NFL: McDaniels shocks the Colts – because of Belichick?

Indianapolis Colts disaster: New England’s offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels was due to be introduced as the new head coach on Wednesday – and is now pulling out! Indy stands there without a coach, the rumor mill is bubbling with the patriots.

In a brief statement, the Colts said:”After signing a contract to become the new head coach of Indianapolis Colts, Patriots co-coach Josh McDaniels informed us this evening that he will not join our team. Even though we are surprised and disappointed, we will continue our head coach search with immediate effect and find the right candidate to lead our team on and off the pitch.”

The news comes as an absolute shock, McDaniels’ press conference in Indianapolis was already scheduled for today’s Wednesday to be introduced as the new head coach. A few hours before the cancellation, the Colts had officially announced that McDaniels had reached an agreement with McDaniels and McDaniels had already offered jobs to assist his coaching staff in Indianapolis.

Slight doubts were already expressed on Sunday when the Super Bowl Pro Football Talk announced that New England’s offensive coordinator was thinking of backing out. These doubts seemed to have been dispelled with the announcement from Indianapolis – until late in the evening.

So the rumor mill in New England is boiling and everything is wondering: Why does McDaniels stay now? A speculation is that Bill Belichick plans to leave Foxboro in the near future and McDaniels will sooner or later succeed him. However, he has apparently not received written confirmation of this.

According to ESPN, the patriots are said not to have addressed the situation for a long time at all – before they started an extremely aggressive attempt to persuade McDaniel to stay in the past. Peter King from the MMQB is also heading in this direction: Pats owner Robert Kraft and Belichick therefore sat down with McDaniels for a long time on Tuesday and convinced him to stay.

Other rumors may suggest family reasons, McDaniels is married and has four children and may have decided to uproot his whole family in the short term.

It only seems clear that the surprising rejection has nothing to do with the colts directly – or, for example, the shoulder of Indy quarterback Andrew Luck. Some names that are now circulating around Indianapolis: Frank Reich (Offensive Coordinator Eagles), Dave Toub (Special Teams Coach Chiefs), John DeFilippo (Quarterbacks-Coach Eagles) and ex-Colts-Coach and Bills-Defensive-Coordinator Leslie Frazier.