Patriots Success Has Other Teams With McDaniels and Patricia In their Crosshairs

One of the problems with a team having success is the fact that it creates envy with other teams around the league, and the bad news is they generally want what that team has, even if it means their players or their coaches.

New England is experiencing that first hand again during this postseason bye week, with both offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and defensive coordinator Matt Patricia garnering interest from teams for their head coaching vacancies. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Patricia is drawing interest from both Miami and Cleveland, while McDaniels, thus far, has received interest from the Dolphins.

McDaniels already has experience as a head coach during his time in Denver after replacing Mike Shanahan in 2009, which ultimately blew up in a messy situation that resulted in his firing one season later. He came back to New England during the team’s Super Bowl run in 2011 as an offensive assistant, and he took over as offensive coordinator after Bill O’Brien departed for Penn State. McDaniels has long been believed by some as the likely successor to Bill Belichick someday when the future Hall of Fame coach elects to call it quits, but the team’s championship run last season and incredible 12-4 finish this year despite all their injuries has him back in the radar of teams like Miami who are in dire need of some stability.

Meanwhile, the interest in Patricia is well-deserved given his resume and the type of person he is. After joining the Patriots as an offensive coaching assistant in 2004, he’s worked his way up the ranks. After calling plays following the departure of former defensive coordinator Dean Pees after the 2009 season, he finally received the title of defensive coordinator in 2012 and has been terrific, and was a big reason why the Patriots beat Seattle last year.

Belichick obviously holds Patricia in high-regard and had high praise for him back in November, expressing how intelligent he is, along with his admiration of the fact that Patricia’s earned everything he’s gotten to this point.

“Matt’s really smart. This guy can probably build a plane and fly it,” Belichick said. “This guy’s smart-smart… He’s had a lot of different experiences… been in this program a long time… he’s got great recall, really high IQ level in terms of just processing a lot of information.”

“He’s a blue-collar guy, you know, certainly wasn’t born with a silver spoon, like most players,” Belichick added. “He’s worked for everything, worked his way up. He has an appreciation for that, and relates to other guys doing the same thing.”

The only problem for the Patriots might be that all that hard work may see him end up on an opposing sideline as a head coach.

About Ian Logue

Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.

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