According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Josh McDaniels will turn down the Colts’ offer to become their next head coach in favor of staying in New England.
According to Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio, there was “increasing chatter” that Josh McDaniels was getting cold feet and would prefer to stay with the Patriots. Many other reporters shot that rumor down, but Florio has since been vindicated as those rumors have come true.
As of this morning, the Colts were making moves to officially announce McDaniels as their next head coach during a press conference on Wednesday. Throughout the day, reports came out that McDaniels had already brought in three coaches to add to his coaching staff.
Apparently it was not a done deal as Adam Schefter is reporting that Patriots owner Robert Kraft sweetened McDaniels’ contract in order to keep him in New England.
In the past 48 hours, Patriots owner Robert Kraft began talking with Josh McDaniels and ultimately wound up sweetening his contract, helping to entice him to remain in New England, per sources. Bill Belichick has his OC back.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 7, 2018
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This is the absolute worst case scenario for Chris Ballard’s first head coaching search as an NFL general manager. The Colts were unable to officially hire McDaniels until after the Super Bowl was over with, and that gave him plenty of time to waffle over his decision.
Situations like these are why NFL teams don’t wait to hire coaches that make it to the Super Bowl, even if they are the most qualified coaching candidates. This leaves the Colts out in the cold in the coaching carousel as all the other NFL coaching vacancies have been filled.
We’ll be dissecting where the coaching search goes from here, and what this means for the Colts’ organization moving forward.