Raiders offseason: Josh McDaniels plans on self evaluation

Coach will study his play calling among other things

As part of his evaluation period as the Las Vegas Raiders dive into the offseason and try to improve from a horribly disappointing 6-11 season, head coach Josh McDaniels will dive into his own work to try to find ways to improve.

At his season-ending presser on Monday, McDaniels said he will try to dive into his own work after a tough first year in Las Vegas.

“I think number one is going back through … What was I doing? What was I responsible for? How productive was I in my role in terms of the things that I was really responsible for in that regard?,” McDaniels said. “I’m obviously responsible for everything, but I think in terms of the individual hats that I try to wear, look at those things and see if they were as productive as we need them to be. I think listening to other people is really important at this time of the year. There’s a lot of other people that see me on a daily basis, I think that’s true for everybody. That’s what I’m going to try to do with our coaches and that’s what I’m going to try to do for myself is listen to other people. They give me great feedback; they did all year long. And try to be very constructive with myself in terms of if there’s things that I need to do better. And there’s never been a year that I’ve coached where I didn’t feel like I could do a better job. So, I think that will definitely be true this year in a lot of areas, and I think that’s probably going to be true with most people.”

McDaniels, 46, has been a head coach for parts of three seasons. He spent 28 games with the Denver Broncos and was fired in December, 2010. The longtime New England Patriots’ offensive coordinator is just 17-28 as a head coach. Despite his struggles as a head coach, McDaniels relishes the opportunity.

“It’s a great challenge. It’s also very rewarding. You try to maintain the culture, the vibe in the building day-to-day, our attitude, our mindset, and try to be just a productive leader every day,” McDaniels said. “And it’s not just solely focused on offensive plays, or offensive production, as obviously my career has centered around mostly. And so, it’s one of the reasons why I wanted to do it because I think it’s an opportunity to challenge yourself and it’s an opportunity to grow as an individual. I certainly don’t have all the answers. I leaned on a lot of people this year; I’ll continue to do that. I have a lot of people that influence the things that I do on a day-to-day basis, and those people are very vital to me and to our organization.

“It’s definitely a different perspective. You have to divide and conquer, you have to trust other people, which I think I’ve tried to do a really good job of giving people responsibility and then trying to be there if I can help them in any way that I can do. But ultimately, really leading and making sure that we’re trying to do the right things day-to-day as a football team, not just as an offense is really where it starts.”

McDaniels said he learned several lessons in 2022 and has a great appreciation for the franchise.

“I think I’ve learned a lot about this organization in general. Their commitment to winning. The fan base is incredible, the best I’ve seen. I’ve been in the league for 22 years and it’s an amazing amount of support. I think that what they’ve given us to work with here in terms of facilities and resources have been second to none. And so, you want to pour everything you got into it to try to make that come full circle and win. There’s a lot of great people here that do a lot of great things to help us win. And we’re going to try to do everything we can to help everybody here become a winner.”

If he doesn’t deliver soon, of course, McDaniels will likely have a relatively short stay in Las Vegas.