Simms: McDaniels the No. 1 candidate
Chris Simms saw Josh McDaniels up close in Denver, where Simms was a backup quarterback and McDaniels was his head coach. Three years later, Simms, as a coaching assistant in New England, got an even deeper understanding and appreciation of McDaniels.
Simms’ verdict? McDaniels is the No. 1 coaching candidate on the market, and the Giants would be wise to snatch him up. The Giants will interview McDaniels, the Patriots’ offensive coordinator, and Matt Patricia, the Pats’ defensive coordinator, Friday in Foxborough, Mass.
Scanning the pool of prospective head coaches, Simms sees McDaniels and Patricia as the top two to choose from, in that order.
“I think Josh is a mini Bill Belichick, for my money,’’ Simms, a lead NFL analyst for Bleacher Report and an NFL analyst for NBC Sports, told The Post on Thursday. “He was one of the best coaches I’ve been around. There’s nobody that’s more detailed on a day-today basis than Josh McDaniels, other than Bill Belichick, but they’re almost the same guy in a lot of ways.’’
Simms, the son of former Giants quarterback Phil Simms, first crossed paths with McDaniels in 2009. After stays with the Buccaneers and Titans, Chris Simms signed with the Broncos as a backup to Jay Cutler. McDaniels, 33, was in his first season as a young, novice head coach. The Broncos won their first six games under McDaniels and he was hailed as a genius, but an earlier trade of Cutler to the Bears for Kyle Orton came back to bite McDaniels, as the Broncos finished 8-8 and failed to make the playoffs. McDaniels did not make it out of his second season before he was fired, with a 2010 record of 3-9.
“Josh got an unfair shake in Denver, and I don’t think that’s what people really realize,’’ Simms said. “The things that need to be talked about in Denver: Does he deserve some blame? Sure. I’m sure he thinks back and goes, ‘Man, I wish I didn’t trade Jay Cutler away.’ I don’t think the things people realize is the Broncos were going broke. I don’t think he was allowed to get the free agents he was promised before he got there. With the New England system and what they do, it being more complicated than most systems, it takes more than one year to get those kinds of guys in there.
“He would recognize he made a mistake in having a first-time GM [Brian Xanders] as well. Josh had to venture over to that side of it, instead of just coaching the team. The first-time GM was trying to get his feet underneath him and figure out what Josh wanted, that added to more pressure and more scrutiny on Josh, because it took him away from the coaching during the season, and there he was trying to help out in personnel as well.’’
Simms spent 18 months working for Belichick and the Patriots as a scouting assistant and offensive quality control coach, a span that included the entire 2012 season. This allowed Simms to see a different side of McDaniels.
“I think the world of Josh,’’ Simms said. “To me, Josh would be the number one candidate. I really believe in him and his ability, his creativity, his day-to-day energy and dedication to work is as good as I’ve ever seen and been around. I think he’s a special coach.
“My time there, there was nobody that had the ear of Bill more than Josh McDaniels. I saw them talking privately in a corner or in the hallway more than anybody else that Bill talked to. I think that’s because Bill and Josh are great football minds and can discuss a lot of different angles of how the game would play out.’’