Dan Quinn showed up to the 2024 NFL combine with multiple objectives – to evaluate that draft class’ prospects but also to recruit. As he built his staff ahead of his first season with the Washington Commanders, he wanted to leave Indianapolis with another name on the coaches’ roster.
The target was a quarterback who had been on the Detroit Lions’ practice squad a year prior: David Blough, who was transitioning into coaching and had more than one team vying for his services.
Blough ultimately signed up to be the Commanders’ assistant quarterbacks coach and was vital to Jayden Daniels’ historic rookie season after Washington selected him No. 2 overall. He’s also part of a trend that is becoming more common across the league.
To develop a young quarterback – the most important investment in perhaps all of professional sports – having a young quarterbacks coach (or assistant quarterbacks coach) can go a long way.
“We have great belief in him,” Quinn said at the 2025 combine of Blough. “This is a coach who you would not know this is his first year in coaching.”
Of the 16 coaches with “assistant quarterbacks coach” in their titles during the 2023 and 2024 seasons, the average age at the start of the season they were hired was 31.25 years old, according to USA TODAY Sports’ coaching database. Moreover, the upward mobility of coaches is closely tied to the quarterback position. Liam Coen (Jacksonville Jaguars), Kevin Stefanski (Cleveland Brown), Dave Canales (Carolina Panthers), Zac Taylor (Cincinnati Bengals), Ben Johnson (Chicago Bears) all held the title at one point throughout their respective coaching journeys. Zac Robinson (Atlanta Falcons) and Grant Udinkski (Jaguars), two current coordinators, also did. Of the 31 offensive coordinators in the league last year, 26 either passed through the quarterback room or previously held the title of “passing game coordinator.”
Daniels credited Blough with drawing up the play that led to the game-winning touchdown he threw to Zach Ertz in a comeback victory over the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 16. Blough and Daniels also have a standing, competitive game of “P-I-G” – throwing a ball from varying distances into one of three separate pouches carved into a net from varying distances – during the special teams portion of practices that can become heated.
“He brings a lot,” Daniels said of Blough last December. “I mean, just a guy that’s recently just got out of football has been around…bringing different knowledge of how he’s seen the game, how he’s seen (veteran quarterbacks) prepare day in and day out, so he is very knowledgeable. You can go ahead and talk to him about anything.”
Quinn said the Washington staff’s recruiting efforts have already proved worthwhile based on the 29-year-old’s first season in the building.
“I thought (Blough) absolutely nailed it in year one,” Quinn said. “The fact we want him here, he wants to be here, we want to help him develop, he’s really going to be impactful for us moving forward. We’re pumped we have him.”
‘Highly recommended’
When Sean Payton took the Denver Broncos job two years ago, he hired Davis Webb, then just 28 years old, as his quarterbacks coach after Webb came to Payton “highly recommended.” In 2024, rookie Bo Nix – selected 12th overall as the sixth quarterback taken in the first round – finished third in Rookie of the Year voting. Webb was rewarded with the addition of “offensive pass game coordinator” to his job title.
One aspect Payton enjoys about Webb’s coaching is that he runs an organized meeting room.
“He was tremendous on keeping things simple and knowing how to read certain plays and how to approach the game,” Payton said last year. “I think he’s very positive with these guys.
‘Davis brings energy, experience and almost like that wily veteran quarterback that’s in the room, which I think is a plus.”
Jerrod Johnson was 35 when he was the Houston Texans’ quarterbacks coach during C.J. Stroud’s impressive rookie season in 2023, when he took home Offensive Rookie of the Year honors.
Although he didn’t play due to a knee injury, Minnesota Vikings rookie J.J. McCarthy (taken 10th overall) spent hours of the night texting then-assistant quarterbacks coach Udinski, who worked under head coach Kevin O’Connell and quarterbacks coach Josh McCown. Udinski, 29, will spend next season as the offensive coordinator for Jaguars first-year head coach Coen; there, they will be tied to former top pick Trevor Lawrence, 25.
Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell hired Udinski in 2022 as his chief of staff. He evolved into the assistant quarterbacks coach and assistant offensive coordinator to Wes Phillips. According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, he mentored McCarthy and learned a lot from O’Connell about building an offense.
“Seeing how you build an offense, seeing how you teach an offense and build that progression, and then most importantly, probably the quarterback position, how you develop that starting from the ground up, laying the foundation and scaffolding things in a true progression that allows those guys to learn and grow in an environment that maximizes their chance of success,” Udinksi said during his introductory news conference.
