Raiders Fire Josh McDaniels, A Predictable End for an Overmatched Coach

This past summer, I previewed the Raiders and predicted their 2023 season, like I do for every team every summer.

This is exactly how I started my chapter:

Josh McDaniels is the Raiders head coach and playcaller.

If you root for the Raiders or play for the Raiders, that sentence has to scare the hell out of you.

In order to understand why I so strongly opposed McDaniels as Raiders head coach and play caller, and their prospects in 2023, we have to zoom out.

A few years ago, I was asked to evaluate head coaching prospects for a team interested in exploring the market. I made several suggestions.

One that was not anywhere to be found on my list was McDaniels. After a follow-up discussion, I was asked to evaluate McDaniels.

I prepared a brief. It wasn’t pretty.

The team did not hire McDaniels.

The problem with McDaniels is there is so much entanglement surrounding his mystique due to his time spent in New England. In order to better understand McDaniels the coach, we must understand what he’s done in his career away from Tom Brady.

And, as importantly, what Brady has done in his career away from McDaniels.

Only when those two are studied can we truly understand McDaniels the coach.

Josh McDaniels flops with the Broncos

The Patriots OC from 2006 through 2008, McDaniels was a hot name in the coaching ranks, and he got his first opportunity after the 2008 season.

In January 2009, McDaniels was hired as head coach in Denver.

He was on his own for the first time. He was without Brady, Bill Belichick, and Ernie Adams.

He was making personnel decisions. He was calling offensive plays with no one other than himself to have the final say in what was to be called and when.

So how was his Denver offense?

They faced a top-10 easiest schedule of defenses in both 2009 and 2010.

Despite that, his offense ranked a below-average #18 in EPA/play in 2009. In 2010, his team sat at 3-9 with a total score margin of -77 (#29) which, in fairness, was not helped by a defense that ranked #29 in EPA/play.

He was fired mid-season.

Josh McDaniels made offenses worse

McDaniels was hired by the Rams to be the offensive coordinator in 2011.

His 2011 Rams offense was the worst offense in the NFL.

• #32 in EPA/play (-0.17)
• #31 in yards/play (4.5)
• #31 in success rate (36%)

These numbers speak for themselves, but another point worth making is how these offenses were worse with McDaniels than they were with prior coaches (who were fired for doing a poor job):

• 2008 Broncos – PRE-MCDANIELS: +0.12 EPA/play, 49% success
• 2009 Broncos – WITH MCDANIELS: -0.03 EPA/play, 42% success
• 2010 Broncos – WITH MCDANIELS: -0.01 EPA/play, 39% success
• 2010 Rams – PRE-MCDANIELS: -0.08 EPA/play, 38% success
• 2011 Rams – WITH MCDANIELS: -0.17 EPA/play, 36% success

Meanwhile, without him in New England, the Patriots did not suffer any sort of setback at all.

In fact, they had top-2 offenses every one of those 3 years (2009, 2010, and 2011).

• 2009 Patriots – NO MCDANIELS: +0.10 EPA/play (#4), 49% success (#1)
• 2010 Patriots – NO MCDANIELS: +0.18 EPA/play (#1), 47% success (#1)
• 2011 Patriots – NO MCDANIELS: +0.18 EPA/play (#3), 50% success (#2)

In McDaniels' three years as OC from 2006-2008, the Patriots had only one year of ranking as a top-two offense (2007), granted his final year before being hired in Denver, Tom Brady was lost for the season in the first game.

After being fired for the second time in as many years, McDaniels returned to the Patriots to reclaim his offensive coordinator title in 2012, and he remained there through 2021 until he was hired as head coach of the Raiders.

But before we get to the Raiders, it’s vitally important we discuss the last few years in New England.

Tom Brady without Josh McDaniels

In 2019, questions began to swirl as to whether Brady had lost his ability to perform at a high level.

The Patriots offense looked stagnant and mediocre. Was it Brady or Belichick (McDaniels)?

