The Las Vegas Raiders raided the New England Patriots to fill vacancies when they hired Josh McDaniel as their next head coach and Dave Ziegler as the new general manager.
McDaniel has been the offensive coordinator of the Patriots since 2012, while Ziegler was the head of player personnel in New England. Ziegler and McDaniel are college pals from John Carroll University, where they both played varsity football together.
The Raiders fired GM Mike Mayock a couple of weeks ago and tapped Ziegler to replace him.
Former head coach Jon Gruden quit in the middle of the season in the wake of a brewing email scandal involving the Washington Football Team. Rich Bisacci took over the Raiders as the interim head coach in October, guiding the team to a 10-7 record and an AFC wild-card berth.
Many players, including quarterback Derek Carr, lobbied owner Mark Davis to promote Bisacci to full-time head coach. However, Davis opted to snag one of the most prominent offensive coordinators in the NFL to fill the position.
The Raiders hiring McDaniel as their new head coach didn’t have an impact on the betting markets. The Raiders remain steady at +5000 odds to win Super Bowl 57, according to a look-ahead line on the NFL futures board at DraftKings.
Nine teams were searching for new head coaches this offseason, but in the last week, the New York Giants hired Brian Daboll, the Chicago Bears hired Matt Eberflus, and the Denver Broncos hired Nathaniel Hackett.
McDaniel enters the stacked AFC West
The move to the AFC West seems a tad baffling. McDaniel will have to coach against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, plus Justin Herbert and the LA Chargers over the next decade if he wants to contend for an AFC West title. Moreover, if Aaron Rodgers decides to join the Denver Broncos next season, McDaniel and the Raiders will face three supreme quarterbacks at least twice a season.
There’s also a rumor out there that Rodgers could also join the Raiders next season, if they edge out the Broncos for his services. So, does McDaniel know something that we don’t? Or was it finally time to leave New England?
McDaniel was ready to succeed Bill Belichick as the next head coach of the Patriots if/when he stepped down. But it doesn’t seem like Belichick is going to retire anytime soon, which is why McDaniel decided to explore other opportunities as a head coach.
McDaniel has a disastrous stint as a head coach with the Denver Broncos with an 11-17 record. He didn’t get to finish out his second season in 2010 when he got fired after an ugly 3-9 start.
In 2012, Belichick re-hired McDaniel for his second stint as the Patriots’ OC. McDaniel won the Super Bowl six times during two different stints with the Patriots between 2001-08 and 2012-2021.
In 2018, the Indianapolis Colts tried to hire McDaniel to fill a head coaching vacancy, but he got cold feet and decided to stay with the Patriots.