Josh McDaniels packed his bags, with Indianapolis the next stop on his itinerary. Then canceled his flight.
The morning after McDaniels' stunning decision to spurn the Colts and remain offensive coordinator in New England dawns with more questions than answers.
One thing we do know is that McDaniels and the Patriots agreed to a tweaked contract, per NFL Network's Mike Garafolo, which will pay him more money to remain New England's OC -- not as much as he'd have made coaching the Colts. The prevailing assumption is that McDaniels made the move because he will be the coach-in-waiting behind Bill Belichick. However, no written agreement of a future torch-passing can happen.
Garafolo reported on NFL Network's Good Morning Football that even McDaniels' agent, Bob LaMonte, told the OC that he's making perhaps the biggest professional mistake of his career by backing out of this Colts job at this point, according to sources informed of the talks between McDaniels and his agent.
It's not hard to see why LaMonte -- who also represents Colts general manager Chris Ballard -- would have issued a caution to McDaniels after making such a decision. There were questions about McDaniels stemming from his last coaching stop with the Denver Broncos. While he's rehabbed much of his reputation both on and off the field in recent years, Tuesday night's decision likely undid all of that in the eyes of 31 other teams.
If he eventually succeeds Belichick down the road, the matter could be moot for McDaniels. If the Kraft family has its own change of heart and reverses gears in the next couple years, however, McDaniels could become a man scrambling for a career life raft.
