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McDaniels pulls a Belichick

Decides against becoming Colts head coach

Josh McDaniels has stolen a page out of Bill Belichick’s playbook. Earlier today the Colts announced McDaniels would be their new head coach, but now he says he’s remaining in New England.

For weeks it’s been assumed McDaniels would be the next Indianapolis coach, but apparently he’s gotten cold feet. Either he doesn’t think the fit is right, or perhaps he believes that he might not have to wait long before taking over as the head coach in New England.

Or maybe McDaniels thinks there’s some kind of problem with Andrew Luck’s shoulder. If Luck’s arm isn’t right, that becomes a clunker of a job.

It reminds me of Bill Belichick being named the head coach by the Jets in 2000, only to resign the position at his bizarre introductory press conference.

McDaniels tried and failed a head coach before, going only 5-17 in his last 22 games in Denver before they fired him. That might be contributing to him being nervous about committing to another head coaching job – he knows he needs to get this one right.

It’s a nice turn of events for the Patriots, giving them increased continuity when it appeared they were going to lose both of their coordinators.

With McDaniels helping out, New England has ranked in the top 4 in scoring six years in a row. More impressively, the Patriots ranked 8th in scoring in 2008 – that was the season Tom Brady tore his ACL early in their first game.

McDaniels wasn’t as effective as a head coach with the Broncos in 2009 and 2010, nor as an offensive coordinator with the Rams in 2011 (with St. Louis scoring a league-low 193 points).

JOSH McDANIELS: LAST 10 TEAMS
YearTeamW-LPointsRk
2008New England Patriots11-54108
2009Denver Broncos8-832620
2010Denver Broncos4-1234419
2011St. Louis Rams2-1419332
2012New England Patriots12-45571
2013New England Patriots12-44443
2014New England Patriots12-44684
2015New England Patriots12-44653
2016New England Patriots14-24413
2017New England Patriots13-34582

—Ian Allan

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