Josh McDaniels Will Stay in New England

So now that the Packers have decided to make Tennessee’s offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur their new head coach, that pretty much closes the door on Josh McDaniels going anywhere this offseason. In a conference call earlier, he revealed that that Green Bay was the only team he had an interview with.

“The book is closed,” McDaniels said. “It is always a humbling experience to have an opportunity to interview with anybody for that position. I am thankful for the opportunity to meet with Green Bay. It always gives you greater insight into another organization and how they do things. It has been very educational for me every time I have gone through it. I have appreciated every single one of them. That was great, but I am completely focused on the Chargers and our season and finishing strong.

“I will be here moving forward. … I have said before, I think I have one of the best jobs in the world and am grateful for the opportunity to continue competing this week against the Chargers.”

With all due respect to the people who’ve been speculating on McDaniels’ future or my colleagues Liz and Kayce who wrote about the possibility of Kliff Kingsbury being brought to Foxboro to coach the quarterback he used to be the backup for, I never burned the calories necessary to blog those stories because I just never thought McDaniels was going anywhere. For a number of reasons.

First, the obvious. For months now we’ve been hearing that the way he backed out of the Colts job last year would have no impact on his future and that he was still the leading coaching candidate on the market. And while I’ll concede that most owners are so desperate to graft the Patriots DNA onto their organization that they’d harvest one of Belichick non-vital organs and name it their head coach if Mr. Kraft hasn’t specifically gotten a rule against it into the NFL bylaws. But still, to put a ring on McDaniels so soon after he left the Colts standing at the altar would be too big a triumph of optimism over experience to expect from anyone. I mean, did you see how broken Jim Irsay is, even 11 months later? He’s a mess:

Next, I think there’s an agreement in place between McDaniels, Belichick and Kraft. A long term plan. Some sort of line of succession thing. Like the way Marcus Aurelius wanted Maximus to take over Rome when he was gone. As I said when McDaniels came back to Tom Brady’s sweet embrace last winter, if Belichick coaches five more years and then sails off on his boat X Rings (don’t @ me) and hands the team over, McDaniels will be the same age Belichick was when he took the job in 2000. Also his second head coaching gig after his first attempt went sideways, by the way.

But whether it’s five years from now or four or three, in the meantime McDaniels is getting paid like an entry-level head coach. He’s got the rarest commodity any coach in any sport can have, which is job security. There are few guys with the sustained success he’s had. And the ones that have it, can coach forever. (Think Dick LeBeau.) He still gets to work alongside the GOAT through next year and (IMHO) beyond. And, at the age of 42, his career prospects are not going to dry up. So it would be career suicide for him to walk away now unless he knows the job is perfect. And trying to teach his version of the Erhardt-Perkins system to a 35-year-old Aaron Rodgers who’s been in Mike McCarthy’s version of the West Coast his whole career while he eats up $33 million worth of cap space is far from perfect.

So for the Patriots, it’s another year of coaching staff stability in a league where great franchises have their coaches raided as a matter of course. There’s no word on the Brian Flores front, but I’d be shocked if a guy who’s been calling the defense for one season without so much as the defensive coordinator title would get more than a few courtesy, Rooney Rule-compliant interviews. His day will come. As will McDaniels. But it is not this day. And for now, that’s a good place for the Patriots to be going into 2019. But that’s a discussion for another time. For now, it’s just: