State of the
The Evolution Of A Coach Josh McDaniels’ fire and rigidity come from the same place by Jeremy Bolander
“I
f you love the game, it will love you back.” Josh McDaniels is listening to his father, standing at the edge of a swath of practice field in Canton, OH, home of the McKinley Bulldogs. By his height, you would guess Josh to be a boy of four or five years old. It is six a.m. on a crisp fall morning, and a shiver passes through the boy, a first shudder of awakening as his breath hangs before him like an evaporating veil. The sun has yet to rise, but if the boy is cold, he doesn’t notice. He watches his father nearby, Thom McDaniels, coach of the Bulldogs, and he listens to the crackle of the stiff, frozen grass beneath Thom’s feet as he prepares to start the first of two-a-day practices for the high school players. The little boy is out of place among them, carrying a football tight to his chest, following his dad’s footsteps around the edges of the field, while Thom calls out to the players, corrects them, prepares them for Friday, when Fawcett Stadium’s 22,500 seats will be filled with the shouts and cheers of fans. Thom’s words spur the players on, and soon the heat of practice replaces the predawn chill. Thom has words for Josh as well, delivered with a smile, pointing to what is going on out on the practice field. But Josh is only four. He knows his father and he knows what a football is, but he can’t understand why the players must run drills, why they must huddle before a play, why they have to start so early, even when it is so cold out. Thom takes a knee close beside the boy for a moment, their eyes on the steaming field before them as the sun emerges and the frost that once coated everything yields to the warm breath of dawn. Josh doesn’t understand any of these things, yet. But he will.
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State of the Franchise
The Coach’s Son “I’m going to tell you right now, most guys don’t go through what Josh McDaniels went through in high school,” said Jack Rose, coach of Massillon Washington High School, the archrival of McKinley. “The people of McKinley were tough to play for. “People will never understand the pressure Josh was under his whole high school career. He was a real good player, had a great winning record, and people were always complaining about him. But it toughened him. It made him stronger.” Rose would know. He spent the first two years of his Massillon career on the hot seat, not because he was losing games (he was undefeated at 9–0 before playing McKinley in his second year), but because he only seemed to lose to McKinley. A big part of what made it tough for Josh McDaniels were the cries of nepotism that rang out when the coach made his son the starting QB. Despite his success in building the Bulldogs up into a powerhouse high school team, fifth in the nation at one point, it was not unusual for the McDaniels’ yard to be littered with signs calling for the elder McDaniels to be fired, for his son to be benched after a loss—usually the only loss of the season.
In 1992, when Josh was a sophomore, Thom tried to assuage the tides of doubt by pointing out that Josh had the most thorough knowledge of the offense “inside and out” of anyone on the team. It didn’t work. The fans’ frosty reception had extremes that were downright scary, including death threats and threats to kidnap his children. The McDaniels boys would travel to school with a police escort for a time over that one. Thom’s childhood reminder stuck with Josh: “Love the game, and it will love you back.” He stayed focused on the fact that his father wasn’t the first coach to see fit to start him, and the knowledge that most of the fans were expressing a love of their team in their mistrust of him. “The people of Canton love this game… Football is next to nothing.” McDaniels said. “It is where I learned to love the game.” Josh knew he just had to make them realize they had misplaced their mistrust, and in time he was able to warm the skeptics up to him, posting a 9–1 record as a sophomore, then again going 9–1 as a junior in ’93. The strain of the events would provide the reminder that people are not always open to new things, especially when their most cherished traditions are involved. Not that he needed a reminder.
