HENDERSON, Nev. It wasnt the sharpest or most poignant metaphor to offer Josh McDaniels about the lessons he has learned over the years, but it struck a chord with him anyway.
The Las Vegas Raiders head coach had taken refuge in some shade Thursday, ducking out of the 106-degree heat following his teams first full-squad training camp practice. As he began to explain the importance of learning how to subtract from his coaching plate over the course of his career, a visitor floated a clunky, half-remembered proverb.
I remember someone once saying that perfecting your painting is learning to understand what shouldnt be in it, the visitor said.
McDaniels eyes lit up.
Thats exactly thats such a great way to say it, McDaniels said.
With his second head coaching stint underway (or third, if you count the McDaniels-scuttled Indianapolis Colts job), he has zero illusions about what needed to be removed from his canvass. Or more specifically, since his late-season firing from the Denver Broncos in 2010 after coaching the team less than two seasons. He was 34 years old when that happened. Hes 46 now. And in his mind, a lot has changed since.
What does he know now that he didnt know then? That he doesnt want to be a general manager; doesnt expect everyone on his staff to recreate the New England Patriots experience; wants to focus on his own design rather than tracing the one created by Bill Belichick; and would rather be good at a few jobs in his building than micromanaging himself into an abyss.
[Set, hut, hike! Create or join a fantasy football league now!]
Hes not spending this second chance trying to fit into the identity of a head coach he was never comfortable replicating in the first place.
Its 12 years since I left [head coaching] the first time, and sometimes you hear people say that they took some time and they tried to figure things out, McDaniels said. To each person, that means different things. For me, what I was trying to get done was, let me really stop and self-reflect on, what did I do that was clearly wrong? Its humbling. You have to really drop your ego and say to yourself, Man, I stunk at that. That was a really bad decision. Or, I didnt treat that person the way that I wanted to treat them all the time.
Story continues
At one point, McDaniels summed up the Denver experience about as succinctly as possible: It was crazy and I was young and everything else.
Since leaving New England this offseason to take the Raiders job, he has been expansive and humble about that part of his career. He doesnt treat it as a sore subject or some type of failure that hed rather avoid in conversation. That means something, given that most coaches are left with some mental scars after being ousted from their first head coaching job.
Instead, he draws that memory closer, talks about what he learned going 11-17 over those two seasons. History mostly remembers the fallout and trade of quarterback Jay Cutler and multiple run-ins with star wideout Brandon Marshall. McDaniels frames it as an overall struggle with not knowing how to navigate people, and not understanding himself and what an attempt at recreating the Patriots culture would take out of him. His results screamed of failed imitation rather than organic innovation.
Josh McDaniels says he has learned a lot from his failures in Denver, his reneging on Indianapolis and his reboot with New England. The Raiders hope it leads them to the Super Bowl. (AP Photo/John Locher)
In a way, thats how he was forced to begin recreating himself. After a one-year stint as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach with the St. Louis Rams in 2011, McDaniels began a decade-long process of reevaluation during his second stint as offensive coordinator of the Patriots. A period of reflection that helped him take a confident leap into a new job with the Raiders, an opportunity many predicted would never come after he backed out on an agreement to become the head coach of the Colts in 2018.
To go back to New England and be watching [Belichick] run such an incredibly first-class organization and hes got it working the way he wants it to work, I was able to see that for a second go-round, McDaniels said. But Bill OBrien left. [Matt Patricia] left. [Brian Flores] left. Joe [Judge] had left. So I got an opportunity to kind of watch [other New England coaches] from afar as youre processing some of the things you would do different.
Heres what he learned from that.
That its really important for me and for anybody that leaves there you can take a lot of the football philosophies and a lot of the strategic things that apply to winning and losing on a Sunday, but I think the interpersonal workings of every relationship in every organization are going to be different, McDaniels said. Thats what I learned the hard way. Now Im trying to make a concerted effort to do it all the right way as much as I can.
In retrospect, a large part of the failure in Denver was McDaniels butting heads with Cutler within his first couple months on the job and trading him shortly afterward. That initial misstep looks far more like the failure of two young and stubborn people who had a lot of maturing to do.
Even if McDaniels' steadfast critics are willing to accept that his hiring in Denver was too young and too soon, they wont let him off easily for what happened with the Colts. The fact remains that he hired three assistant coaches, changed the trajectory of their lives ... and then walked away. History will also remember that one of those coaches was defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus, who was one of the best coordinators in the NFL over the past four years before landing a head coaching job with the Bears this offseason.
Theres a few more layers to the Colts situation that haven't been adequately considered, too. Andrew Luck had missed the previous season with shoulder surgery and been remarkably beaten up in his short career. McDaniels also didnt have a track record with general manager Chris Ballard, and the two were getting to know each other during the courting process. Even when it looked like a slam-dunk of a job, McDaniels was uneasy about it. And when Patriots owner Robert Kraft sensed he might have an opening, he seized upon it to bring McDaniels back for four more seasons.
