Patriots on Josh McDaniels: Smart. Innovative. Forward-thinking.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Here, inside the New England Patriots’ locker room, there is a singular focus. As has become typical in the third week of January, the team has trained its collective sights on making another trip to the Super Bowl.

The Patriots are playing in another AFC Championship Game on Sunday, and no one in the organization wants to be the guy – more accurately, that guy – who deviates from the week’s objective. To do so would be to risk incurring the wrath of infamously-unquotable coach Bill Belichick.

They’re here to talk about the Jacksonville Jaguars and nothing else. Got it? Good.

But there is an elephant in this room. And it’s blue. Colts blue, to be specific.

It’s there, no matter how much the organization endeavors to avoid the distraction that talking about it might create.

Josh McDaniels, the Patriots’ longtime offensive coordinator, is nearing a deal to become the next coach of the Indianapolis Colts. The sides haven’t reached an official agreement and cannot until the Patriots’ season ends. However, that is very much expected to happen, according to an NFL source.

Just don’t expect McDaniels to talk about his next stop. Not this week. Not with the Super Bowl at stake. McDaniels is walking the fine line of preparing for his team’s biggest game of the season while simultaneously poised to embrace a huge opportunity with the Colts.

In the meantime, we’re left to address a few critical questions. Among them: Who, exactly, is McDaniels? How much of the success of the NFL’s greatest franchise can be credited to him? And, most of all, can McDaniels have an instant impact in Indianapolis?

After some delicately-worded questions, and a fair amount of hemming and hawing, answers began to be revealed.

***

Smart. Innovative. Forward-thinking. Those are just some of the adjectives thrown around when the subject turns to McDaniels. They’re well-earned. His play design is always cutting edge. And his ability to routinely find favorable matchups puts him in a class of his own.

We can talk about quarterback Tom Brady’s immense talent and Belichick’s greatness – neither is in dispute – but to ignore McDaniels’ role is to sell him short. (McDaniels was not available to comment for this story.)

Do you think it’s an accident seven Patriots had 30 or more receptions in 2017? Do you believe just any coordinator could orchestrate an offense where Dion Lewis, who will never be confused with Adrian Peterson in his prime, rushes for 5 yards per carry?

Outsiders might prefer to heap the praise on Brady and Belichick. But in this locker room, the Patriots give McDaniels his due.

“Man, he’s so smart,” said Phillip Dorsett, the former Colts first-round pick who was traded to New England in September. “To me, he’s like an offensive genius.”

To that end, Dorsett said he’s learned an immense amount of football since arriving in Foxborough. He’s played sparingly this season but, Dorsett said, he has still managed to grow as a player. And he credits McDaniels for much of that.

Players who have been in other places offer unique perspectives on McDaniels. They’ve seen other coaches in action. Then they see McDaniels. And they see a discernable difference.

“He’s a very smart guy and that sticks out as soon as you get in the meeting room with him,” said quarterback Brian Hoyer, recently signed by the Patriots after the Jimmy Garappolo trade. “He just has such a good feel when he’s calling the game. To be on the sideline and hear him call plays and to see them be executed, it’s pretty amazing.”

The Patriots are renowned for the versatility of their schemes. On defense, they deploy various attacks from week to week, with Belichick and defensive coordinator Matt Patricia targeting opponents’ weaknesses with their perceptive eyes. Certainly, Belichick plays a role in the offensive game planning, too. But it’s McDaniels who formulates their unpredictable game plans that leave teams exasperated.

“The game plan every week is very, very well thought out,” offensive tackle LaAdrian Waddle said. “Everything is laid out perfectly for you.”

Of the notion that much of McDaniels’ success is due to the well-oiled New England system and, perhaps, not indicative of a coach who can succeed outside its structure, running back James White offered a succinct response:

“He’s still gotta dial up the plays and know when to call what and in what situation,” he said. “So, all I see is a good football coach.”

***

When McDaniels walks into the Patriots’ offensive meeting room, he commands his players’ full and undivided attention.

Sure, that’s what every coach expects. But in the case of McDaniels, players know anything less is unacceptable. And it’s not because they fear him. They do, however, fear falling short of his expectations. And those expectations are uncompromising.

Patriots players, while speaking about McDaniels, were unknowingly offering valuable advice to Colts players: Pay close attention. Prepare. Study. Execute with precision in practice. These are non-negotiables with McDaniels.

