Doyel: Josh McDaniels is a selfish little jerk, but did Colts, Indy a favor

INDIANAPOLIS – Be embarrassed, Indianapolis Colts, but also be relieved. Josh McDaniels is a punk and a loser, but he’s not your punk. He’s not your loser.

He’s not your head coach, thank God.

Imagine, knowing what we know right now, infecting this franchise with that fraud. And make no mistake: He's one of the biggest frauds in the NFL. He confirmed it Tuesday night. After agreeing three weeks ago to terms with the Colts to become their next coach, after hiring multiple members of his coaching staff, after arranging to fly Wednesday morning from Boston to Indianapolis on Jim Irsay’s jet to be introduced at an afternoon news conference, Josh McDaniels backed out.

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McDaniels will stay with the New England Patriots as their offensive coordinator. Or maybe he knows something we don’t, and will be replacing Patriots boss Bill Belichick. Hell, I don’t know, maybe Josh McDaniels will give in to his primal urges, shed his human skin and burrow into the insulation in Belichick’s basement.

What becomes of that rat is of no concern to me, not anymore, now that he has removed himself from our city and saved the Colts from themselves. And that, my friends, is how you need to see this: The Colts couldn’t do it on their own, so Josh McDaniels rescued them by withdrawing his name. And he did it for the most delightful of reasons: Apparently he thinks, giggle, he’s too good for them.

Imagine that. The ultimate daddy’s boy, born on third base and believing he hit a triple, thinks he’s too good to coach the Colts. Handed his first coaching job when Daddy – a big-time high school coach in Ohio – called Nick Saban to get Josh onto Saban’s staff at Michigan State, McDaniels has never been big into self-awareness. “Hurricane Josh,” they called him in Denver when he blew into town in 2009 as coach of the Denver Broncos and carried himself with the gravitas of a Super Bowl winner, which Bill Belichick was, and not as a rookie coach who hadn’t done anything on his own ...

... which is what Josh McDaniels was in 2009.

It’s what he is today, too: He’s a guy who hasn’t accomplished anything as a head coach, unless you consider being fired in less than two seasons in Denver an achievement. Which, when you think about it …

Anyway, enough about that guy. Let’s talk about us, here: In the short term, yes, this is humiliating. The Colts just got punked by the biggest punk in the NFL coaching community, a guy so callous that he convinced a handful of assistant coaches elsewhere to leave wherever they were to come work for him in Indianapolis. Those assistants, including Dallas Cowboys assistant Matt Eberflus, now seem stuck. Reportedly, they’re still coming to Indianapolis – coming to a new city to work for a new coach who didn’t even hire them.

Reportedly, McDaniels stayed in New England for his family. What of the families he uprooted elsewhere?

Josh McDaniels is a selfish little jerk, and he has succeeded only with Bill Belichick as his head coach and Tom Brady as his quarterback. Surrounded by greatness, he couldn’t fail. Hell, not even Charlie Weis could fail as offensive coordinator of the Patriots.

As for the Colts, they have a second chance to get this right, and how many times can you rectify a grievous error before the error does actual damage? In the long run, the franchise will be better with someone else, anyone else, as head coach. That’s not easy to see right now, I know it, but if McDaniels can be this destructive, this selfish, this fraudulent in three weeks as de facto head coach of the Colts, imagine how much damage he would have done here in three years.

Assuming he could have survived three years. He didn’t in Denver, where his team lost too much and got caught cheating too much and disliked its coach too much and so, boom: Say goodbye to Hurricane Josh.

As for us, let’s say hello to the reality that the Colts could be in real trouble. ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported Sunday that doctors are concerned, again, with quarterback Andrew Luck’s recovery and believe he might need surgery, again, on his shoulder. If the bad news is true, and lately all Colts news has been bad news, Luck would most likely miss the upcoming season.

Again.

That’s speculation for another day, and Lord knows that’s all we can do around here – speculate – given how the Colts are so secretive. If being secretive gives them a competitive advantage, imagine how lousy this franchise would look if it just told the truth every now and then.

For now, the reality is the Colts have no coach, a quarterback whose health is unknown, and a front office who thought hiring Josh McDaniels was a good idea. The Colts will wake up Wednesday morning a mess and a punch line, but it could have been so much worse.

They could have woken up Thursday with Josh McDaniels as coach.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter: @GreggDoyelStar or at facebook.com/gregg.doyel.

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