Josh McDaniels is off to a new adventure as a head coach as he’s been hired by the Las Vegas Raiders for the 2022 NFL season. He leaves behind 20 years working for the New England Patriots, 14 of them as the offensive coordinator.
McDaniels has certainly been an important person for Mac Jones in his rookie season, so the quarterback’ssecond year in the league will probably feel kind of different with another person calling the offensive plays.
However, this is not the first time aBill Belichick assistant chases a new challenge on his own and McDaniels is confident on what the Alabama Crimson Tide product can bring to the table in the future.
Josh McDaniels is full of praise forMac Jones
“Mac’s a great kid,” McDanielssaid, as quoted by Boston.com. “He works extremely hard. I was really fortunate to have a chance to coach him. The people who touched Mac Jones prior to him coming to New England deserve a tremendous amount of credit. The people who coached him in high school, the people who coached him at Alabama, the parents that raised him, they did a great job with him as a human being.”
“I’m not sure I’ve been around a more mature young football player in terms of understanding the game and being able to process at such a speed and such a level that Mac was. I don’t have any doubt that he’s going to meet the challenge head on. I wish him nothing but the best and I’ll be pulling for him except for when he plays Vegas this year.”
Drafted with the 15th overall pick last year, Jones has made quite an impression in his rookie season. He quickly won the starting job over Cam Newton and proved to be a mature quarterback for his age on several occasions. So it will be interesting to see how he develops in New England.
Meanwhile, Josh McDaniels has also explained that he wanted to be a head coach for a long time but made clear thathe’s grateful to the Patriots for all their years together:“This was just an opportunity I felt I couldn’t pass up. I’ve waited a long time to try to have an opportunity to do this. What they’ve done for me, the opportunities they’ve given me, what they’ve rewarded me with personally and professionally, there was no need to do anything like that. This was really a decision about what was best for me at this time and the challenge I could take on in Vegas.”