When Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels withdrew from the Browns’ search for a head coach last week, there were conflicting reports about what motivated the decision.
Depending on who you read or listened to, McDaniels either took his name out of consideration after finding out he wasn’t the top candidate or that he chose to remain with the Patriots because of the stability of the situation before conversations escalated to that point. McDaniels was asked about the choice on Tuesday and leaned toward the latter explanation.
“I’ll definitely be here [next year]. This is the right time for me to be here,” McDaniels said, via NESN.com. “It just means that I made a decision to be here. I’m very happy here. Sometimes you have to make choices for what’s best for you and your family, and that’s what I tried to do.”
McDaniels didn’t interview or withdraw from consideration for any of the other openings, so there may have also been other issues at play. With Todd Bowles also pulling his name from consideration on Tuesday, it’s not like McDaniels is the only coach who decided that they weren’t a fit with the job in Cleveland and there have been several reports about the unattractiveness of the post. Teams interested in McDaniels as a head coach in the future will likely ask about those issues, but it hardly seems like something that would disqualify McDaniels from being back in the mix for top jobs in the future.