“If you love the game, it will love you back.” 70 | Maple Street Press Broncos Annual 2010
The firing of Mike Shanahan, followed only two weeks later by the hiring of Josh McDaniels, came as a sort of doublewhammy to Broncos Country. Despite the failing structure of the team that Shanahan had slapped together in the shadow of his 35,000 foot palatial estate, it was difficult to pick up the pieces of his 15-year tenure, including the success that had earned him the unprescient title of ‘coach-for-life.’ Add to that the staggering confusion created by the hiring of a virtual unknown in McDaniels, and Broncos fans were reeling. The lazy eye of the critics was once again wandering off topic, describing McDaniels in irrelevant terms, the most notable of which was that he was a clone of Patriots coach Bill Belichick, a concept meant to disparage him as standoffish, emotionless with players, domineering in the front office, and arrogant to a fault. All this before having met him. When Josh proclaimed in his introductory Broncos press conference that he respected his mentor, Belichick, very much, and he couldn’t wait to see his ‘hoodie,’ the howls were deafening. Rationalizations abounded as well, from accusing McDaniels of having no experience coaching a defense (believed to be Denver’s biggest weakness), to accusations of having no experience working with players, to outrageous proclamations of no experience whatsoever, claiming that, at 32, he wasn’t capable of knowing anything. McDaniels had seen it all before.
Photo on previous page: Doug Pensinger/Staff Photo this page: Tom Hauck/Getty Images
The BelichIck Clone
Photo: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
The Evolution Of A Coach He wasn’t worried that he was unprepared, and once again, Thom tried to set people’s minds at ease, seemingly pointing out the obvious. “I think the quality of a person’s experiences matters far much more than how many years a person has accumulated,” he said. But once again, no one was listening. No one heard about how Josh went to John Carroll straight out of high school and impressed the coaches with his in-depth film study. “Most of the time when kids look at film, they look only at themselves,” said Greg Debeljak, McDaniels’ wide receivers coach at John Carroll, now the head coach at Case Western. “Josh saw the big picture more than anybody else we’ve ever had.” When Nick Saban contacted Josh for a graduate spot on his Michigan State staff, Josh jumped at the opportunity, and would impress both Saban and one of his assistants, Brian Daboll. Daboll would go on to join the Patriots staff, but could advance up the coaching ladder only if he could find someone to fulfill his duties in the personnel department. So he called up Josh McDaniels, and thus began McDaniels’ NFL coaching career under Bill Belichick. Josh started in personnel in 2001, and was soon promoted to the defensive staff where he would scout opponents, break down film, and create details for the week’s game plan. In 2002, he was promoted to coaching the defensive backs specifically. By 2004, he had been promoted to quarterbacks coach, responsible for none other than Tom Brady, and soon he had earned Brady’s respect, by first respecting Brady. “I earned his trust, which took a little while—I didn’t try to overstep my boundaries, didn’t come in the first day of training camp and try to show him how to hold the ball or take a drop—I felt it out a little bit, we worked more together, talked about things he wanted to work on as a twosome, and I wouldn’t add my little two cents until we felt like we were comfortable with each other.” This close relationship led to Josh taking over playcalling duties when offensive coordinator Charlie Weis moved on to coach Notre Dame for the 2005 season. Josh would go on to coach the 2007 New England offense to an 18–1 record as the most prolific scoring offenses in NFL history, and would close out his New England career with three earned in three different positions. But his arrival in Denver seemed to herald none of these things. The cold shoulder of the critics was once again turned on him, and more attention was given to struggling former New England coordinators Weis, Eric Mangini, and Romeo Crennel. That will be the Broncos’ fate, the critics wailed. And then, barely two months into his head coaching debut, McDaniels would find himself mired in one of the most heated offseason catastrophes since a player mutiny ousted Broncos coach John Ralston in 1976.
Josh McDaniels was well prepared for signs like this.
