Dan Quinn mum on Commanders' release of Brandon McManus, but used it as teaching moment for team

The Washington Commanders were unaware that there was pending litigation against kicker Brandon McManus until the lawsuits dropped on Memorial Day weekend, and during his press conference at OTAs Wednesday, head coach Dan Quinn said he personally found out on May 27, Memorial Day itself, and a week before McManus was cut by the team.

“I found out some of the information on May 27, and then we released him on June 3,” Quinn told the media about McManus’ status.

McManus is, as we now know, the defendant in civil litigation brought by two flight attendants accusing him of sexual misconduct on a Jaguars team flight last season, but Quinn would not comment too much on the outstanding litigation or the situation itself – instead only saying how he addressed the release briefly with the team earlier this week, and used it as a teaching moment.

“Number one, I think you all understand this is under investigation, so I can’t comment a lot, but what I can say is a little bit about what I told the team,” Quinn said. “I think like most things not necessarily related to this but as a lesson, let's make sure you always let somebody know and tell. There's usually a whole bunch of people that want to be part of the solution, and so when you have that communication, whether that's for this team or any team or a parent, that allows you to come up with some solutions. Like I said, not specific to this, but it was just a good lesson to always have that conversation. It's usually much more difficult in your head than it is really having the actual conversation, and so I just wanted to make sure I got a lesson out to the guys as we're going through it.”

The Commanders under Dan Snyder had multiple major incidents with sexual harassment and workplace misconduct allegations, and Quinn was asked if that past impacted the decision – but, once again, the head coach in recent years, factors in the league strong-arming Daniel Snyder to sell the franchise.

When asked whether that influenced the decision to release McManus, Quinn once again declined to answer, instead reiterating how the team wants open communication.

“There's nothing that we can comment on, because there's an investigation that's ongoing, but what we always want to do is have open communication, and that’s what we're trying to dig into and find,” Quinn said. “Like I said earlier, a lot of people want to be a part of the solution. Our team has an army of support like most teams do, so that communication is important.”