It looks like Josh McDaniels won’t be moving this offseason. Of the eight NFL teams with head coach openings, none have requested to talk to the Patriots offensive coordinator, despite his extensive resume.
McDaniels, who backed out of the Colts head coaching job in 2018, has long been Bill Belichick’s right-hand man in New England, most recently helping develop Mac Jones into the quarterback who brought the Pats back to the postseason. But interest in McDaniels as a head coach seems to have cooled off, perhaps as a result of his spurning the Colts.
“I don’t know that it’s that, as much as it has to be perfect,” NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport said on WEEI’s Gresh & Keefe. “First of all, with him, people are not going to request him unless they know he’s going to take the interview and is very interested in the job.”
Rapoport said McDaniels is “different from basically any other candidate” insofar as he may not have interest in every job. Others would presumably take any interview offered, but McDaniels has already shown he’d rather stay at his current role than take a promotion elsewhere.
Teams are not interested in Josh McDaniels as a head coach candidate. AP“I think his lack of requests is probably as much due to anything as much as you’re only going to request him if you’re basically going to hire him,” Rapoport said. “Otherwise you’re not going to go all the way down the road.”
McDaniels said in mid-December that he doesn’t have regrets over rejecting the Colts, who ultimately hired Frank Reich.
Josh McDaniels has spent this season working with Mac Jones to develop the rookie quarterback. AP“You make decisions in life and in your career that you feel like are the best decisions for you and your family, which is certainly what happened then,” McDaniels told WEEI. “You move forward and you do everything you can within your power to make those decisions the right ones.”