Massillon 42–McKinley 41 What if you love the game, but it doesn’t love you back? Despite the tribulations enmeshed with becoming the starting quarterback for McKinley High, a well-thrown football away from the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Josh still managed to string together enough wins, including a 9–1 season that got the Bulldogs to the playoffs, to convert believers over to his side. And they all agreed Josh had a special fire when he played. It turned out it was a fire fed by the combustion of timid thoughts, and McDaniels became known for his toughness and resiliency. “He was the kid who knew that his dad had death threats because we didn’t win enough, or we didn’t win by enough,” Thom said. “The thing I am proudest of is his toughness. He is a tough kid.” And Josh understood why that toughness was necessary, even then. “Mental and physical toughness was something you better have had, playing in the city we played in, playing for my dad,” Josh said. “In Canton, if you aren’t playing at the top of the mountain, it is never good enough.” And no point seemed as high as the 100th meeting between archrivals Massillon and McKinley. McDaniels, who was both the kicker and quarterback for the Bulldogs, had been preparing for this game. The previous summer he had attended a kicking camp at Paul Brown Tigers Stadium, home of the Massillon Tigers. After a long day of camp, he and Massillon kicker Nick Pribich had a friendly competition in the quiet north end zone, under the watchful ghosts of rivalries past, 19,000 strong in the deserted coliseum. The competition would be a harbinger of things to come. They lined up and dreamed up the following scenario: 100th meeting, game tied, one kick takes it all. In the actual
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McDaniels moved up the coaching ladder quickly in New England.
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Coach McKid He may as well have been a kid again. That was certainly how he was portrayed during and after the Jay Cutler saga exploded on the scene February 28, 2009, less than two months after McDaniels took the reins as the head coach of the Broncos. He was accused of lying to his players, refusing to cooperate with Cutler’s demands, and of mishandling the situation like a clumsy toddler just learning to walk. All of which went against everything he had been taught, or believed up to that point. In treating his players honestly and forthrightly, McDaniels had built up a reputation, stemming from his father, Thom, and extending to the offenses he coached in New England. “There is a business side of it, but there are also plenty of relationships you can hold outside of that aspect of it,” McDaniels said. “I try not to separate the two. I love those guys in that locker room. I know that some aren’t going to be here forever, and some are going to be here longer than others. But when they are out there playing, practicing, in meetings, they are all your guys. You have got to treat them like that.” This attitude toward his players was instilled in him from years of seeing how his dad treated players—like members of the family, to be protected and cared for. “I watched some 200
Photo: Joe Robbins/Getty Images
100th game Massillon and McKinley would trade blows, scoring touchdown after touchdown on their way to a 35–35 tie, and overtime. In overtime, the teams would once again match touchdowns, and the difference would come down to the extra points, kicked by Pribich and McDaniels, just as it did on that far away summer night in the darkened end zone. On that night, McDaniels imagined the situation perfectly, and lofted the ball equally well off his foot. Its course was true and when Pribich failed to connect on his kick, McDaniels was the victor. But in the actual 100th meeting, beneath the stares of 19,000 plus warm, breathing bodies, clamoring at the spectacle, it was Pribich’s kick that sailed through the uprights. And McDaniels’ attempt? “Wide right,” Thom said after the game, emotion in his voice. “The snap was good. The hold was good. The kick was not good. It is something we have got to live with.” The greatest rivalry game in all of high school football had seen Josh McDaniels not at the pinnacle, but at its lowest depths. He knelt on the sideline as the game ended and Massillon celebrated its victory. Thom stood beside him, his hand on Josh’s head. Nothing was said. What could be? When you do everything you can, and it isn’t enough, what is left?