The fallout of that decision and the criticism that followed ultimately made the McDaniels-Raiders union possible. He knew that if he ever left the Patriots again, there would not only be no going back, but it would have to be accompanied by Dave Ziegler as general manager. Former teammates at John Carroll University and the best of friends, that is who McDaniels wanted to pair with. Because who needs to worry about being a GM when your longtime friend and trusted confidant is filling that role? And can shape a personnel department that knows precisely how to scout for the coaching staff it's working with?
Josh McDaniels learned a lot from Bill Belichick, but he knows trying to replicate his way of doing things elsewhere is a mistake. (Nick Cammett/Diamond Images/Getty Images)
This is what the Raiders have working for them now. Not only has the dynamic tension (often friction) between former head coach Jon Gruden and former general manager Mike Mayock disappeared into the blast-furnace wind of Las Vegas, it has been replaced by two leaders who are in lockstep in every single decision. And theyre being supported by a revamped supporting structure.
For perhaps the first time under Mark Davis' team ownership, departments are now fully streamlined and staffed at every level, from business to football to administration. The purse strings for more aggressive roster-building have been loosened. Even Davis is making himself more available to McDaniels and Ziegler than any previous regime, while also surrendering the full authority for the tandem to build out the football organization as they see fit.
Thats how you get a 2022 edition of the Raiders that reshuffled the entire coaching and personnel staffs but loaded up with pricey veteran additions like Davante Adams and Chandler Jones rather than rebuilding. Because McDaniels and Ziegler believed in it, winning the trust of Davis to sign off.
Even with all those changes, a lot of the success and failure will come down to the Raiders' culture. And the culture will come down to whether McDaniels can live up to his embrace of concentrating on people more, micromanaging less and trusting his functional design rather than trying to recreate a Stalinesque Patriots blueprint that has never been successfully replicated outside of New England.
Ive let that go, McDaniels said. Ive just realized over time, really at the end of the day, you have to give people a great opportunity to do their job. And sometimes that means youre going to have to accept different. And I think some of us that have left the Patriots have gotten frustrated at times with, man, everything isnt the way that I remember it being in New England. And you know what? It aint gonna be. Its never going to be. Ive come to that conclusion and honestly, Im at such peace with the way we do things, while understanding that isnt the way that everything was done there.
See original here:
- NBA playoffs: Bucks G Patrick Beverley chucks ball at multiple Pacers fans amid elimination - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Britney Spears says she feels 'harassed' after paramedics respond to incident at Chateau Marmont: The latest - Yahoo Entertainment - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- How the Knicks' special chemistry helped them turn back the 76ers - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- 11 stocks that mattered most this earnings season - Yahoo Finance - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Fed holds interest rates at 23-year high, citing 'lack of further progress' on inflation - Yahoo Finance - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Odell Beckham Jr. reportedly signing 1-year, $8.25 million deal to join Dolphins - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- How to watch the 2024 Kentucky Derby: Post positions, odds, where to stream and more - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- The Buzz: What would a fantasy baseball draft look like today? - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- 2nd Boeing whistleblower found dead. Here's a timeline of the company's mounting problems. - Yahoo! Voices - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Trump trial live updates: Hope Hicks called to the stand as testimony resumes in hush money case - Yahoo! Voices - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Brandon Aubrey thinks soccer background will "absolutely" help with new kickoffs - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Kentucky Derby: Fierceness' odds keep shrinking ahead of the 150th race - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- How to watch the 2024 WNBA preseason tonight: Caitlin Clark's first Indiana Fever game time, channel and more - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Amazon Web Services CEO: We're on track to hit $100 billion in sales in 2024 - Yahoo Finance - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- NFL Power Rankings, draft edition: Did Patriots fix their offensive issues? - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Lynch reveals how he engaged Shanahan on 49ers GM job - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Drake, Adele, and others are following Taylor Swift back onto TikTok after Universal deal - Yahoo Finance - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Boss Orders Employee 'Be Prepared To Cancel Or Reschedule Your Wedding' After Layoffs, Despite Her Giving A ... - Yahoo Finance - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- May Reliever Rankings - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Kyle Hendricks pelted by a line drive during Double-A start - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- China publicizes for the first time what it claims is a 2016 agreement with Philippines - Yahoo! Voices - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- What Pearsall believes Green will bring to 49ers defense - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- What to know about Rickwood Field ahead of Giants-Cardinals game - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Biden says Americans have 'right to protest but not the right to cause chaos' on college campuses after another night of ... - Yahoo! Voices - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Billam-Smith 'motivated to avenge loss' to Riakporhe - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Chinese Grand Prix 2024: How to watch tonight's F1 race without cable - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Was it legal for Kristi Noem to shoot her puppy and what other options did she have? - Yahoo! Voices - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Apple unveils record $110 billion buyback as results beat low expectations - Yahoo Finance - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Paramount has spent a decade as the source of buyout rumors. That might finally come to an end. - Yahoo Finance - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- Lynch reveals hilarious truth about transition from player to GM - Yahoo Sports - May 3rd, 2024 [May 3rd, 2024]
