Josh McDaniels Made Telling Admission About Learning From Bill Belichick

Josh McDaniels learned a lot from Bill Belichick. He was the New England Patriots offensive coordinator for many years. It was a good experience for McDaniels and he became a real star in New England. He had a short coaching stint in Detroit and it didn’t end well. Numerous teams showed interest in McDaniels over the years. However, Belichick didn’t want to give up on his great coordinator. Many interpreted this as a scenario in which McDaniels replaces Belichick following his retirement. Well, McDaniels didn’t really hide his desire to coach his own team. He even agreed to join the Indianapolis Colts as their new head coach. It didn’t happen and McDaniels continued working with the Patriots.

NFL teams stopped requesting interviews with the former Patriots OC with the Las Vegas Raiders being the only exception. McDaniels talked to the team and got the job. Simple as that.

Josh McDaniels is grateful for everything he learned from Bill Belichick

McDaniels will coach against Belichick and they will meet sooner than expected.  The Raiders head coach will be working with Jarrett Stidham as the Patriots traded him to Las Vegas earlier this offseason. McDaniels will also join forces with a few former Patriots assistants.

Is he trying to copy Belichick?

“I’m not Bill [Belichick], and I can’t be,” McDaniels said. “I’m just going to try to be myself and hopefully I can be a good leader for our team.”

McDaniels will develop his own scheme. Yes, he will apply all the things he learned from Belichick, but he won’t copy the legendary head coach. He can’t copy him. This is a golden opportunity for McDaniels and he better use it.

“I’ve been looking forward to an opportunity like this for a couple years now and I’m so blessed to have the staff that we have and the group that we have working, and the support staff that we have around me,” McDaniels said, via the Raiders’ official website. “They make my job easy. I’m just trying to keep us on schedule and on time and those kind of things, but I couldn’t say enough things about the staff here.”