Monday night open thread: exit of the Mac edition
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Whenever a major sports story happens, you will see parody stories on Twitter go viral because of people who take them straight, and this is one of my favorites ever:
It should be true.
When it comes to McDaniels, though, in fairness to people who fell for it is that the real stories about his firing sound like mean parodies:
I read this 5 times to make sure I wasn’t being fake newsed https://t.co/oJMpucrvwV— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) November 5, 2023
“DON’T YOU DARE SAY ANYTHING NEGATIVE ABOUT THE TEAM I LEFT TWO YEARS AGO” is amazing even for McDaniels. I guess this helps to explain the otherwise bizarre decision to start 75-year-old Belichick binkie/Surface holding specialist Brian Hoyer over Adain O’Connell.
Nate Jackson, who wrote hilariously about another dead branch of the Belichick tree, has some parting shots:
I could say I told you so, and will, because I did. But when I say it, it has the air of a lover scorned. Of course I’d say Josh McDaniel is a shitty coach: He cut me. My time as a Denver Bronco ended at his hand, like that of so many of my friends. He took over for Mike Shanahan in 2009 and immediately began dismantling what had been a well-oiled machine. The Broncos started off 6-0 that year, then won two of their next 10 to finish at 8-8. In Week 13 of the following season, with the team’s record at 3-9, he was fired.
How did things go so wrong so fast? Where do we start?
Josh had immediately butted heads with Denver’s most talented young offensive players, Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall, and Tony Scheffler. They were Shanahan guys, and they made him uncomfortable, so he sent them packing. My old teammate, Tyler Polumbus, who played for both Shanahan and Josh, relayed this story to me: After trading Cutler, Josh addressed the entire team and said, “Fellas, don’t worry about the quarterback situation. I can turn a high school quarterback into an All-Pro.”
That jockstrap in his pocket gave him a false confidence, as did his handle on gaming the system. The league fined him for filming a San Francisco 49ers walk-through practice. The video guy had come in with Josh, replacing the Shanahan-era holdover. Did Josh know this was happening? He says no; judge his credibility for yourself. Either way, it brought shame upon the Broncos organization. Surveillance and skulduggery may be considered “best practice” in New England, but that shit didn’t fly in Denver.
McDaniels’s ego wasn’t only fragile on the field. He famously shipped out running back Peyton Hillis because, rumor had it, McDaniels thought his wife was attracted to Hillis. For those of us accustomed to being handled with class—Shanahan, agree with him or not, could be counted upon for this—Josh’s approach to leadership left much to be desired. Case in point: I found out my Broncos career was over from a message left on my parents’ answering machine. “Honey, there’s something I think you need to listen to.” When I tried to contact Josh for an explanation, his secretary told me he was in a meeting and that he’d call me back. He never did.
My story is not unique. The sport is littered with players and ex-players done wrong by McDaniels, ones who’d loved the game of football but learned to hate it under him. Polumbus told me that every day at work began with a “bad football” reel from the day before: McDaniels would dog cuss the player and their coach for any bad play from the previous day’s practice, setting the tone for a super fun day. Many of his (de)motivational tactics were Bill Belichick knock-offs, like putting slogans and mantras in big block letters around the building, then calling guys out in meetings, making them stand up to recite them, and cussing out those who couldn’t. I experienced the same thing during my one week in Cleveland under Eric Mangini, another Belichick disciple who tried to copy and paste The Patriot Way, and failed miserably.
Now that Belichick himself is failing by running a Belichick tribute band, might be time to pump the brakes on handing the keys of the franchise over to anyone he’s ever employed no matter how obviously they lack the interpersonal or leadership skills to be a head coach.