The Josh McDaniels thing was a disaster. I know that, you know that, we all know that. It doesn't need to get relitigated. Getting fired eight games into your second season as head coach sounds legitimately unbelievable and yet somehow kinda fits in with how the rest of his career has gone. It was an era that no one needs to talk about, but we're going to anyways!
Basically every headline ever written about McDaniels' time in Las Vegas was negative, which makes it especially surprising to see some recent ones that actually ... aren't that bad? And "not that bad" is a huge win considering how the first eight weeks of 2023 went. But recently, while talking on Maxx Crosby's podcast – it's always a podcast – Raiders star Davante Adams shared an anecdote about McDaniels' tenure that won't actually make fans wince. Progress!
Davante Adams' latest McDaniels story may leave Raiders fans conflicted
"I'll tell you this: Josh McDaniels gets a lot of s--t," he said. "But one of the things that he said to me that was like the realest – and I've never really even had a coach stress it like the way that he did with me ... he was like, 'I need you to go talk to these dudes. Because I can get in there and scream at them, but the more that they’re worried about letting their brother down, that s--t will mean way more than you know, me getting on them..."
It's not the worst coaching advice in the world! Which, up until this point, is what we assumed players were hearing for that year and a half. It obviously wasn't enough to fix the whole host of problems that led to his second (technically third) failed head coaching job, but I guess I appreciate the effort.