McDaniels left off league’s ‘coaching candidates’ list
January 11, 2016, 10:30 am
There’s an interesting note in Peter King’s voluminous Monday Morning Quarterback column today that relates to Patriots’ coordinators Josh McDaniels and Matt Patricia.
Neither coordinator was included on the “primary” list of head-coaching candidates the NFL compiled to aid teams in their coaching searches. According to King, the league created an eight-member committee in 2013 to serve as a kind of in-house headhunting service and put together a list of the best prospective candidates.
King reports that “eyebrows were raised when offensive coordinator McDaniels of the Patriots wasn’t on the list; nor was the defensive coordinator, Patricia…”
The absence of McDaniels caught the eye of Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, said King, and was the “most talked about exclusion” in King’s estimation since the list began being compiled. King said the explanation he was given was that McDaniels was “already notable enough and didn’t need the boost of a league group to push his cause.” However, McDaniels’ name did appear on a secondary list of names.
Hue Jackson, Tom Cable, Doug Marrone, Adam Gase, Mike Shula, Sean McDermott, Vic Fangio and Teryl Austin were the former head coaches and/or current assistants on the list. College coaches David Shaw, Kevin Sumlin and Kirk Ferentz were also listed.
King speculated that McDaniels was bypassed for the primary list because of the “head-coaching track records of previous Bill Belichick aides.”
Could be. I’d also theorize that a league-sponsored committee isn’t going to promote the candidacy of a Patriots assistant when it knows that assistant has come to understand that the people on Park Avenue are not your friends. Why would the NFL want to lobby for an assistant who, if hired, will enter his job with a healthy skepticism about the aims and competency of the league’s executives?
Meanwhile, King also included a quick Q&A with Gase – who was hired by Miami on Saturday – in which Gase credits McDaniels for instilling in Gase the importance of being adaptable as a coach.
“I believe it’s about the players, not the scheme. Doing what’s best for the players, developing the players, developing the team,” Gase told MMQB. “For me, that goes back to being with [former Denver coach] Josh McDaniels, on that staff. Every week was a different week. The time I spent with Josh, that’s where it really hit me that it’s always about what’s best for this week, winning this game with this group of players—whatever you have to do. That is the fun part of coaching. You get to create, and I love the creativity part of the profession. You can create the foundation, but then I want to coach a team that’s fluid, to put guys in the best position possible to win every week. I’m pretty sure that’s a big reason why the guy who’s been on top of the division for so long [New England’s Bill Belichick] stays there.”
Gase was a wide receivers coach in Denver when McDaniels was head coach there.
