Josh McDaniels' Top Potential Landing Spots After Being Fired as Raiders HC (2024)

Josh McDaniels is back on the market for any team looking for an accomplished offensive coordinator who has never figured out how to adjust as a head coach.

Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis announced overnight on Tuesday he fired McDaniels as head coach midway through his second season with the team. General manager Dave Ziegler was also relieved of his duties.

The McDaniels era in Vegas ended with a 26-14 loss to the Detroit Lions on Monday night. The Raiders finished with 157 yards of total offense and their best wide receiver upset on the sideline because Jimmy Garoppolo couldn't hit him on two wide-open throws.

Overall, McDaniels went 9-16 in 25 games with the Raiders. He is 20-33 overall as an NFL head coach, but has lost 33 of 47 games since a 6-0 start with the Denver Broncos in 2009.

At this point, it would seem unlikely McDaniels will get consideration for another head-coaching job. There will potentially be options available to him as an assistant.

Here are the top potential landing spots for McDaniels when he decides to go back into the coaching ranks.

Of course the New England Patriots are going to be the first team mentioned. There's historical precedent for this to happen.

The last time McDaniels was fired as a head coach during the 2010 season with the Broncos, he was hired as offensive coordinator by St. Louis Rams head coach Steve Spagnuolo in 2011.

St. Louis had a horrendous season, going 2-14, and the team went in a different direction by bringing in an entirely new coaching staff. McDaniels joined the Patriots staff as an offensive assistant coach for their playoff run in January 2012.

New England's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at the time was Bill O'Brien.

After his return to the coaching staff as an offensive assistant, McDaniels was hired by the Patriots as their offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach when O'Brien took the head-coaching job at Penn State.

So far this season, O'Brien hasn't done much to show he's a significant upgrade over what Matt Patricia and Joe Judge did for the offense in 2022.

McDaniels was the offensive coordinator in New England during Mac Jones' rookie season in 2021. It was the best year of his career so far with 3,801 passing yards, 22 touchdowns and a 67.6 completion percentage to help the Patriots make the playoffs.

While the Patriots could look to move in a different direction at quarterback this offseason if Jones continues to struggle, Bill Belichick has a long history with McDaniels that seems to work for both of them.

McDaniels was on the coaching staff for all six of New England's Super Bowl wins during the Tom Brady era.

It's not hard to make connections between McDaniels and all of the teams on this list.

The Tennessee Titans have Mike Vrabel as head coach. His entire eight-year run as a player with the Patriots from 2001 to '08 overlapped with the first eight years McDaniels had as an NFL coach in New England.

Tim Kelly is in his first season as Titans offensive coordinator. He was their passing game coordinator in 2022.

Tennessee's offense could be in line for a makeover after this season. The team currently ranks in the bottom 10 in the NFL in yards (296.6) and points (18.9) per game.

A lot of the decisions around the Titans offense during the offseason will likely depend on how Will Levis develops over the rest of the season. The rookie had an outstanding debut with 238 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions in a 28-23 win over the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday.

If Vrabel wants to find a new voice for his offensive coaching staff in 2024, bringing in McDaniels as an assistant wouldn't be a surprise because of their previous work together in New England.

The Alabama-New England pipeline has been very well documented over the years. There are times when it seems like the Patriots' draft philosophy boils down to whether or not a player went to Alabama.

O'Brien spent two seasons as Alabama's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2021 to '22 before taking the same jobs with the Patriots after McDaniels was hired by the Raiders.

Tommy Rees is in his first season on Nick Saban's staff as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. The returns for Alabama's offense haven't been great so far. The unit ranks 51st in the nation with 30.6 points per game and ninth out of 14 SEC teams with 366.6 yards per game.

The Crimson Tide haven't finished outside the top 20 nationally in scoring offense since the 2015 season. Their average points per game this season would be their fewest since Saban's second year as head coach in 2008 (30.1).

McDaniels hasn't been a coach at the college level since 1999 when he was a graduate assistant at Michigan State. If there aren't any NFL jobs available to him or that he doesn't find desirable, it wouldn't be a huge surprise to see Saban at least give him a call to gauge his interest in coming to Tuscaloosa.