Q&A: Joe Whitt Jr. on the Power of 'DQ,' Frankie Luvu, why these Washington Commanders have 2010 Packers vibes

A special something is building in D.C. Finally. Here's our conversation with Washington's defensive coordinator.

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The Washington Commanders were an atrocity in 2023, finishing with a 4-13 record. Hope was scant. People were fired. The coaching search didn’t exactly start with a bang, either.

The Washington Commanders in 2024? A legitimate NFC contender.

So… how? That’s what we tried to figure out in this week’s Friday Feature at Go Long, a deeper look into the world Dan Quinn created in Year 1. His assistants describe life at Coach Gibbs Drive as more of a football heaven:

Our updated version of the story includes insight from the assistant coach who knows Quinn best: defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. I first got to know Whitt back on the Packers beat at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He was the team’s cornerbacks coach then and played a major role in the ascent of players like Tramon Williams and Sam Shields and the late-career success of Hall-of-Famer Charles Woodson.

Loved catching up with Whitt again on Friday.

Up close, he’s seen what makes these Commanders different.

Here’s our conversation.

Everybody talks about “culture,” right? That’s the buzz word — what the hell does it mean? But it does seem real with “DQ,” and all the way through the staff. You guys have reset in so many unique ways. What is the difference with the Washington Commanders?

Whitt: I’ve got to go all the way back to when I got with DQ in Atlanta. It was right before Covid and I didn’t believe that what I was seeing was real. The thing that people don’t realize about DQ is he is the most caring individual that I know. He truly cares. When he asks you, “How’s your day going,” he truly cares. What makes it work here is he picked guys that were totally bought in to being a culture guy. If everybody is not on board with doing it the way that he wants it done, it doesn’t work totally. The first week we were with the players, we did no football. None. We did all brotherhood, connecting, getting to know each other. And that’s hard when you’re putting in a new offense, a new defense. We’re ready to go and (he says), “Hey guys, no football.” But right now, it’s a reason that we are playing so good together because we got connected with each other. We got to know each other and it put us into a space other teams don’t have. The connection is real. The brotherhood is real. When we say “our time,” our time is real. It’s special together.

You’re not doing installs, you’re not talking X’s and O’s, coaching philosophies. You’re genuinely trying to get to know the players. So what were ways that you were able to do that?

Whitt: Well, Jason Simmons. He was from the Green Bay days. In the secondary, they did what they called “My story.” All the players sent in pictures of themselves and then they put ‘em up there and they told their story and got really emotional. They talked about their parents and how they were brought up and their children. Everybody did it. It took the week to go through everybody. You had as much time as you wanted and you could share as much as you wanted to share and people were vulnerable with it. And now? “He’s just not my teammate. I know what he went through. We went through similar things. I didn’t know you had that in your background.”

There were some emotional moments? You saw the bonds grow in there?

Whitt: Oh yeah, a couple guys had tears shedding. I definitely won’t say who and why, but I’ve never done that before and I will always do it. I will start every year. Especially if I get my opportunity to run a team, “Alright, this is what we’re going to do.” The secondary did it that way but everybody could do it their own way. I would recommend every position do it that way because it really brought a lot out.

And that was in Phase 1?

Whitt: That was Phase 1. That was the first time they got here. That’s what we did. We didn’t do ball for a week, we just did connection.

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Too often, we try to make football a mathematical game, something that you can explain in numbers and metrics and DVOAs, and this and that, but it’s not played on a spreadsheet. To you, how did that period strengthen the foundation for the Commanders?

Whitt: Just like you said, it’s a people’s business and that’s why when we get in rough moments now — if you watch some of our games? The Philly game when we started poorly defensively and then the offense started coming back and then they were turning the ball over and we ran out there and got stops. The offense didn’t point any fingers at the defense. Defense didn’t point any fingers at the offense. Or this last game, we drop a punt. We go out there and put the fire out from a defensive standpoint. There has never been any finger-pointing or anything like that because the bond is tight. And it is real. Everybody is so loose in that building. You wouldn’t even know we had a playoff game coming up. Everybody is just relaxed because we don’t work in a tense environment. Now, we work in a highly competitive environment. It’s one of the most competitive environments that you’re going to be around. But we got dog-ass competitors, so that’s how they want to live. But when it comes to stressing or worrying about messing up, we don’t live that way. We can cut it loose because we know our brother has our back and that’s why they play the way that they play. They cut it loose.