Although he will have a quarterbacks coach (Spencer Whipple, six years Udinksi’s senior) working for him now, Udinksi – and Coen – will have plenty of facetime with Lawrence.
“The most exciting thing for me is the guy and the person as I’ve started to form this relationship, because like I said, the quarterback position is still played by a person,” Udinksi said. “It’s still a human being back there who’s got to stand back there and navigate tight pockets and hits and escape and deal with ten other guys in the huddle.”
For the Falcons, who surprised many by choosing Michael Penix Jr. at No. 8 overall, ex-NFL quarterback T.J. Yates led the quarterbacks room with D.J. Williams as his assistant quarterbacks coach. Williams primarily worked with Penix while Yates and Kirk Cousins, the starter until the end of the year, spent time together. Entering this season, Williams, 32, is now the quarterbacks coach with Yates moving into the pass game coordinator role. From 2019-23, Williams – the son of Super Bowl-winning quarterback and Washington senior adviser Doug Williams – was an offensive assistant with the New Orleans Saints.
“D.J. is absolutely awesome,” Yates said during Week 14 of last season. “He helps out with Mike a ton. He’s been an unbelievable help — it’s like having two quarterbacks coaches in the room with D.J. in there with all his knowledge he’s had from years in New Orleans with Drew Brees and stuff.”
A new path for Caleb Williams?
The job of putting the 2024 draft class’ top pick Caleb Williams’ trajectory back on track now falls to former Ohio State quarterback J.T. Barrett, 30. He spent two seasons under Ben Johnson, now the Bears’ head coach, as the assistant quarterback coach of the Lions while Jared Goff experienced a career revitalization.
Blough spent three seasons in Detroit and crossed paths there with Johnson. In Washington, Blough works alongside Commanders quarterbacks coach Tavita Pritchard, 38, who is the lone holdover from the Ron Rivera-era in Washington. A selling point for the Commanders was offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, who was the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals when Blough was a backup there. Kingsbury thought to himself “this guy would be a phenomenal coach.”
“His experience with the young quarterbacks, being so young and so recently a part of the game, that carries a lot of weight with those guys,” Kingsbury said during the season.
Ashton Grant, a 29-year-old who spent two seasons as the assistant quarterbacks coach with the Browns, is now responsible for the development of 2024 third overall pick Drake Maye with the New England Patriots as the quarterbacks coach on Mike Vrabel’s new staff.
According to USA TODAY Sports research, the average age for an NFL head coach plummeted from 53.4 years old in 2015 to 47.7 years old at the start of the 2024 season — the lowest mark in the NFL in at least 25 years. During this offseason’s hiring cycle, Coen, 39, Johnson, 38, and Moore, 36, were all named head coaches. The average age of the 30 quarterbacks coaches at the start of the 2024 season was 43 years old.
Other sub-40 quarterbacks coaches with NFL experience include Scott Tolzien (Dallas Cowboys) and Sean Mannion, who is stepping into that role for the Green Bay Packers following the retirement of 71-year-old Tom Clements. Turning 33 this month, Mannion is seven years older than Packers signal-caller Jordan Love.
Mannion and Packers head coach Matt LaFleur crossed paths when Mannion was Goff’s backup with the Los Angeles Rams. Years later, Mannion told LaFleur his plan was to enter coaching once his stint on the Vikings’ practice squad ended that season. He had an interview lined up with the Bears when LaFleur made his pitch.
“He showed me what he was going to present, and I told him, ‘Wow, that’s pretty good. I think you should come up to Green Bay right when you’re done with that interview,’” LaFleur said last year. “And I’m surprised that they let him out of the building. They tried to get him, but I guess we had more to offer. But we’re lucky to have him. I really do think this guy’s going to have a bright future for us and certainly in the coaching profession.”
What younger coaches may be lacking in terms of lines on a résumé they make up for with attitude, Coen said.
“Hunger. Want to. Guys that are trying to prove it,” the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator said at the combine. “Guys that want to continue to ascend throughout the profession.’
Coen claimed not one coach he hired didn’t have another opportunity.
‘You have to go get them, and so now you’re recruiting against another coach and multiple other places, college, NFL, families, everything,” Coen said. “You have to sell. You’re back in recruiting mode.”
As the Commanders and Broncos found out last year – and other organizations, especially those in flux behind center, could in the near future – it might be the most crucial pitch of the offseason.