Pondering the Possibility of Josh McDaniels as Browns Head Coach
The Cleveland Browns are set to finish their head coaching interviews Friday with New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. Believed to be the prize ownership has been seeking, McDaniels appears to be the favorite for the job. I wish I was as enamored with McDaniels as they seem to be, but while there are absolutely some major positives to hiring him, I can't help but feel a little torn.
The biggest question with any former Patriots assistant is how they function without Bill Belichick. All of the various assistants that have gone off to head coaching jobs elsewhere are walking a tightrope. In New England, Belichick seems to function as the net under them, making sure they never fall and hit the ground, catching mistakes and fixing them. Without him, that net is no longer there and the mistakes can prove fatal. The list of failed assistants, which unfortunately includes McDaniels for his stint with the Denver Broncos is a long one.
It's bad enough that people try to include Mike Vrabel to improve it, despite the fact Vrabel played for Belichick but never actually coached there. Bill O'Brien has had success with Houston, though it often feels like it's in spite of him. Brian Flores was pretty impressive in his first year with the Miami Dolphins, winning five games with a roster that could only dream it had the talent the 0-16 Browns had in 2017.
It would also be the third time the Browns dove into Belichick's pool of assistants for a head coach. First with Romeo Crennel, who is the second most successful head coach the Browns have had since they came back in 1999 and then with Eric Mangini. And while both had some very good qualities to them, they or the organization they assembled finished woefully short. Incredibly, the Browns have been able to do far worse than them in terms of their head coaching hires. The third time is supposed to be the charm.
Meanwhile, McDaniels is young at 43 years old and it feels like he has as much experience as any coach in the league. It's been ten years since he was the head coach of the Broncos, an eternity in the NFL. It's not a question of acumen or intelligence as he clearly possesses both and hopefully he's gained a substantial amount of wisdom from that experience as well in the decade since then.
Obviously having Tom Brady makes it much easier to have a successful offense, but it does say something that McDaniels has been there as long as he has and Brady not only respects him, but is a huge proponent. The fact they have such a long relationship and have produced at such a high level, including a number of Super Bowl wins certainly suggests that Baker Mayfield could benefit from McDaniels coaching him, constantly challenging him and pushing him to be great.
Likewise, some will criticize the Patriots offense for not only having Brady, but a feeling of being stale, which is unfair. The Patriots offense might utilize a number of the same concepts overall, but through the years, they've adapted and evolved to fit their talent to be competitive and at times dominant.
Forget the revolving door of wide receivers that have come and gone through the Patriots roster the last several years. Look at the career of Rob Gronkowski. He's a surefire Hall of Fame tight end, but the Patriots have had to adapt to not having him on the fly in multiple seasons. And last year when the Patriots made their way through the playoffs, Gronkowski chipped in some huge plays as a receiver including in the Super Bowl, but he was largely utilized as a blocker, helping Sony Michel average 112 rushing yards per game.
It may often look the same from one set of players to the next, but that offense has been a chameleon and it's been able to deliver for years. Teams know what they are going to do for the most part and yet the Patriots are able to adapt on both sides of the ball and find ways to exploit defenses and win. And at times, there are some blowouts by the Patriots with their roster that are simply remarkable given the talent they don't appear to have.
And there's little reason to think that McDaniels can't build an offense, whether it looks like the Patriots or not, that would be able to maximize players like Mayfield and Nick Chubb. Brady is different from Mayfield. Mayfield offers more mobility. McDaniels may have some specific things in mind with Mayfield that he couldn't do with Brady.
I completely understand the notion that McDaniels wants to ensure his next head coaching job is a successful one as it's likely his last shot. And in the case of Browns ownership, there's a part of me that thinks they need someone outlining exactly what their role should be within the organization as well as those around them, because they've struggled in that capacity. It's also difficult to ignore what happened with the Indianapolis Colts, where McDaniels was trying to do that, again understandably, but wasn't thorough enough and then when some details weren't what he thought, pulled out of the job. He stuck to his principles, but he screwed up and it was embarrassing for all involved.
Bringing someone, likely Dave Ziegler, from the Patriots front office doesn't fill me with confidence. And perhaps he and McDaniels don't want to do things quite the same way as the Patriots did under Belichick and Nick Caserio, but while I like the Patriots approach of acquiring a lot of selections in the draft, their hit rate is baffling and some of their selections just bizarre. Rutgers doesn't have that much talent.
They are able to find talent and address positions on the field, occasionally being downright brilliant, but increasingly over the last several years, they've been reliant on getting free agents from other teams and basically maximizing them where the previous team failed. That's great, but part of the reason the Patriots are able to do that is they have been such a great team for such a long time that they have no trouble recruiting them. The Browns simply can't rely on that to not only get quality free agents, but occasionally getting some of them on the cheap.
The one area where it would really nice to be like the Patriots is both in terms of their mastery of the salary cap and being able to trade players for value and add players for value. And it wouldn't be a surprise for McDaniels to come in and look to immediately trade some players, which could be controversial, but might be needed to shape their roster properly.
Likewise, I think McDaniels will be able to assemble a good coaching staff. He's developed a pretty substantial network of contacts in his time in the NFL. At the same time, it might be difficult to predict who he will hire because he does have such a deep contact list. One name that I really like that has been rumored to be a possibility is Kevin O'Connell as offensive coordinator. O'Connell was the quarterbacks coach with the Browns under Mike Pettine. There were players in the locker room who had nothing to do with his position that thought he was a coach with remarkable potential. Special teams coach Mike Priefer has also worked with McDaniels in a previous stop, so they both might be inclined to continue that relationship in Cleveland.
As much success as the Patriots have had, I really hope that McDaniels doesn't try to make Cleveland into the Patriots. I want him to be himself and not feel like he has to work to a specific blueprint. He's not Belichick and shouldn't try to be. There will undoubtedly be areas with crossover where they will be like the Patriots and should be, but it can't be in areas that are going to force him to be artificial. He's gotta be his own person and adapt the team accordingly.
As an example, there are players that love playing for the Patriots. Part of that is because they are great and they win Super Bowls. But there are players that come out of there and feel genuinely ground down by the process and hate it. It's a job rather than a passion. Far be it for me to criticize Belichick with everything he's done there, but my hope for someone like McDaniels is he can get players and the team to play great without sucking the joy out of it for them.
I imagine I'll talk myself into being excited about Josh McDaniels if and when the Browns hire him. I'm trying to see the positives with him because I'm gonna have to get behind him if they hire him. It's largely going to be a matter of seeing how the organization and coaching staff will be put together around him. I don't care where he was born, where he went to high school, college or what his dream job is. Those aren't reasons to hire him and will only matter if he's successful. That's the only metric that's going to matter if the Browns hire him, so hopefully he is able to make me look like a fool for ever doubting him as he leads the Browns to the Super Bowl.