Photo: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
The Evolution Of A Coach games standing right beside him, growing up. It is an invaluable experience to have as a young kid.” And what did McDaniel see? Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said it most clearly. “The McDaniels family is what football coaching is all about, and that is caring for the players and serving them daily… on and off the field.” In New England, players like Tom Brady, Ty Law, and others found themselves enamored of Josh’s honesty, and his forthright way of helping them, everyday. And yet McDaniels felt obligated to abandon these principles when faced with the Cutler situation? Not likely. In fact, from the beginning of their relationship, there were indications that McDaniels was going to have the temerity to stick to his principles regardless of what happened. Recognizing Cutler’s emotional state after the firing of his head coach and subsequent release of close friends on the staff, McDaniels didn’t rush any kind of communication with Cutler, instead making contact to compliment Cutler’s “talent and intelligence,” and to make it clear that he was excited to work with Jay. In time, Cutler seemed to have come around and admitted to finally being able to get over his initial reaction to Shanahan’s firing, and followed that up with reports on how he was embracing the challenge of learning the new offense and was excited by what he recognized to be a great degree of quarterback autonomy within the system once it was mastered. Even after the trade, rumors exploded on the scene at the start of free agency, McDaniels reiterated time and time again that the team was not interested in trading Cutler, and asked him to return to Denver for a face-to-face meeting, believing that in-person contact was the crucial next step needed to bring clarity to the situation. That step never came, a tactical move that spelled the end by requiring Cutler to also avoid the calls from the Broncos owner, the man who signed his checks: Pat Bowlen. And when there wasn’t face-to-face contact, neither was there the honest, clear communication that would have come with it. The result was a trade under less than ideal circumstances, and the damage was still being felt in the aftermath. “It was frustrating to watch Josh get somewhat vilified for that,” said Broncos chief operating officer Joe Ellis, who helped owner Pat Bowlen in the coaching search that landed McDaniels. “Because I know his communication, and any effort he made to communicate with the other party was straightforward and very clear. I would defend him to the end on how he approached it. I will tell you right now, if you have a problem with Josh McDaniels’ honesty, that is your problem, not his.” But the damage was done, and like the Massillon defeat, it appeared McDaniels had worked his way back up to the pinnacle only to slide back in ignominy.
The Durability of Fragile Things Something like the Massillon defeat has the potential to crush someone. After the epic game, local Canton reporter Steve Doershuck found Thom McDaniels on the field and inquired if it would be all right to interview Thom’s son. Thom indicated that it would be okay, but, “Not here,” Thom said. “Come back to Fawcett Stadium.” It took Doershuck some time to wrap up his work at Massillon and travel back to Canton, to see Josh at the stadium. He found the boy alone, in the locker room. Alone with his missed opportunity. Alone with the burden of wide right. He had been brought to that state by a love of the game, fostered by his father, encouraged by his family, both on and off the field. He had been told that “the game will love you back.” And when it didn’t? There was no answer for that in the loneliness of the dark locker room. The reality of what we are doing, what we are trying to accomplish, can be sobering in defeat. His physical labors had drained him, but they did nothing to reduce the stupor of finding himself where he was and knowing what he hadn’t been able to do. Principles are funny things. There is no choice about having them, of integrating the whole of our experience and our knowledge into our lives. There is only a choice of whether the principles we choose are true or false, whether they represent your true self, your best efforts and most rational convictions, or whether they are randomly clutched to us, a motley assortment of practical beliefs meant to temper
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State of the Franchise Later, Thom would say that after the game, Josh told a journalist that he was glad he had been the one to miss the kick. “I know that I am strong enough to handle it,” he had said. Whether stubborn or sublime, Josh had made his choice. He was sticking with what had got him there.
Failure to Compromise In the aftermath of the Jay Cutler saga, things didn’t look good for McDaniels as the season was set to begin. His hardline stance on dissidents Brandon Marshall and Tony Scheffler earned him even more reputation as a stubborn coach, unwilling to adjust his ideas to accommodate the stars on the team. This drama culminated early with a suspension of Marshall for the first game of the season, but seemed to pay dividends when the Broncos immediately got off to a hot start, going 6–0 in the first six games. The highlight of that run had to be the Patriots game in Week 5, when a victorious McDaniels would give off a spark that ignited many of the skeptics in the fan base, as well as critics from all over who had taken the time to weigh in on McDaniels’ future unlikelihood to succeed in the NFL. As Matt Prater nailed the game-winning field goal in overtime, McDaniels flew down the field, pumping his fist with excitement, followed by a gesture up into the stands, which was later learned to be a gesture towards where his family was watching the game. When asked about the finger-point, and the ensuing celebration with his players, including jumping into the arms of the waiting Kenny Peterson, McDaniels made it clear that he was still as passionate as ever about what he was there to accomplish.
