Meet Coach Joe Whitt Jr.: 'The Ball Is Life' for 'Violent' Commanders Defense
During his four years as a top assistant with the Dallas Cowboys, Joe Whitt Jr. developed a reputation for being thoughtful but soft-spoken. And it made sense; he was working under Dan Quinn, who was working under Mike McCarthy, and all of them were working under owner Jerry Jones ...
And when Jerry is in the room, we know where the cameras and the microphones point.
But on Thursday, Whitt - the new Washington Commanders defensive coordinator - got to take centerstage ... and his highly-quotable press conference was a work of art ... thoughtful, still ...
But hardly "soft-spoken."
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Whitt hit the rightest of notes by revealing that the late "Sean Taylor is my favorite player." He answered a question about his readiness at age 45 to be a coordinator, a first for him, with a bold retort.
"I've been coaching in this league for 18 years," he said. "I've been ready."
He put a framework on the style of play he and Quinn will demand from their Commanders players, saying, "The way that we live is not for everybody ... We're going to run and put our bodies on people in a violent manner."
He spoke of his devotion to the things that matter to him.
"It's my family, my faith and my football," he said. "I'm a simple guy."
Sure, but just how important is that third one?
"We want the ball," he said when asked about generating takeaways, something that the Quinn/Whitt defense in Dallas did as well as any group in recent years in the NFL. "The ball is life. The ball is air."
The transition from "being a Cowboy" to "being a Commander" might be a difficult one in the eyes of fans; indeed, while Whitt's favorite player is Taylor, he will also tell you that his lifelong dream was to be associated with "The Star."
So, simply, now both of those dreamy connections are being realized. ... in a thoughtful way, and in a way that will evidence itself verbally in two distinct manners.
"I'm not really a rah-rah guy on game day," he said. "If you're doing a lot of yelling on game day, (it means) you haven't done your job during the week. Now at practice? That's different."
The Commanders need something "different." And now, taking the stage, Joe Whitt Jr. gets a first-time chance to prove that he's a difference-maker.
