Every Super Bowl comes with its own gravity, the kind that pulls old stories back into the light. This year, it’s Drake Maye and the New England Patriots walking into face the Seattle Seahawks, and Josh McDaniels once again hovering at the middle of familiar NFC crossroads.
McDaniels has left his imprint on many franchises. And yet there is a surprisingly persistent question that follows him around like a half-remembered rumour: did he ever play in the NFL?
A Look at Josh McDaniels’ Career as a Player
To answer, he didn’t. Not even a cup of coffee. Before he diagrammed plays on laminated sheets or pacing sidelines in winter coats, McDaniels was a high school quarterback in Canton, Ohio. At Canton McKinley High School, he played under Greg Debeljak and did what QBs do best at his age: lead, complete, believe. College football, as it often does, had other plans.
McDaniels was recruited to John Carroll University, where he came as a quarterback, but lost the job to Nick Caserio, who became a Patriots executive and crossed McDaniels. Professional orbit once again. He then moved to wide receiver and spent most of his college career from 1995 to 1998, leaving football from the outside looking in.
McDaniels never chased a professional playing career. There were no tryouts, no training camps, no “what if” seasons. His future in football would come without a helmet.
McDaniels’ Coaching Career
Josh McDaniels moved almost seamlessly into coaching, beginning as a senior graduate assistant at Michigan State under Nick Saban in 1999. The connection came through family ties, but survival in Saban’s orbit has always required more than introductions.
Briefly, McDaniels stepped away from football altogether. He worked in plastic sales in Cleveland, a footnote in his biography that reads almost like a novel in hindsight.
Football pulled him back in 2001, when he joined the New England Patriots as a personnel assistant. The timing, as it turned out, was impeccable. Over the next several years, McDaniels rose through the coaching ranks, becoming quarterbacks coach and eventually offensive coordinator.
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During his first stint running the Patriots’ offense from 2006 to 2008, New England’s team (2007 especially) scored more points than any offense in NFL history and finished the regular season undefeated. His second tenure, from 2012 to 2021, produced three Super Bowl titles.
He then took head coaching jobs in Denver and Las Vegas, with uneven results, before returning to New England once more in 2025. The team’s impact score of 86.6 ranks it second on PFSN’s OFFi.
