Winning friends and influencing people: two skills that never came easy to a pair of former Patriots coordinators.
They're both on the hot seat now.
In Denver, there's Josh McDaniels, who served as an assistant coach under Bill Belichick in New England for eight seasons, from 2001 to 2008. For the final three, he was the team's offensive coordinator. Now with the Broncos, he's got to learn on the fly how to serve as head honcho on an NFL team. Whole different ballgame.
In South Bend, Indiana, there's Charlie Weis, a previous offensive coordinator with the Pats who left behind his decade and a half of NFL experience to try his hand at coaching in the collegiate ranks. At Notre Dame, he's still working on taking the storied Fighting Irish program back to the promised land.
Let's start with McDaniels. The coaching wunderkind, 32 years old at the conclusion of the 2008 season, began talking last winter to the Broncos' front office about the possibility of replacing longtime Denver coach Mike Shanahan. On Jan. 11, the rumor became a reality, with McDaniels signing a four-year, $8 million contract and beginning a new mile-high regime.
At first, this was new. It was refreshing. It was interesting. Eight months have now passed, and it's looking like a disaster. And that's just now, in early September — just wait until actual football gets played.
McDaniels inherited an 8-8 team that had clear weaknesses but also a clear path to the playoffs. The AFC West is the weakest division in the game, and with an offense sparked by Jay Cutler under center and Brandon Marshall downfield, the Broncos had every reason to go for broke right now. The division was theirs, and the postseason was within their reach.
Instead, McDaniels is tearing it all apart.
Later that winter, McDaniels made Cutler, the young franchise quarterback with unlimited upside, the subject of trade rumors that became public. Cutler ultimately decided that he couldn't trust the Broncos, and in March, he was traded away. The Broncos, a team that was supposed to be playing for here and now, are left with Kyle Orton and a pile of draft picks. Good luck making the Super Bowl.
Then there's Marshall, the 25-year-old Pro Bowl receiver battling not only problems with the law, but also with the Broncos. If McDaniels can keep him happy, he'll be redeemed in Denver. But don't hold your breath.
Let's move on.
At Notre Dame, Weis is a man who's already found success during his first four years with the Fighting Irish. He led them to a 9-3 record in his rookie season of 2005, carrying them to a Fiesta Bowl as a greenhorn college coach. The following year, they won 10 games, and waltzed into a Sugar Bowl berth.
But in South Bend, "success" is a relative term.
Two things should be pointed out here. First, the first two seasons of a college coach's career can be tremendously misleading, since he's doing it with someone else's recruits — in this case, Tyrone Willingham, who was fired after two bad seasons in 2003 and '04. Weis was able to win with the guys Willingham brought in, but years three and four would determine whether he could get results with his own talent.
Those results: 3-9, 7-6. Suddenly, Weis is on the hot seat — Willingham went 10-3 in his first season, too, but it didn't stop him from being let go after three years. Notre Dame has the loftiest expectations in the nation, and if you don't live up to them right away, you're gone.
Weis spent 15 years in the NFL. He coached running backs with the Giants, tight ends with the Patriots. He's taught running backs, wide receivers; eventually he was a full-blown offensive coordinator. He's coached all over, but recruiting high school kids is an entirely separate skill set, and if Weis doesn't know what he's doing, he's out of a job. That looks fairly clear.
McDaniels and Weis each have found success at the assistant-coaching level. They're both wizards as offensive coordinators. But in recent years, the word "offensive" has taken on new meaning.
It's time to get some results. Either that, or it's time to send out some resumes.
