Las Vegas Raiders: Why Josh McDaniels was the wrong choice all along
By Daniel Davis
Raiders HC makes the big decision at QB
Derek Carr was shipped to free agency while the Raiders paid Jimmy Garoppolo a massive sum of money for what amounts to a backup at this point in favor of Aidan O'Connell. In the 2022 offseason, Ziegler and McDaniels swung a monster deal to bring in Davante Adams to play with Carr, only to release Carr the following offseason.
McDaniels did the same thing in Denver: he shipped Jay Cutler away and pulled in aging New England players (Ty Law and Laurence Maroney come to mind). This time around, he defaulted to Jimmy Garoppolo and Chandler Jones for what appears to be because they played in New England so they must be good, right?
However, that's not the worst of it. The Raiders now have $28 million in dead money if they let Garoppolo walk and now that they have turned to O'Connell to start the rest of the way, that could certainly be the case next offseason.
Even more frustrating is in 10 years, this is the fourth head coach and third General Manager leading the team to mediocrity since Mark Davis took over the team. Davis has completely failed at leading this team to greatness and Josh McDaniels is just another reason why.
It's also not just Raiders who find him hard to be around, the NFLPA did a survey and McDaniels was slammed by those who played under his iron fist. The survey found he was the most likely to keep his players later than any other coach and most likely to have issues with players.
Not to mention he released private details of Darren Waller's wedding and then shipped him off after he wasn't invited like a child throwing a tantrum. Only 9 players from the 2021 season remain on the roster
It's a hard case to make that outside of Urban Meyer, he's the worst NFL head coach that we've seen in a long time. Despite being a hot head coaching job for years, thank god the Colts didn't make that mistake in 2017, as McDaniels' arrogance and ineptitude are astounding in player decisions and even worse in game management.