You’ve been all over at this point: Atlanta, Green Bay, Cleveland, Atlanta again, Dallas. You probably have seen the inverse of this. There’s got to be times where players are tight out there.

Whitt: 100 percent. The year we won the Super Bowl and it was a different deal, but those guys truly liked each other. And then the next year we went 15-1, the locker room didn’t like each other. Everybody wanted to be on TV and wanted to do this, that. We won games. But once we got into the playoffs and we played the Giants and it got hard, there was a different feel the year before where they truly liked each other. This team here truly likes each other — both sides of the ball. It’s a real connection. It is very rare that you go into the cafeteria and you’ll see a center talking to a corner or sitting together. That doesn’t happen. But it happens here. All the time. Things that you normally don’t see, it’s just normal here.

Defensively, what do you like about your group. When this thing’s firing, what can make this group special?

Whitt: It starts with a guy like Frankie Luvu. When you talk about who to build a culture around? He’s all about brotherhood. And then the way that he plays, he lays it all on the line for his brothers. We might not do things perfectly, but we run and hit and we play hard together. We do that. If we give up a play, you don’t see anybody dropping their heads. You don’t see anybody pointing fingers. You don’t see the defensive line looking back at the secondary like, “What are y’all doing?” Everybody plays together. And that’s what I’m most proud of with this unit. We run. We play hard. We hit. We’re a good tackling team. We’re a good tackling team because we’re connected to each other and you’ll see. We’ll start getting the ball here in the future. We haven’t really got it this year, but that’s coming.

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I feel like Frankie is one of those players we don’t talk enough about. He’s a wild man. You’ve been around this game a long time. Him specifically, how is he different? How can he change a game?

Whitt: Because you can put him anywhere. We use him a lot like we used Micah Parsons in Dallas. We put him on the end of the line, we rush him. We rush him with four-man. We rush him with five-man. We put him over the center or run pick games with him. We’ll drop him in coverage. He has so much versatility that he is a problem. They have to know where he is or he can wreck a game. And then paired up with Bobby (Wagner), Bobby is the ultimate pro. Very quiet it comes to off the field. But he studies and those two guys working together, that’s why they both made second team All Pro today. They’re just a really good tandem. They work really well together.

I remember when you guys signed Bobby thinking, “What in the hell does he have left at this point?” He’s played forever.

Whitt: A lot. He has a lot left. I remember when everybody came in, we were doing a pursuit drill. And so I went to Bobby. Because to your point, I was like, OK, he’s an older guy. I said, “Hey Bobby, you don’t have to do this pursuit drill.” And he looked at me like I was crazy. Not only did he do the pursuit drill, he was in front of everybody. And so I pulled it up when we went back for meetings. I said, “Look at this guy here. He’s out in front of everybody running through the line, diving through the line. And he doesn’t have to.” But that’s who he is. He has it in his tank. He’s given everything he has on every play, man. He’s one of the most unselfish superstars I’ve ever been around.

Really?

Whitt: Yes. Oh Lord. Yes.

And what are ways you see that unselfishness out of a superstar?

Whitt: Well, he brings the rookies in. Because he studies like a coach. So on Tuesdays when we’re in there game-planning, he’s in there, too. He’s in the linebacker room. The young linebackers asked him, “Hey, can we come in with you?” And so now he almost does a study hall of how he watches film, how he does everything with the young linebackers. A lot of veterans don’t do that. They don’t take that time out to do that. And then what happened? All the linebackers on Tuesday come in for at least a couple hours. I walk into the defense last Saturday. I was going to DQ’s office and I look in defensive meeting room and the whole defense is in there. He’s up there running the film. Didn’t tell anybody. He called a meeting and they were in there doing it — on their own. That’s what he does.

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And then when you go through hard times — a three-game losing streak — those bonds are strong. You’re not going to have guys coming up with the phantom injuries and scheduling vacations or tuning out coaches. You guys were able to roll with it at that point. Is that what you saw up close yourself?

