Heading into Week 1, a storyline that’s fallen down the pecking order for the 2025 Patriots is the revenge game on tap for its old-but-new offensive coordinator.
Josh McDaniels, who returns to New England for his third stint as head of the offense this season, departed 1 Patriot Place for the second time in his career after the 2021 season to take on the head coaching job of the Las Vegas Raiders.
Midway through his second season in Vegas, it was looking a lot like it did midway through his second season in Denver back 2010. The silver and black were playing really bad football, and McDaniels had reportedly lost the locker room. At 3-5, the six-time Super Bowl champion was canned from a second head coaching gig before the age of 50.
Was the leash not long enough for a coach with elite offensive pedigree inheriting a program that miraculously made the playoffs in 2021 after the Jon Gruden debacle? Did McDaniels feel like he could have done a better job in the leading role? Was the reporting that came out of Vegas in the aftermath of his firing fair?
Regardless of the answers to those questions, McDaniels said on Thursday that he uses his time in Vegas as an opportunity to learn.
“In terms of the lessons you took from why that happened the way it did [in Vegas], what are those lessons and how are they helping you now in New England?” Andrew Callahan of The Boston Herald asked McDaniels in his weekly pre-practice press conference.
“I think there's a lot,” said McDaniels. “I mean, there's probably so many. There's too many things that you learn from each experience to list them in terms of a press conference.
“I think you go into every opportunity, and this is my next one, you know? And you do the best that you can, and you learn a lot about - you learn more, honestly, when you fail than when you have success. So always try to take each opportunity as an experience that I can learn from. Some you learn more from than others.
“And the one thing I know I've tried to get really good at over the course of time is just, you know, take the lessons and digest those and use them for something positive. There's no reason to have - I don't have any, I don't harbor any ill will towards any of the things that haven't worked out in my career. There's been many of them. When you do the best you can with what you have, and you give everything you have to the job that you're in, and you hope it works out the best that it can.”
When the schedule release came down this spring and the Raiders were listed as New England’s Week 1 opponent, McDaniels wasn’t licking his chops hoping to prove anybody wrong.
“I don’t think it was really a big reaction,” said McDaniels. “Every year, every team is different, and there's obviously people on a lot of teams in the league that we all have familiarity with or know well. Certainly there's some people there that I still know well and have relationships with and hopefully will have forever, but [I’m] just excited about our opportunity to get going, excited to be home on opening day.
“There's a difference between playing on the road and being at home on opening day, and we're one of the teams that has the opportunity to be here in front of our own crowd and try to get off to a good start. So just excited for the preparation, really excited to see what our guys do for the first time in a game setting.
“We know it'll be a big challenge. It's a good team, a lot of good players, and obviously the unknown of how much Pete [Carroll’s] influence and Pat [Graham’s] influence with Pete. They got a really good coaching staff, a lot of experience, so it'll be interesting to see how it all unfolds, like it is on most opening days.”
What part of the past McDaniels should feel comfortable tapping into with Carroll on the other sideline?
His offensive game plan that helped give the Patriots a 28-24 victory over the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX.
Stay locked in to WEEI and WEEI.com for all the latest on Patriots-Raiders as we inch closer towards Week 1.