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fear and stifle self-truth under a visage of conformity and harmlessness. Our principles are our fundamental truths, that which the rest of our being depends upon, and it is by this means that we may set ourselves the task of having long-range goals and dreams, or evaluate the concrete alternatives of any given moment. They are, at once, our now and our future, our plans and our means to achieve them. But they guarantee nothing. And when they lead us to a moment of failure the question becomes: Which is stronger, the principle or the man who wields it? The enigma of this agitation surrounded McDaniels in the locker room. His choices had brought him to that point and he had failed. His father had taught him to stick to his guns, stay true to what he believed in. Would he vacillate now? Would he bend with the same ill winds that pushed his kick to the right? What good was his love of the game to him now? Could he sustain it, knowing full well that it could lead him back here, just short of greatness? A principle can only be as tough, as durable, as the person who holds it. What was to become of this young man? What Doershuck saw in that locker room that night, he describes as “perfectly composed… poised beyond his years.” McDaniels didn’t speak of any struggle with his fate. He rejoiced that he had been a part of the historic game, and acknowledged that his kick cost them the game. “If there was a play I wish I could have back, it’s that kick,” McDaniels said. “I hit the first five… I pushed that one wide right. I’m proud to have been part of the game. I’m a captain, I have to continue to play my role as a captain next week in the playoffs.”
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Photo at top: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images Photo at bottom: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
The celebration in 2009 was short lived, but intense. “It doesn’t mean much if you can’t share it with somebody,” he said. “Sometimes you are allowed to have fun.” Earlier in the season, after a win at Dallas, he had celebrated with his star receiver Marshall, a sign that they had learned how to coexist with Marshall’s contract status. “I just think somewhere down the line, people think you need to try to keep that under wraps, not let it out,” McDaniels said. “We spend too much time trying to win, then all of a sudden you win and you try to bottle it up? When do you get to enjoy it? At the end of the season? No.” It turned out that it was wise of McDaniels to celebrate while he could. The ten games after the bye week saw an incredible topple from the level they had achieved at the beginning of the season. Two four-game losing streaks pulled them from playoff consideration early, and McDaniels was once again the stubborn coach who wouldn’t or couldn’t deal with his players, who struggled to call good games, and who seemed to fail right when the opportunity was at its greatest. It was Massillon all over again, only this time, he wasn’t alone. The locker room was crowded with players all looking to him, all questioning their commitment to his vision and his principles. He was preaching “Tough, smart, versatile players,” but that had accomplished only an eight-game slide out of the playoffs. He believed in good character in the locker room, guys who would look out for each other, and to that end sat a malingering Brandon Marshall and a dissident Tony Scheffler in the final week of the season, which became a loss to a division rival, at home, that cemented the Broncos’ role as also-rans in 2009.
Would McDaniels compromise and choose another path in returning the Broncos to their former glory? How far would he go down the trail he was blazing in Denver? How many more star players would he trade away rather than appease? How aggressive would he continue to be in acquiring “his” guys on “his” terms? The 2010 offseason provided sweeping answers. How many star players would he trade away? All of them if he had to, no one player would ever be bigger than the team, and Marshall and Scheffler netted a decent haul in draft picks that would be used to continue to build the team in the image McDaniels had been trained to value. How aggressive would he be? Could he practice conservative restraint at all? In the draft, he and general manager Brian Xanders would trade, acquire, re-trade, and spend no less than 19 picks moving forward and backwards in the draft, hauling in nine new players and 22 new college free agents. In the process, they would trade away a small ransom for lightning rod quarterback Tim Tebow, they would select two talented, but injured, wide receivers, and they would jump back into the draft late to take yet another defensive back and a pass rusher that no one had heard of. And his mantra of “tough, smart, versatile” was more prominent than ever. Far from backing down from his premises, he seemed to rely on them even more in defeat, despite where they led him. And he was talking to his father nearly every day.