Whitt: There was no panic. We knew, “OK, this is what we did wrong, this is how we can improve it.” But there wasn’t anybody pointing fingers and there wasn’t anybody like, “We can’t get ourselves out of it.” I’ve been in those three- or four-game skids before and everybody’s pointing fingers. There wasn’t any of that here: “Alright, hey let’s get to the next game. Every game can be won. This is the path that we’re going to use to win the next game.” And now, we won five in a row.

And you also had that credo that the players kind of authored themselves all the time. How important is that?

Whitt: When it’s their words, they’re going to live it. We could have written something but it wouldn’t have been authentically them. And again, when Q gives meeting time for those guys to get together and write that out — nobody does that. Nobody gives up football meeting time to allow these guys to come up with the creed. And I keep saying “Our time.” If I say “Our Time” to players, they’re going to say “Our Time” back. And that’s one of our things that we do because when we get in tough situations, it’s our time. That’s how we live. It’s our time to get into a winning moment. So I just thought it was awesome that Q gave those guys the space to create that. And then whenever something happens, you can call your teammate. If they’re not holding up to the standard? “Hey, this is what we said we’re going to do.” You can always reference back to our creed because this is what we said we were going to do. And you signed your name to it. Once you sign your name to it, that’s all you have.

With a young team, young quarterback, you can get caught up in, “What does the future look like?” But how good is this team right now? How confident are you that these Commanders — this season — can make noise?

Whitt: I’m very confident. And we’ve never looked past the next game. That’s what’s been so awesome about this team is that it’s always been “the next game, the next game.” And we don’t listen to the outside noise. So when we won those four games in a row, and everybody was telling us how good we were, we didn’t care about it. The same as when we lost those three games in a row and they said we were a fluke. We don’t listen to the outside noise. We make our own noise and we just go. We’re not far away. It reminds me of the ‘10 team (in Green Bay) because you’ve got to remember. That ‘10 team, we had to win the last two games to get into the playoffs and then we got hot. After losing to the Patriots and Detroit in back-to-back losses. We were the six seed. Nobody really expected much from that team. Nobody expects much from us. So all we got to do is stick together and be us and take one game at a time. That’s it. Don’t worry about the next game and enjoy the process of winning. That’s one thing Magic Johnson talked to the whole team about. It wasn’t about the process. It was about enjoying the process of winning. Not just “the process.” Winning. And that’s the first time I’ve heard that and he’s one of the ultimate winners of all time.

How do you enjoy the “process of winning?”

Whitt: I think back to when we won the Super Bowl, I didn’t enjoy 2010 because I didn’t give myself time to look back. All I did was work so hard. We have fun together. We work hard now — don’t get it twisted. We work extremely hard. But DQ builds in times and pockets where “Alright, we have to have some levity.” Because we do work so hard. We do. And it’s just fun to go to work every day. It’s a fun, competitive environment and we get after each other’s tail. But it’s the hard process of winning.

Is there a DQ story that folks should know that helps explain why this coach is special?

Whitt: When I got the job in Atlanta, DQ already understood how my kids moved from Green Bay to Cleveland, Cleveland to Atlanta, and it was going to be another move. He knew how hard it was going to be for them. He handwrote them letters — all three of them. How important I was to him to get me on his staff and how he was going to make it work for them. Now, it didn’t work out for us in Atlanta, but it worked out for us in Dallas and it’s definitely working out for us right now being connected with him. My kids love DQ. They still have the letters to this day.

That’s phenomenal. Around the NFL, you hear horror stories from a lot of different coaches that is the exact opposite of that. It’s “You can’t leave this OTA to go to your daughter’s college graduation because we’ve got this practice.” It can go that other direction.

Whitt: I can tell you this guy here, when we got to Atlanta, he made me go to my son’s football game. Actually in Dallas, he would come to the games, too. He’s so recognizable, I’d say, “Man, don’t worry about coming.” He said, “No, I’m coming to support JoJo.” I mean, he makes you go to your kids’ events: “Hey we got a big staff, we’ll cover you. Don’t miss this. Don’t miss the first game. Don’t miss the ballet. Don’t miss that.” He is passionate. During the season! Not just the offseason. During the season, “We got you covered. Don’t miss it.”

He really cares, man. I never met one person that has a negative word to say about Dan Quinn. And if I met somebody that did have a negative word? I would look at them sideways. Because I know what the man really stands for.