Quotes from Dan Quinn

Winning the NFC championship affords you a chance at the next opportunity.

Our central theme is, How good you can get? How hard can I go to see how good you can get?

We talk about toughness as a quarterback: it's not sometimes the physical part that you see; it's the mental toughness and the 'I'm going to stand in here, take this shot,' and 'I'm going to deliver it to my guy.'

You love for a quarterback to sometimes make the decision as the rush is coming and make the decision as the play, as opposed to where that computer is hitting it fast and he's knowing where to go with the ball at the right time.

When it's those division games, that's when it gets ramped up for me.

I think some people have a rare ability to focus. As a player, Earl Thomas has it. When he was at practice or in a game, he was always on; he was right there.

What we can control is our readiness.

Oftentimes, you have to be able to throw it in order to run it.

For me, trying to connect our team together is so important. I know we'll play really well when our team gets really tight. So I want to make sure I connect with the players so that I can help them be at their best.

When you are hoping for a call or want something different, I think you lose your edge.

As far as the fouls go, we are not going to rely on anyone else to make the calls for us.

Our intent of how we're going to play doesn't change.

We're not Seattle East. We're our own Atlanta, and there are definitely things I learned from Coach Carroll. He had probably the single biggest influence on my coaching career.

Iron sharpens iron, and that's one man getting another guy ready to play.

We don't spend so much time on the opponent that we forget it's really about us.

We want to let our play be the judges.

I think you have to go deep into the bag of tricks, so to speak, to try and slow down the quarterback.

Each game we play, every game is a championship-game mindset.

We want to play a really physical style ball, and so, for us tackling, we know we are shoulder-based tackling team, and we want to hit that strike zone just like you're throwing fastballs into that catchers' mitt just as hard as you can.

Number one, from a tackling standpoint, we teach strike zone hits, and we want to hit absolutely as hard as we can in that strike zone, and that's absolutely what we call a batter in the batters box from the chest all the way down to the knees.

When you have that connection to say, 'I'm going to play for something bigger than myself,' man, you have a chance to do something good.

I do know some missed tackles usually that comes down to leverage, and I know those are correctable and fixable.

I think that's the ultimate sign of a teammate and respect is that they compete against one another so hard at practice that here's a chance to share some knowledge inside. It takes some humility to do that.

I would never recommend losing on a bye, so that one definitely stays with you.