“There’s a high standard,” White said. “And you’ve got to do it in practice. If you don’t do it in practice, you’re probably not going to be out there on gameday.”

The game plan is going to be thorough and it’s going to be voluminous. Those are givens. And that requires work. That’s something McDaniels is not afraid of. He’s the son of a coach, so he’s always appreciated what it takes to put together a winning strategy.

But when you play for McDaniels, you’d best be ready to also take on that same frame of mind. He’s all about details. He expects his receivers to run their routes exactly as they're drawn up. He demands that his linemen block their man at exactly the right angle and with perfect technique.

“He wants us to go out there and do it right,” receiver Chris Hogan said. “And that helps us. All that attention to detail that he puts into it, it kind of (trickles) down to us. We want to make sure we’re attentive and staying on top of things, whether it’s a big detail or a small detail. That really gets us ready to play.”

Ultimately, it’s the players who benefit. If you buy in, they say, McDaniels will help you succeed. That’s why, rather than be turned off or overwhelmed by McDaniels’ expectations, Patriots offensive players embrace them.

“Hey, you can see all the success he’s had over the years,” White said. “The work speaks for itself. You see it work every day out on the field. The proof is in the pudding.”

Dorsett added: “He gets a lot out of everybody and, I think, because of that, guys really want to play for him.”

To a man, Patriots offensive players emphasized that they feel an air of confidence because of McDaniels’ thorough preparation. He’s a confident guy to begin with. He’s a fist-pumping, high-fiving ball of energy on the sideline, and you can see the confidence oozing from him.

During his undistinguished two-year run as coach of the Broncos, that confidence seemed unharnessed. There was that run-in with former San Diego Chargers linebacker Shaun Phillips, who claimed McDaniels trash talked him, saying, “We own you,” during warmups before a 2009 game. McDaniels recalled the events a bit differently, but the point remains: McDaniels was and is a competitor.

Today, in New England, he seems to have found ways to channel that competitiveness in a more a productive fashion.

“He does a great job of making us feel confident when we go out there,” Hogan said. “And he’s been able to do it for a really long time and it’s helped a lot of guys.”

***

Coaching that lacks teaching is not very effective coaching. The two tasks go hand in hand. They’re interchangeable, really. This will be important for a team like the Colts that is in the midst of a rebuilding effort that has led to an infusion of young talent. Those players need to be shaped, not merely coached. Doing this will be critical for McDaniels if he is to succeed in Indianapolis.

There is some evidence in New England that he’s up to the task.

Here are three names that serve as potential proof: Matt Cassel, Garappolo and Jacoby Brissett.

Throughout McDaniels’ nine seasons as offensive coordinator with the Patriots, he’s also doubled as the team’s quarterbacks coach. Teaching quarterbacks is a passion of his, and that likely will continue with Andrew Luck and company.

Cassel, Garappolo and Brissett all developed under McDaniels’ tutelage. In the case of Cassel, he enjoyed a career year under McDaniels in 2008 while relieving the injured Brady. Cassel had career-highs in yards and completion percentage that year. Though his last start had been in high school, he made 15 starts that season and Cassel teamed with McDaniels to help the Patriots maintain their place among the most productive offenses in the NFL despite Brady’s injury.

What Garoppolo has done since being traded to the 49ers has Bay Area fans salivating. After going 5-0 as a starter to end the season, it’s hard to imagine the coach who worked with him most intimately during his first three seasons had nothing to do with his recent performances.

Brissett never expected to start 15 games with the Colts after being traded to Indianapolis for Dorsett, but the lessons he learned under McDaniels as a rookie in 2016 gave him a solid foundation upon which to build.

“It’s a credit to Josh and the work that he puts in coming up with game plans,” Hoyer said, “but then putting it in a way that players can understand and execute it. That’s a strength of his, to see the course, plan it out and to present to the players.”

Sounds a lot like a teacher.

It’s just one of the many portrayals of McDaniels that came out of the Patriots’ locker room. Not surprisingly, none of the depictions painted McDaniels as coattail-riding, petulant or any of the other descriptions that have been assigned to him over the years.

They see a guy they believe is about to help them get back to the Super Bowl – again.

Speaking of which, it’s time to clear the locker room. There’s a game to play. There’s no more time to talk.

Follow Colts Insider Stephen Holder on Twitter: @HolderStephen.

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