The excellent ESPN documentary dubbed The Two Bills includes a moment in which Patriots coach Bill Belichick credits his former mentor, Bill Parcells, with teaching Belichick aspects of the head-coaching job that previously hadn’t been relevant to Belichick’s role as an assistant coach. Belichick apparently will be doing the same for Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels.
Mike Reiss of ESPN, via WEEI.com, reports that Belichick has promised to open the knowledge vault for McDaniels.
“Bill Belichick said to him, ‘I want you to be by my side. I am going to open my world to you,’” Reiss said. “‘Show you how I view roster building, how I look at financials and the salary cap.’ To McDaniels, who is 41 years old, the chance to be with Belichick, arguably the greatest coach of all-time, 65 years old, to have that opportunity was viewed as to be extremely valuable to him.”
The fact that Belichick hadn’t shared that information with McDaniels suggests that maybe he wasn’t ready to be a head coach again. (Nine years ago, he definitely wasn’t ready to be the head coach of the Broncos.) After McDaniels gets a master class from the Patriot Way sensei, McDaniels will be ready.
And given that he has left the Colts at the altar, the only place where he’ll likely be a head coach is the place where he has decided, yet again, to stay.