By Jordan Long
The Las Vegas Raiders are expected to hire Josh McDaniels as their next Head Coach. This will be Josh McDaniels’ second Head Coaching job ever as he replaces Jon Gruden. The Raiders fired Gruden 5 games into the season.
Gruden was hired by the Raiders organization in the 2018 offseason. This was his second stint as the Raiders’ Head Coach. His first lasted from 1998 to 2001. In this second stretch, the Raiders went 22-31 under Gruden, a winning percentage of .415. The Raiders forced him to resign 5 games into the season due to emails he sent to the league. At the time Las Vegas was 3-2. Special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia took over and guided the Raiders to a 7-5 record the rest of the way. The Raiders earned a playoff spot as the Wild Card team, finishing at 10-7. They lost in the Wild Card Round to the Cincinnati Bengals 26-19. It seemed likeBisaccia was going to be the next Head Coach. It would be Bisacci’as job to lose since he did a great job coaching them. The Raiders though had to talk to other candidates to fill their void.
The Raiders decided to go with a coordinator with Head Coaching experience, New England Patriots’ Offensive Coordinator Josh McDaniels. McDaniels spent two years as the Head Coach of the Denver Broncos from 2009 to 12 games into the 2010 season. The Broncos started 6-0 with him but went 5-17 after the strong start. Denver was 3-9 when they let him go in 2010. McDaniels was a disappointing 11-17 in the Mile High City. His winning percentage was an awful .393.
The problem with McDaniels was Denver gave him too much power. He was the General Manager as well and could make all the personnel moves he wanted. He traded quarterback Jay Cutler to the Chicago Bears for Kyle Orton on April 2nd, 2009. He also sent their best receiver at the time, Brandon Marshall, to Miami on April 14th, 2010.
The last straw with McDaniels was when Steve Scarnecchia who was the team’s director of video operations at the time recorded a 49ers’ walkthrough practice prior to the Broncos’ game against them in London which is against NFL rules. The game took place on October 31, 2010. Denver ended up losing the game 24-16.
McDaniels was canned by the Broncos on December 6th, 2010. He spent 1 year with the Rams as their Offensive Coordinator before returning to New England for the 2012 season. He has been there ever since.
McDaniels had a chance to become the Colts Head Coach in 2018. He even accepted the job on February 6th but had a change of heart the same day. He returned to New England. The Colts hired Frank Reich on February 11th, 2018.
McDaniels is now going to be the Raiders Head Coach but at least he doesn’t have the power of being a General Manager, too. The Raiders are going to hire Dave Ziegler for that job. This means McDaniels won’t have final say on roster moves.
McDaniels is lucky to have this opportunity to help the Raiders become a Super Bowl winning team. They have pieces on offense to work with including quarterback Derek Carr, wide receivers Bryan Edwards and Hunter Renfrow, tight end Daran Waller, and running backs Josh Jacobs and Kenyan Drake.
McDaniels should help this offense be one of the top in the league. They could be dangerous with his play calling. The playoffs are a great accomplishment but the Raiders want to build a Super Bowl team. The franchise hasn’t won a Super Bowl since Super Bowl 18 when they defeated Washington 38-9. The last time they appeared in the Super Bowl was Super Bowl 37 when they were blown out by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 48-21.
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