(Image credit Tommy Gilligan/USA Today Sports)
Written by: Nicholas Mullick
Ever since John Gruden resigned and suffered his fall from grace the Las Vegas Raiders had one question of who the permanent head coach for Las Vegas Raiders would be. Many including myself thought that Rich Bisaccia who did a fantastic job as the interim head coach should permanently be given the role due to contributing to this team going to the playoffs. Unfortunately, that is not the case as it is looking likely that Bisaccia will be coaching on a different team as the Raiders announced that they will be hiring Josh McDaniels as the head coach for this team.
Josh McDaniels started coaching in the sport of football with Michigan State as a Graduate assistant in 1999. McDaniels then made his mark in the NFL with the New England Patriots in 2001 where he was hired as a Personal assistant. McDaniels in 2002 got promoted as a defensive assistant and held the role until 2003. McDaniels then got a position on the opposite side of the ball as a quarterbacks coach with the New England Patriots in 2004 and then was promoted to both offensive coordinator and QB coach in 2006. McDaniels then got hired with the Denver Broncos as the head coach (We will get to his tenure later) from 2009 to 2010. The St.Louis Rams brought him in as an Offensive coordinator and quarterback coach in 2011. In 2012 the Patriots brought him back as the Offensive coordinator and quarterback coach. Then in 2019, he was strictly the offensive coordinator. Now we get to the present day where he will now be hired as the head coach for the Las Vegas Raiders with a total of 21 years of coaching experience.
So when I heard this hire was official, I immediately was not a fan of this hire for the Las Vegas Raiders. I heard this news while I was at work and I legitimately said this “Josh McDaniels, they brought in him to coach?’’.
Why do I hate this move hiring Josh McDaniels as head coach? Well, first I always am worried about when a coach gets hired from Bill Belichick’s coaching tree. Excluding Brian Flores and Bill O’Brien (Before the self-destruction of the Texans) name me a good coach that was in Bill Belichick’s coaching tree. It has a bad track record and McDaniels is an example of his tenure with the Denver Broncos.
Speaking of which let's take a look at his tenure with the Denver Broncos as the head coach. Well, it was an absolute disaster. Right from the get-go, he did not get along with QB Jay Cutler at the time and even admitted to trying talking trade offers for him. Heck, the most notable one was a trade to New England for Matt Cassel. Jay Cutler later stated that he wanted out with the Denver Broncos and even was untrustworthy of the entire organization. So they traded Cutler and a 5th round pick to Chicago for QB Kyle Orton, 2 1st round picks, and a 3rd rounder. This trade got the locker room pissed and heavily made the culture toxic. McDaniels did an awful job in maintaining a good culture.
Now we get into the controversy of McDaniels tenure with the Denver Broncos with the whole videotaping scandal. You think after the whole Spygate scandal that happened with the New England Patriots that teams would not cheat using the same system and not record players' practices. Keep in mind Josh McDaniels served as an assistant coach under Belichick from 2001 to 2008 during the time frame when the Patriots were recording team practices. Well, Josh McDaniels decided to keep using this system in Denver where in 2010 Steve Scarnecchia who was the Denver Broncos director of video operations was caught videotaping San Francisco 49ers' walkthrough practices in the upcoming London Game of that week. McDaniels later said that he had no knowledge that this was going on and while the NFL did not prove he was involved I still call it nonsense to this day. Heck, Scarnecchia was also involved in the Patriots’ Spygate scandal. Soon after this scandal hit and being fined 50,000 dollars McDaniels would be out of a job. So as a result of him getting fired his coaching record with the Denver Broncos was 11-17 in two seasons which is not a good record at all.
Many are saying that his experience in New England is why McDaniels mainly got the job and they have points. However, I did a little research and found out that McDaniels was teammates with current Raiders GM Dave Ziegler on the John Carroll University football team. Plus both worked together in New England and even with the Denver Broncos. That relationship absolutely had an advantage to him acquiring the Head Coaching role with the Las Vegas Raiders. This move hiring them could be on the level of Bob Quinn and Matt Patricia’s tenure with the Detroit Lions. In my opinion, was the worst coaching/manager tandem that came out of Bill Belichick’s tree.
However, despite me not being a fan of this move I want to say congratulations to Mr. McDaniels for acquiring the position as the head coach for the Las Vegas Raiders. Hopefully, he proves my concerns wrong and has success with the Raiders organization.