Seahawks think Dan Quinn would be a great head coach for the Falcons

REPORTING FROM PHOENIX —  A coach uses a stopwatch to time players.

After Super Bowl XLIX, the Seattle Seahawks might as well put a stopwatch on defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, because it’s probably only a matter of moments before he’s named the new head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, the only remaining vacancy.

That’s how several Seahawks made it sound during their media availability Monday, at least. Quinn can’t officially take the job while he’s still coaching for Seattle.

“They are getting a great coach,” Seattle linebacker Bobby Wagner said, when asked what a team — although not specifically the Falcons — would be getting in Quinn.

Wagner said Quinn “is very open to talk. It’s not like you have to do it his way. It’s more he’s going to talk to you and say why his way is great but he wants to hear you out. I think the biggest thing is he is a great communicator and definitely helps you understand the game.”

By all appearances, Quinn will follow in the footsteps of the coordinator he replaced, Gus Bradley, who left Seattle to become head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Seahawks linebacker K.J. Wright said Quinn trusts the athleticism and know-how of his players, and doesn’t try to complicate matters with schemes.

“He keeps everything simple and he just makes simple calls,” Wright said. “He probably has five calls a game and he just lets our athleticism go out there and win ball games.”

Gronk alert

There was lots of talk Monday about how the Seahawks plan to neutralize Patriots All-Pro tight end Rob Gronkowski.

Seattle Coach Pete Carroll said he studied extra video of Gronkowski on Monday, looking for ways his team might get an edge.

“We do have an excellent opportunity to match up as good as anybody because our guys, our outside backers are pretty tall and long, which they need to be, and they’re still smaller than he is,” Carroll said. “[Safety] Kam Chancellor’s about as big a strong safety as you can find. It’s just about bodies on bodies, you know? We’ll have to play him a number of different ways to have a chance to slow him down.”

Asked about the problems Gronkowski presents, Wagner said “problem” is the wrong word, and talked about it being more of an opportunity for the Seahawks to show how adept they are.

“They move him all around the field,” Wagner said. “They have him on the outside, they have him on the inside. They do a lot of good things with him and he does a great job of catching the ball. Sometimes he’s double-teamed and catches the ball, but I definitely feel like we have the athletes that match up with him and the athletes to definitely hold him.”

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