Assessing McDaniels: Where coach has excelled and failed so far

By Case Keefer (contact)

Friday, Dec. 16, 2022 | 2 a.m.

It’s a big week for Raiders coach Josh McDaniels.

Not only must Las Vegas’ first-year coach steer his team back on course after its latest collapse, but he must do it against the franchise that helped elevate his career over the course of 16 years. McDaniels won six Super Bowls as a staff member with the New England Patriots, which travel to play the Raiders at 1:05 p.m. Sunday at Allegiant Stadium, where he rose to become the offensive coordinator and top assistant under his “great mentor” Bill Belichick.

“It’s obvious I wouldn’t be here, or even in the National Football League, if it wasn’t for Bill,” McDaniels said in his weekly Wednesday news conference this week.

A hallmark of Belichick’s 22-year tenure as head coach and de facto general manager with the Patriots has been a somewhat callous, and usually correct, approach towards personnel decisions. It’s too early to tell if McDaniels and Raiders general manager Dave Zielger, a fellow Patriots’ disciple, will act in a similar manner in Las Vegas but they’ve already hinted at it.

McDaniels specifically has described the final stretch of the season as a way to evaluate which players have a future with what he’s trying to build with the Raiders. But McDaniels deserves some assessment himself too.    

It might be less pressing considering his future with the team, at least into next season, has continually looked secure even when the Raiders were at some of their lowest points. But determining where McDaniels has excelled, and where he’s failed, more than three-fourths into his first season is a worthwhile exercise.

Let’s dive into it below by breaking down and grading McDaniels’ performance in several categories ahead of a meaningful game to him.  

Greatest Strength: Leadership

McDaniels’ first tenure as an NFL head coach, from 2009-2010 in Denver, was fraught with tales of his controlling nature and polarizing personality. The now 46-year-old consistently swore he had grown from that experience in the offseason, but the true evidence was always going to show itself in-season.

“The real test for whether McDaniels can maintain his calm will come if the Raiders hit a rough patch during the regular season,” I wrote in a Las Vegas Weekly piece previewing the year.

Well, the Raiders have hit several rough patches during a disappointing 5-8 year and McDaniels hasn’t changed his demeanor in the slightest. That might be annoying to some of the fan base, but it’s appreciated by the players.

The Raiders have routinely defended their coach with quarterback Derek Carr and wide receiver Davante Adams specifically praising owner Mark Davis’ vote of confidence after a loss to the Colts dropped the team to 2-7 on the year. McDaniels hasn’t lost the trust of his players or even come close, and there’s something to be said for that in a season as frustrating as this one.

Adams did publicly criticize his playcalling on one occasion, the type of decision that almost surely would have set off the younger McDaniels. But this time around, McDaniels praised Adams’ passion. The star player and coach met after the comments, as they do on a regular basis, to prevent any lingering issues.

Davis couldn’t ask for more from McDaniels when it comes to intangible qualities like attitude, professionalism and management. It’s an undoubted, if not underrated, requirement of being  a successful NFL coach — one McDaniels bungled the first time around but has since corrected.

Biggest Weakness: In-game decision-making

McDaniels should be thankful he entered the AFC West alongside fellow new coach Nathaniel Hackett of the Denver Broncos this offseason. Hackett’s repeated game-management gaffes in crucial moments have directly led to the Broncos’ 3-10 record, drawing scorn and mockery from across the NFL landscape.

The energy directed towards analyzing Hackett’s mistakes have overshadowed McDaniel’s own shortcomings, which have at times been just as incomprehensible. The Raiders’ 17-16 loss to the Rams last Thursday included many such moments as McDaniels appeared to want to run out the clock for the vast majority of the second half.

Even after star running back Josh Jacobs exited the game with a third injury in the second half and grimaced when he gripped the ball on the sideline, McDaniels kept stubbornly pounding him into the line. The uncreative late game plan left Jacobs with his most inefficient game of the year where he gained less than four yards per carry on 27 attempts.

It also minimized Adams in the same fashion that caused the brief fallout after a loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars in October. McDaniels is more responsible for the offense, but the defensive failings against the Rams might have been even worse.

Los Angeles defensive backs and Amazon commentators alike ridiculed the Raiders’ decision to play press man coverage on the final drive that included a 34-yard game-winning touchdown pass from Baker Mayfield to Van Jefferson.

