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Josh McDaniels reportedly finalizing deal to become Raiders’ next head coach
Patriots director of player personnel Dave Ziegler will also reportedly go to Las Vegas to be the Raiders' general manager.
Josh McDaniels is getting another shot to be an NFL head coach.
The Patriots offensive coordinator is finalizing a deal to become the Raiders’ next head coach, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Sunday. In addition, the Raiders are also hiring Patriots director of player personnel Dave Ziegler to be their next general manager, the NFL Network reported.
As NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero notes, Ziegler has been McDaniels’s choice to run personnel for years if he were to ever become a head coach again. The relationship between the two dates back to their time as students at John Carroll University, where both played college football. The two were reunited when McDaniels hired Ziegler to work in the Broncos’ scouting department when he was the head coach in Denver.
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Ziegler interviewed for the Raiders’ general manager position days after their playoff loss to the Bengals. McDaniels flew out to Las Vegas on Friday and interviewed with owner Mark Davis on Saturday.
McDaniels has had two different stints with the Patriots. He joined the team as an assistant in 2001 and worked his way up to becoming the team’s offensive coordinator in 2005, a position he held through the 2008 season. McDaniels returned to New England to be the offensive coordinator again in 2012 and has been in the same role since.
McDaniels’s first head coaching gig came with the Broncos in 2009. He got off to a good start to his head coaching career, winning his first six games. But the Broncos went 2-8 the rest of the way, falling short of the playoffs. The losing continued in 2010 and when the Broncos fell to 3-9, McDaniels was fired.
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McDaniels nearly became the Colts’ head coach in 2018, but after agreeing to a deal, he backed out at the last minute.
Ziegler has worked with the Patriots for the past nine seasons. He began as the assistant director of pro scouting before becoming director of pro personnel. He spent the 2020 season as assistant director of player personnel. After turning down the Broncos for their open general manager position in 2021, Ziegler was promoted to director of player personnel and was viewed as the de-facto general manager by several insiders.
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