From twirling whistles to hand gestures when speaking, Josh and Thom have a lot in common. Maple Street Press Broncos Annual 2010 | 75
State of the Franchise Nick Saban. Bill Belichick. Eventually, he would be the head coach of his own team, the Denver Broncos. From Belichick he took a philosophy for NFL success. “The philosophy is about how to win, that comes straight from Bill. I was there for eight years, and had a great deal of success being a part of that organization. The things they try to do to win games, we are trying to do those things here, in Denver, not because we are copying some other team, but because those things have been successful winning games in this league. It proves itself to be a very successful means of doing that.” From his father, McDaniels brings an attitude and style, “I would say that my teaching and coaching style are very similar to my father’s, my demeanor, the way I interact with players.” Kenny Peterson, who was coached by both men, agrees. “They’re both very methodical and meticulous,” Kenny said. “They want things done the right way and they want to win with good people. Thom is Josh’s foundation.”
“The one thing about my father I do take into this job every day is his passion,” Josh said. “There is nothing about this game that is unimportant to him.” Later, Josh would emphasize this point when explaining the Tebow pick. “I love this game so much,’’ he said. “I would die to have 53 guys here who love it as much as I do. I’m looking to find the right group of guys to accept our one singular goal—to win.” Nothing had changed since Massillon and the dark locker room. It could probably be argued that it was too late for McDaniels to believe in anything else, to be anyone else.
Massillon Revisited Josh McDaniels earned a second chance. After missing the kick in the 100th meeting of MassillonMcKinley, his team would win out the rest of the season, and earn the right to face Massillon in the playoffs. The game was played at the Rubber Bowl, the then home of the Akron Zips, and attendance was a staggering 34,208 to see the 101st meeting. It was the last time the Rubber Bowl would sell out. Early in a close defensive battle, McDaniels once again was called on for an extra point conversion, and he once again missed. It would end up being a critical reminder of his earlier failings when presented the opportunity to win. As the fourth quarter began, Massillon held the lead, 20–19. Again the difference was a single point. McDaniels would connect with receiver Mark Thewes, who he would later bring to the Broncos as an assistant, on a 46 yard pass play that would score a TD and give the Bulldogs the lead, and eventually the win. He would go on to work for
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Blue Sky, Black Cloud Heavy winds are assaulting Dove Valley, where the Broncos are working through offseason training, and McDaniels is moving between groups of practicing players. First a word to the quarterbacks, whose passes are being caught by 70 mile an hour gusts and falling incomplete to the left and right. Then he is speaking with position coaches at the edge of the field. Then he is sparring with the wide receivers, showing them how to get off the line quicker. The wind is strong enough to push the receivers out of their stance. The gusts spread their wings recklessly over the lowlands, and soon, an old pine topples near the edge of the practice area. The practice continues. It is easy to lose focus in the noncontact drills, and two players collide going for an errant ball. McDaniels shouts to the team, “Take care of each other!” His reminder is echoed around the field. McDaniels knows the winds are a transient thing, a temporary foe, a canaille that can be endured and put behind them. He knows that, to improve, his players must persist, despite the maltreatment of the winds. He sees the sky on the horizon, blotted by dark clouds, an unhealthy stain. A harbinger of difficulties that will soon face them. The practice has reached its close, and McDaniels gathers the players around him at the center of the field amid the dying winds. They are still learning. Getting better every day, but still learning. In time, they will all understand what they need to do to win. They press in tight around McDaniels, listening. So close you couldn’t squeeze a sheet of newsprint between them. MSP Jeremy Bolander has been covering the Broncos for Mile High Report since 2006, researching and authoring over 500 articles in that span. He was born during a Broncos training camp in 1978 and has been a fanatic ever since.
Photo: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
McDaniels keeps a close eye on everything.