A few weeks ago, Tom E. Curran and Phil Perry were weighing in on the best landing spot for Josh McDaniels as a head coach.
Now, after a day of coaching moves where another Patriots assistant, Joe Judge, ended up with the Giants and Baylor's Matt Rhule landed with the Carolina Panthers, there's only one spot left in the NFL's game of musical head coaching chairs, the Cleveland Browns.
On the latest edition of Curran's Patriots Talk Podcast, our Patriots guys still differ on the best spot for the Patriots offensive coordinator.
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Perry says stay put. Curran says it's time for McDaniels to take his shot in Cleveland.
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"I feel like it's better for him to stay for a couple of reasons. He's on his second chance, really, his third you could call it if you count Indy [where McDaniels jilted the Colts two years ago]," said Perry, "and you really don't know how many chances you're going to have after number 2..."
Perry goes on to point out that there's plenty of instability in Cleveland, where ownership is conducting its fifth head coaching search since it took over in 2012: "The Browns to me really isn't the right situation."
And with former baseball-analytics-guru-turned-football-operations-czar Paul DePodesta looming over the decision-making, "that makes the football hierarchy too murky for me," said Perry. "That would not be the opportunity that I would jump for necessarily."
Curran sees a Patriots franchise in transition, particularly if Tom Brady departs, so, the time would be right for McDaniels to move on, too.
"It would be easier if Brady comes back," said Curran. "And if he doesn't, then Josh is breaking in a new guy, in a demanding place, without a lot of guys to throw to. To me, keep it easy, get a bigger paycheck, go work with Odell Beckham, Baker Mayfield, Myles Garrett on the defense, Jarvis Landry, David Njoku. Take your chances. Yeah, they might cannibalize your ass like they did with Bill Belichick in 1995 [when he was fired by the Browns], but at least you went out there and started throwing some damn punches."
Curran argued another season with a struggling offense in New England could close the book on McDaniels as a viable head coaching candidate.
Said Curran: "If the Giants turned their nose up to him, and the Panthers turned their nose up to him and he decides he's going to take this interview [with the Browns] and he's either going to be passed over or decline the job with Cleveland, and he's back on the market next year, I'm starting to think that the bloom might be off the rose a little bit if the team goes 6-10 and the offense can't get out of its own way offensively."
In addition to the McDaniels talk, this edition of the pod includes plenty of fallout from the Patriots' early playoff exit, the season overall to review and, of course, more Brady speculation as Curran touches on the significance of the QB using the words "hopefully unlikely" when talking about retirement, which he also wrote about in-depth, here.