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PHOENIX -- His offense set an NFL record for points. His quarterback set an NFL record for touchdown passes. His team became the first in NFL history to run through a 16-game season without a loss.
So why doesn't Patriots' quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels get more attention?
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| Josh McDaniels has known nothing but success in seven years with the Patriots. (Getty Images) |
But McDaniels? I counted six people at his table.
"I think he knows his time will come for whatever he wants," tight end Ben Watson said.
What he wants is to become a head coach. In fact, at one point he wanted to become a high school football coach. But that changed the moment he joined the NFL, went on to coach with the Patriots and hooked up with Brady.
Now he'd like to become an NFL head coach, and stay tuned. There's one team out there that doesn't have one, and the Washington Redskins are holding all calls until after this weekend.
Presumably, that's so they can speak to Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, but McDaniels hasn't been ruled out as a possibility -- either by Washington or the New England assistant.
"I'm not going to worry about anything like that," McDainels said. "If it comes up in the future it comes up in the future, and I'll entertain it at the time."
It should come up in the future, and I don't care when or where. But if Charlie Weis, Romeo Crennel and Eric Mangini can parlay the Patriots' successes into head coaching jobs, why can't McDaniels?
OK, so he's 31. So he looks like he's a college sophomore. So he's been working with the offense for four years. He calls the plays for the most prolific offense in league history, for crying out loud.
Sure, Brady makes him look good. He made Weis look good, too. And, yeah, it doesn't hurt to have Belichick there for support. The guy won 100 of his last 127 games, including three Super Bowls.
But the Patriots are where they are today with the help of McDaniels.
"He's the one making the play calls," Watson said. "The one sitting up all hours of the night drawing up the schemes with coach Belichick. So he definitely does a great job."
Nowhere was that more apparent than the last time the Patriots and New York Giants met. New England scored on seven of nine possessions and rallied from a 12-point, second-half deficit to complete an undefeated regular season.
It was McDaniels who made the adjustments, and McDaniels who made the play calls that sank the Giants. Afterward, all of the attention was focused on Randy Moss, Brady and the team's 16-0 record, with little saved for McDaniels.
Which is how it's been most of this season. Heck, you might not know whom you were speaking to this week had McDaniels not had his name printed on a card at his table or the initials "JM" on his sweatshirt.
"When I first got to Massachusetts," said Moss, who set a league record for TD catches on McDaniels' watch, "I flew in to take my physical, and Josh picked me up at the airport. He told me he was the offensive coordinator and that he calls the plays, and he told me his age. I was kind of overwhelmed because we are in the same age bracket, and I really didn't know what to think, to be honest with you.
"But, being with the New England Patriots, I figured he must know something. And after being here during mini-camp and training camp and seeing how the offense was made and designed, I thought he was probably -- if not the best -- one of the best offensive coordinators in the league when it comes to scheming, calling plays and making adjustments.
"I have a lot of respect for Josh, and I don't think age plays a factor at all with coaches in the NFL. The good thing is he's young and his upside is high. The bad side of it is that I don't know how long he'll be a Patriots coach."
Here's to Moss for mentioning that age should have nothing to do with selecting coaches. When the Raiders hired Jon Gruden he was the youngest head coach in the league (34). In his third season, Oakland went to the AFC title game, and the 2002 Raiders -- made up mostly of Gruden's players -- lost Super Bowl XXXVII to Gruden's Buccaneers. 2002 was Oakland's last winning season.
When the New York Jets hired Mangini away from New England in 2006, he became the youngest head coach in the league and turned the Lusitania into a 10-6 playoff club in one year.
"It's the quality of your experience that should matter more than the quantity," McDaniels said.
So let's look at the quality of McDaniels' experience with New England: In his seven seasons there, the Patriots reached the playoffs six times and were 9-7 in the seventh.
Which is why a club looking for its next head coach shouldn't forget about McDaniels. He works at the league's most successful franchise, works with the league's best quarterback and has a history of working both sides of the football.
What more do you want?
"Bill gave me an opportunity to learn from great people like himself, Romeo, Eric (Mangini) and Rob Ryan," said McDaniels, who joined the offense in 2004. "Being with those guys three years I could come over to offense and talk to Tommy (Brady) about this is why they're doing what they're doing.
"I'd tell him, 'We can maybe exploit this offensively,' and he ate that up. He was so eager to learn. He knew what things were, but he didn't necessarily know all the little things about why they did this or why they did that.
"That's the thing I love most about him. The game never gets boring for Tommy. Whatever it is with regard to football he's up for it. He has a capacity to take a ton of information in, make it work on the field and be successful with it."
Successful is not exactly how I would describe New England's offense. Unstoppable is more like it.
The last time I remember a team crushing opponents like this then-offensive coordinator Brian Billick was hired away from Minnesota to coach the Baltimore Ravens.
Two years later he won a Super Bowl.
"I don't know why he doesn't get more attention," guard Logan Mankins said of McDaniels. "I don't know if it has to do with him. It might just be because of the star power on this team with Tom Brady, who's the best quarterback in the league, and Bill Belichick, who's the best coach in this league."
I'm sure it does. But that shouldn't diminish the accomplishments of McDaniels. After the AFC Championship Game, San Diego coach Norv Turner said the Chargers went into the contest knowing they couldn't stop New England on offense -- hoping only to slow the Pats down.
And they did. Only they lost.
When New England had to make the plays, it did -- including a game-ending drive that covered the last nine minutes -- and that's a credit to the coach a lot of people know but few recognize.
"The thing I want to make sure of," McDaniels said, "is that if the (head coaching) opportunity ever presents itself -- and I'm looking to do that -- I want to feel that the opportunity's right for me and my family and that I want to go and do that professionally.
"I don't want to ever do anything and not do it very well. And that's why I love my job here. If I ever move on I want to do it very well."