Every week during the NFL season, Tom E. Curran & Phil Perry will go head-to-head and offer their own takes on a Patriots or NFL-related question. Here's this week's topic:
Is now the time for Josh McDaniels to take a new head coaching gig?
The story of the 2019 Patriots is one of a team with a very good defense and an understaffed offense trying to land punches with a hand tied behind its back. The too-little, too-late efforts to staff tight end and wide receiver didn’t work. The offensive line regressed.
David Andrews and James Develin had fairly serious injuries and their availability going forward isn’t assured. Their most important skill position player is 33-year-old Julian Edelman and the expiring contract of Tom Brady puts into question the direction of the most important position in pro sports.
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Dante Scarnecchia is turning 72 and at some point, the OL whisperer is going to retire for good. Ivan Fears, the running backs coach, is going to be 66 next November. This season, wide receivers coach Joe Judge was splitting time between getting a fleet of guys who’d never played in the NFL up to speed in his first year coaching that spot. And he was running special teams.
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Bill Belichick has given no indications he’s planning on going anywhere and even if he were, there’s no certainty McDaniels would be his successor. Even if he were, does one really want to step into the quicksand of replacing the greatest coach of all time?
Cleveland should have hired McDaniels last year. They didn’t even interview him. Now, perhaps, owner Jimmy Haslam has learned he has to stop trying to build a better mousetrap by having a whole mess of guys who think they are the boss of the football and hire one guy to be the boss of the football and let everyone do their thing with his blessing.
There’s more than enough talent on that roster to succeed. Hell, they almost had a good season record-wise this year with as much organization as a three-year-old’s birthday party.
Time to go.
The offense has just about reached its nadir. Is there still a little bit of room for them to dip in terms of their efficiency? Sure. They could become the Kyle Allen Panthers. Or the Duck Hodges Steelers. But they're already sniffing that territory.
The difference in yards per pass attempt between the Patriots this year and those offenses: 0.2 and 0.4, respectively. Yet McDaniels still has oodles of interest. He has a résumé teams respect. A bad statistical season (or two) with sub-optimal personnel hasn't cratered his value (and shouldn't).
He's 43. He's well-compensated. No rush. Now consider the gigs for which he's being considered.
The Cleveland job that looks so good on paper has a couple of red flags. No. 1 is that ownership is conducting its fifth head-coaching search since 2012. Is McDaniels going to be afforded the time he needs to install a program? And what about roster control?
The man reportedly running the Browns coaching search, analytics guru Paul DePodesta, seems like he's in line to have more power than ever. The football operations hierarchy there is murky enough that it should provide McDaniels plenty of pause.
Same deal in New York. Dave Gettleman is still the general manager and has ownership's support. Carolina is intriguing, though GM Marty Hurney remains in place. Might owner David Tepper be willing to restructure things to McDaniels' liking? Perhaps. But Hurney has done a solid job and could be in for the long haul.
Even if McDaniels was in charge of the roster, would you want to be the one trying to figure out what to do at quarterback this offseason without being able to see a healthy Cam Newton until the summer? Not ideal.
None of these jobs are. That's how it looks right now, at least. McDaniels is in a spot where he can wait for something a little closer to perfect than what's out there at the moment.
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