with Washington coach Dan Quinn.
"I've actually gotten to know Dan Quinn over the last year, went and spent time with them this summer, around him and their staff," Hardy said. "He's one of the coolest leaders I've been around in coaching. I've learned a lot from him."
That leadership style's clearly been working.
Quinn has brought about a remarkable turnaround in Washington. The Commanders won just four games a season ago, leading to a massive overhaul within the organization. After hiring Quinn (and drafting Jayden Daniels), Washington is now a victory away from the Super Bowl.
So what makes Quinn unique?
"He clearly has the respect of the room, but he does it in a way where he seems very approachable and has very authentic relationships with his players and his staff," Hardy said. "It's not the authoritarian style of coaching that maybe we saw 20 years ago."
Hardy pointed out Quinn's ability to raise the energy of a group — be it in a meeting, film session or practice — and said that's something he is striving to master with his own team.
"I, obviously, have to do it in my own voice, but watching how he elevates the level of energy in the room was really, really inspiring," he said.
Hardy, though, does seem to have a knack for doing that, too.
Utah's mantra of "show love" may sound a bit inane, but his players have latched on to it. Collin Sexton credited the culture built around the saying for why the Jazz have been able to stay engaged even during a rebuilding season.
"Coach will just always say, show love — show love to your teammate, pick them up when they're down," Sexton said. "Don't always scream and yell at them when sometimes you need to just go over there and give them a pat on the back, give them a hug and let them know like we're with them. And I feel like that right there just shows a big part of where we are as a team, and it just also shows that no matter the record, we're going to come in and fight each and every each and every game."
Maybe a high-level talent at the top of the draft — ala Daniels — can change Utah's fortune quickly, too. And maybe picking the brains of coaches in other sports can help Hardy the same way it did Quinn.
After being fired from the Atlanta Falcons during the 2020 season, Quinn went to work reshaping his coaching strategy. As part of that, he turned to basketball.
He was inspired by how the sport was developing more and more positionless players. According to ESPN, Quinn went as far as to ask former Milwaukee Bucks assistant Sean Sweeney how they developed two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The answer: "We just have him also work with the guards."
So when he was the Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator, he had linebacker Micah Parson also work with the defensive ends.
"Basketball has done a really good job of development," he told ESPN. "I tried to find ways, how could we apply some of the good development that they're doing in another sport? The fact that they had done it better, I wanted to find out what could we do differently?"
Hardy had the same mindset when he went and visited the Commanders this summer. He said it was fun to bounce ideas off the football coaches — especially since neither side had anything to lose.
"I''ve found that sometimes when you do that within your own sport, there's always a little bit of guarding, because maybe one day you'd be competitors," Hardy said. "I don't think DQ and I will ever coach a game against each other. So it's cool because you can both just let the guard down totally and share very openly."