- 7 Social Security Shakeups You Need To Be Ready For Heading Into the New Year - Yahoo Finance - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Crypto had a surprisingly great year. It still faces threats in 2024. - Yahoo Finance - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- 'How the hell does that even happen?' McCarthy exits Congress amid confusion over who can run to replace him - Yahoo News - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Short sellers lost close to $178 billion in 2023 - Yahoo Finance - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Trump legal news brief: Giuliani files for bankruptcy after judge rules he must immediately pay $148 million for election ... - Yahoo News - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- No One Wants Used EVs, Making New Ones a Tougher Sell Too - Yahoo Finance - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Israel's military campaign in Gaza seen as among the most destructive in recent history, experts say - Yahoo News - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Barbara Corcoran Says Housing Prices 'Are Going To Go Through the Roof' But When? - Yahoo Finance - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Are You Wealthy? The Net Worth You Need To Be Considered Poor, Middle-Class And Wealthy In America - Yahoo Finance - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- German bishop Btzing criticizes pope over Ukraine and Israel stance - Yahoo News - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- 'Severe revenue decline': California faces a record $68 billion deficit here's what is eating away at the Golden State's ... - Yahoo Finance - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Poll: Trump is tied with Biden for now but criminal trials and unpopular plans pose risks for 2024 - Yahoo News - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Rudy Giuliani files for bankruptcy days after being ordered to pay $148 million in defamation case - Yahoo News - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- 'It's just bragging rights': Once you achieve this credit score there's 'no benefit' to scoring higher, expert says here are ... - Yahoo Finance - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Records released by House Republicans show that Joe Biden repeatedly emailed Hunter Biden's business associate ... - Yahoo News - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Tesla Getting Trounced by S&P 500 Three Years After Joining - Yahoo Finance - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Ukrainian forces shoot down three Russian Su-34 fighter jets on southern front - Yahoo News - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- The only AI 'regulation' coming is from workers - Yahoo Finance - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Innocent Black Man Spent 50 Years in Prison, His Compensation Will Annoy The Hell out of You - Yahoo News - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Texas begins flying migrants from southern border to Chicago. The 1st plane carried over 120 people - Yahoo News - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Donald Trump Is Running Scared - Yahoo News - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- The biggest 2024 threat to Big Tech is coming from both sides of the Atlantic - Yahoo Finance - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Apple halts online sales of its Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 - Yahoo Finance - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- 2023 FIBA World Cup: Jaren Jackson Jr.'s elite rim protection and defensive presence come with a price - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- Fantasy Football Rankings: These are the hardest players to ... - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- Cowboys QB Dak Prescott feels for Will Grier after Trey Lance deal, not worried about future in Dallas - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- Massive alligator captured in Mississippi is a new state record. Nightmare material - Yahoo! Voices - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- Virginia Gov. Youngkin eyes a 15-week abortion ban as a 'consensus' voters would back - Yahoo News - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- Poll: Trump could be in big trouble for 2024 if convicted of crimes - Yahoo News - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- 'She-Hulk' star Tatiana Maslany nearly brought to tears after overcoming fears of heights and cold with the help of Bear Grylls - Yahoo Entertainment - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- Don't feel guilty about being lazy. Experts say there are some health benefits. - Yahoo Life - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- Center Paolo Banchero helps Team USA power past physical New Zealand in FIBA World Cup - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- Tyreek Hill says Tua's response to ESPN criticism 'fires me up,' shows Dolphins something they've never seen - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- USA's Katie Moon, Australia's Nina Kennedy agree to share pole vault gold after tie atop World Athletics Championships - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- Blue Jays' Bo Bichette, Matt Chapman leave game vs. Guardians with injuries - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- Benches clear twice as Rays roll past Yankees 7-4: 'It's a last-place team' - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- All-Pro Chris Jones says hes willing to extend Chiefs holdout through Week 8 - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- Fyre Festival II: Andy King confirms he's working with Billy McFarland for 'redemption'; 1st drop sells out - Yahoo Entertainment - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- Pirates first overall pick Paul Skenes doesn't make it out of 1st inning in Double-A debut - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- U.S. men and women sweep gold in 4x100m relay at World Championships - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- Spain soccer president Luis Rubiales apologizes for kissing player, as calls for his resignation mount - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- COVID cases are rising. What are schools doing about it? - Yahoo Life - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- Nicolas Batum ashamed and scared to go home after France is knocked out of FIBA World Cup - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- Tour Championship: How much did Viktor Hovland, others earn at East Lake? - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- The Daily Sweat: Cubs get chance to cut into streaking Brewers' NL Central lead - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- NASCAR: Chris Buescher wins at Daytona after Ryan Preece's car flips at least 10 times in terrifying crash - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- With college sports more in flux than ever before, new players association group emerges - Yahoo Sports - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- NFL Hall of Fame Game: How to watch the 2023 NFL preseason opener - Yahoo Sports - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- 2023 NFL preseason: How to watch, full schedule, streaming info and more - Yahoo Sports - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- Reports: Colts considering placing Jonathan Taylor on NFI list, which could negate his 2023 salary - Yahoo Sports - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]