Well, let’s look at the Patriots in 2019 before the divorce, and then the Patriots in 2020 and 2021 vs. Brady’s Buccaneers in 2020 and 2021:

• 2019 Patriots – MCDANIELS & BRADY: -0.02 EPA/play (#19), 41% success (#19)
• 2020 Patriots – MCDANIELS ONLY: -0.05 EPA/play (#20), 43% success (#13)
• 2021 Patriots – MCDANIELS ONLY: +0.05 EPA/play (#12), 44% success (#9)
• 2020 Bucs – BRADY ONLY: +0.07 EPA/play (#5), 43% success (#14)
• 2021 Bucs – BRADY ONLY: +0.11 EPA/play (#3), 46% success (#2)

Brady was able to play to a high enough level to lead a top-five offense in both 2020 and 2021 and win a Super Bowl.

But he was #19 with the Patriots in 2019.

The evidence is pretty solid:

Brady’s offense ABSOLUTELY THRIVED multiple times when leaving McDaniels, first in 2009 through 2011 with the Patriots and then again in 2020 through 2021 with the Buccaneers.

Brady had a top-5 offense in EPA/play all five of those seasons.

Meanwhile, when leaving Brady, McDaniels was terrible with the Broncos, Rams, and then with the Patriots once Brady left for Tampa.

Josh McDaniels joins the Raiders

In 2021 with Jon Gruden, the Raiders went 10-7 (3-2 under Gruden before being fired) and made the playoffs.

Their QB was Derek Carr. Their WR1 was Hunter Renfrow. Their WR2 was Zay Jones.

In 2022, the Raiders hired McDaniels and acquired WR1 Davante Adams. Otherwise, their offensive line was very much the same, they still had Darren Waller and Renfrow while adding WR Mack Hollins.

Yet, Carr seemed lost at times in McDaniels’ offense.

He dropped from completing 68.4% of his passes in 2021 to just 60.8% of passes in 2022.

Even when accounting for target depth by using completion percentage over expectation, he dropped from #5 in the NFL in 2021 (+2.2% over expectation) to #24 in 2022 (-1.3% over expectation).

In “stable” QB metrics, which should track most consistently year-over-year with a QB in the same offense, Carr was literally worse (sometimes massively so) in every single key metric in 2022 under McDaniels as compared to 2021 under Gruden.

That includes being worse when:

• passing without pressure
• passing from in the pocket
• without play action on early downs
• first down passes in the first three quarters
• layup throws (short, underneath)
• passes thrown in fewer than 2.5 seconds
• passes thrown outside the red zone

McDaniels being terrible with Carr had direct consequences on the offense.

While you might argue the reason the Raiders struggled in 2022 was Waller's and Renfrow’s injuries (Waller missed 8 games, Renfrow missed 7), you should consider this:

When both Renfrow and Waller started games for the Raiders in 2022 under McDaniels, the team went 1-6.

McDaniels was terrible with personnel usage in 2022 (something I won’t detail here).

So one year after going 10-7 and making the playoffs in Gruden’s last season, the Raiders went 6-11 in McDaniels' first season in Las Vegas.

It wasn’t just the terrible offense McDaniels was installing that didn’t mesh with Carr or the rest of the Raiders, he was also the worst situational coach in NFL history in 2022 based on his inability to close out games.

Look at these numbers:

In 2022, the Raiders lost 5 games after blowing a 7+ point lead at halftime.

It was the most in NFL history.

The Raiders LED BY DOUBLE DIGITS at halftime in 5 games last year.

They lost 4 of the 5.

The rest of the NFL was 84-9.

It was the most double-digit halftime leads blown in NFL history.

The Raiders actually had a losing record in games they led by 13+ points.

They led by 13+ points in 7 games last year.

They lost 4 of the 7.

It was the most losses after leading by 13+ points in NFL history.

The Raiders also had a losing record when leading by double digits in the fourth quarter.

They led in the fourth quarter by 10+ points in seven games last year.

They lost 4 of the 7.

This is coaching. If you can build a lead, you should be able to maintain it. Unless you don’t know what to do with one. And deliver the worst coaching performance in NFL history.

Which is exactly what McDaniels did in 2022.

And finally, we have arrived in 2023.

The Final Failure: Josh McDaniels' 2023 Raiders