Josh McDaniels is still waxing poetic about his time with the NFL’s GOAT, Tom Brady. The two spent 18 years together with the New England Patriots, Brady serving as the superstar QB, and McDaniels spitting plays into his ear from the sidelines as the offensive coordinator.
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McDaniels spent time in New England in two stints. From 2001 to 2008, he was a young gun in the coaching staff, climbing up the rankings from personnel assistant in 2001 to OC in 2008. After a disappointing three years elsewhere in the league, he returned to the comfort of Gillette Stadium in 2012, again serving as the Pats’ OC until 2021.
Once again, McDaniels’ foray out into the rest of the NFL world did not work out. He was fired after 1+ seasons as the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.
Now, without a major job for this season, McDaniels has tons of time to reminisce about his NFL successes—all of which came via his partnership with Brady. He went on The Herd with Colin Cowherd this week to discuss this flourishing relationship.
“The more Tom played, the more success he had, the more he understood what he liked and what he didn’t like. It certainly became a huge back and forth for us. I have emails that are pages and pages long of things that he liked and things that he didn’t like.”
“I think that’s what you have to do nowadays. When the quarterback has thoughts and opinions and ideas of what he feels good about, you certainly have to take all that in and try to figure out what’s the right blend of things that fit that week against that team,” he added.
He not only discussed the length of some of the emails he exchanged with his legendary QB but also the frequency of their communication. It wasn’t limited to practice days.
“Tommy was not shy about giving input on those kinds of things, and he earned it. We’d usually be emailing on Monday, Tuesday, and then obviously we’d be at practice Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and try to nail it down. But we were emailing on Friday night and Saturday morning as well, just to finalize the game plan.”
“When you have a guy like him, Pat Mahomes, Allen, Lamar, these guys… they’ve earned the right to give you their input and you need to take that input in and try to figure out how to utilize it in the best way,” he further said.
McDaniels is correct on one thing: coaches need to listen to players more. They’re the ones out there, and they know better than anyone their own strengths and weaknesses.
Josh McDaniels and Tom Brady are the most successful QB-OC duo
The reason he struggled at every stop except in New England is clear: Josh McDaniels doesn’t have enough respect for the middle-of-the-road type players. He qualified the idea that coaches need to listen to players by saying that he’s referring specifically to players who have supposedly “earned” the right to have their input heard by the coaching staff.
That’s probably why he floundered with subpar QBs such as Kyle Orton, Gardner Minshew, and Jimmy Garropolo, while having so much success with a high-level player like Brady. And boy, did they have some success in those 18 years.
The pair were so in sync that they even got one over on iconic head coach Bill Belichick. A couple of months ago in September, Brady revealed a little trick McDaniels used to use on Belichick.
The defensive-minded Belichick was adamant that the team not have too lengthy a play-call sheet. He wanted 100 plays or less. Brady broke down how he and McDaniels were able to sneak references to other plays onto the sheet with asterisks carrying his initials.
“There was about 95 [plays], and then Josh always hid plays in here from Bill, because Bill always wanted to never [have] a high play count. We’d probably end up having 150 plays.”
The Patriots had McDaniels as their OC and Brady as their QB from 2006 to 2008 (though Brady didn’t play in 2008 due to injury). Subsequently, McDaniels left to serve as HC for the Denver Broncos and OC for the St. Louis Rams.
They employed the duo again from 2012 to 2019 before Brady departed for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
That’s 10 total seasons. During that time, they reached the conference championship in all but one season, which was their final together, in 2019. They also won three Super Bowls and lost two more.
The pair had a top-8 scoring offense in all 10 years together, and they were top-four in eight of those campaigns. They were also the top-ranked offense twice. Once in 2012 and once in 2007, when McDaniels and Brady put together what is arguably the greatest offensive campaign in NFL history.