There were signs of McDaniels’ in-game struggles being destined to come back to bite the Raiders during a preceding three-game win streak. He made several poor decisions in a 40-34 overtime victory over the Seahawks including settling for a pair of field goal attempts in a bona fide shootout instead of going for it on 4^th-and-short.

It hasn’t gotten to the point where McDaniels has been pressured to hire a strategic consultant like Hackett did in Denver, but it might not be a bad idea.

Bonus Points: Philosophical flexibility

McDaniels never anticipated running the ball as much as the Raiders have this season, and certainly didn’t anticipate running the ball with one player as much as the Raiders have this season. But after Carr struggled to find his rhythm for a full game over the first three weeks, McDaniels pivoted to Jacobs being as much as an offensive focal point as Adams.

The team has largely reaped the benefits of that decision. Jacobs is on pace to win the NFL rushing title and set the Raiders’ single-season franchise record with 1,402 rushing yards on 269 carries through 13 games. Giving that many opportunities to one player forced McDaniels to break out of his comfort zone for a running back by committee approach.

Coaches can be rigid in their beliefs so it’s a good sign that McDaniels has demonstrated he’s not totally stuck in his ways.

Point Deductions: Schematic flexibility

He might be stuck in his system though. One sign of a great coach is an ability to tweak their schematic preferences to fit their players, and it’s still up in the air whether McDaniels can do that at the most important position (quarterback) as a head coach.  

He’s shown that he can pull it off as a coordinator within the confines of New England. A big reason why McDaniels again became a coveted head-coach commodity despite the Denver failure and an episode where he reneged on a deal to take over the Colts in 2018 were his last two years with the Patriots.

After Tom Brady left, McDaniels crafted offenses that succeeded at least in spurts despite the limitations of rookie Mac Jones in 2021 and declining veteran Cam Newton in 2020. Carr is a better option than both Jones and Newton, and yet he’s sometimes looked paralyzed and mechanical in trying to execute McDaniels’ offense this season.

The ninth-year veteran is having one of the worst seasons of his career statistically with his lowest yards per attempt (7.2) since 2018 and lowest passer rating (86.4) since 2017. The Raiders have far more talent around Carr this year than either of those two lowly teams did.

Carr deserves a large part of the blame for his decline, but it also seems like there’s more McDaniels could implement to position his quarterback for success.

Checkmarks: Offensive staff hires

There’s a strong case to be made that offensive line coach Carmen Bricillo and assistant Cameron Clemmons have been the Raiders’ most valuable coaches. Las Vegas came into the season looking like it had one of the worst offensive lines in the league, but under the direction of Bricillo and Clemmons, a unit of disparate parts now stacks up as average-at-worst compared to the rest of the NFL.

Running backs coach Kennedy Polamalu has similarly drawn rave reviews from players and retaining receivers coach Edgar Bennett also appears to have been a wise move. Keeping Bennett for a fifth straight season with the Raiders shows that McDaniels doesn’t have to rely on only his New England network of coaches.

Red marks: Defensive staff hires

The Raiders’ defense was never going to be one of the league’s best this season, but with an All-Pro player like Maxx Crosby and a high-priced free agent like Chandler Jones, it also shouldn’t be among the worst. The latter is where Las Vegas rates by most numbers, especially against the pass where it’s been picked apart all season.

McDaniels is more hands-off with the defense, but as an offensive head coach, it’s incumbent on him to find the right person to bestow with a similar level of power on the other side of the ball. It appeared he had done that in the offseason with the splashy hire of defensive coordinator Patrick Graham, but the Raiders have regressed significantly from last year in stopping opposing offenses. Some of the blame must always fall on the head coach.

Current Grade: C-.

With four games to go, the Raiders have a -7 point differential. In the same spot a year ago, they had a -77 point differential. Despite all the disappointment, there’s a strong case to be made that McDaniels has improved the Raiders this season. He just doesn’t have the results to show for it, and he’d be the first to say the NFL is a results-oriented business. Las Vegas is 0-5 in games decided by less than a touchdown this season as opposed to 6-1 a year ago. There’s always a great deal of luck involved in games that tight, but coaching can make a huge difference.

Belichick has defied the numbers for two decades and posted better records than measures like point differential would suggest by tapping into small edges. McDaniels isn’t anywhere near his mentor’s level currently, and probably never will be, but he shouldn’t be written off yet. His mistakes are correctable, and he’s shown enough of a willingness to adapt.

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or