The Patriots have hired their offensive coordinator. It's a familiar name and face: Josh McDaniels returns for a third gig in Foxborough. The Patriots could have done a whole lot worse than McDaniels. Unlike as a Head Coach, he has a top OC track record, albeit with a quarterback named Tom Brady in tow who helped a bit.
The thought here was to renew and refresh with the new. Instead, as with most of the major post-Bill Belichick hires, there's always a link to the halcyon days of the early part of the century to fall back on. And the Patriots have fallen hard as a result.
The concept of new ideas, new approaches, and, above all, new faces is seemingly quite a foreign concept for the Patriots' ownership. They remain fixated on the past while neglecting the realities of the present. But wait a minute, didn't you argue for hiring Mike Vrabel?
Indeed, but Vrabel was linked to Foxborough - but only as a player. His coaching experience came from elsewhere. He is not of Bill Belichick's so-called "coaching tree." That fact, plus his experience as a head coach, were determining factors. It was owner Robert Kraft's best decision in half a decade.
Patriots hiring Josh McDaniels is step back not forward
McDaniels hire is another feel-good but dysfunctional "he's one of us" type of misguided hiring. While he is a bona fide OC, he's had little success at all outside of the Brady days, the one playoff year with Mac Jones being the exception.
As for coaching running quarterbacks, he's had little success. McDaniels had no clue how to utilize Cam Newton in 2020 and the results were predictable. Cam may have had arm issues, but that's just used as a convenient excuse to try to justify his misuse.
McDaniels employed little deception in his approach (similar to the 2024 Pats offense). He might as well have telegraphed or put on the Jumbotron that Newton was running before every play that started with an empty backfield except Cam. Predictably, he'd run, and also predictably, they'd lose.
The Patriots just can't leave the past for the future
Yet, the fascination with the "good old boy" Bill Belichick network continues in the executive suite at Gillette Stadium. That aspect of the 2024 hires has already been pointed out. After summarily brooming Belichick from the premises, thank you very much for the six titles, Kraft then proceeded to figuratively keep him around.
He hired a branch of the tree, solely schooled by Bill, in Jerod Mayo, who then proceeded to elevate or a good part of BBs former coaching staff. Additionally, Kraft promoted virtually Belichick's entire personnel operation, headed by Eliot Wolf, as well. The results were predicted and eminently predictable. Failure.
Media speculation now suggests that it may indeed have been Mr. Robert Kraft who "suggested" to Coach Vrabel (or maybe even possibly to candidate Vrabel?) that McDaniels would be an excellent choice, if not the absolute best choice, for his offensive coordinator position. Who knows.
Yet, once the so-called "search" had commenced, all signs strangely pointed to McDaniels as the likely choice, and low and behold, he got the job. It's amazing how that always seems to play out in Foxborough. We know you. We like you. You're hired.
McDaniels' success with Brady and Jones was with pure pocket quarterbacks. His experiments with running QBs as the OC in New England in 2020 with Newton and in 2010 in Denver for 12 games with Tim Tebow before he was canned as Head Coach were flops. Nevertheless, rather than hiring an OC who'd had solid success in running an offense with a top dual-threat QB like Drake Maye, Mike Vrabel's choice fell to a familiar face who didn't.
This signifies the continuation of just about everything Bill Belichick, other than Bill himself, at Gillette Stadium. It remains a haven for "Belichickism without Belichick". Asking the question, why broom Bill if you're just going to keep re-hiring all his people anyway, remains a cogent one. As Bill Belichick was wont to say, "It is what it is." And it is just going "Back to the Future" again, and a big disappointment.