When Josh McDaniels was fired as the Broncos head coach in December 2010, it took him a little more than a month to land a new job as the Rams' offensive coordinator.
McDaniels' second head coaching stint also ended with an in-season dismissal, but he didn't jump right into a new job this time around. McDaniels was fired by the Raiders in late October 2023 and he remained out of work until returning to the Patriots for a third stint as their offensive coordinator this January.
During a press conference on Thursday, McDaniels said it was "a blessing" to have that time off because it gave him an opportunity to look at the league from a different vantage point than he can while working for a team.
"I had a really good opportunity last year to watch football without a lot of deadlines, which was a new, interesting opportunity for me and just see different things that were coming up throughout the course of the league," McDaniels said, via a transcript from the team. "There's younger quarterbacks that are playing a little earlier than maybe they were 10, 12, 15 years ago. There's different things that people are using and doing schematically that are having a lot of success. There's some trends like there always are that are kind of, I'd say, in vogue now. Whether they stay in vogue for long, I don't know, but it was just a really healthy opportunity for me to go back and look at what I've done, what I've been a part of, and then what else is going on in the league right now that I need to get better at, that I need to start thinking about incorporating."
McDaniels said the process will make him a "different" coach than he has been in the past and the hope in New England is that a changed McDaniels can still pull all the right strings for their offense.
