Josh McDaniels' head coaching stint with Raiders is off to a dreadful start

BOSTON -- Those of us in New England who listened to Josh McDaniels over the past couple of years came to develop a sense that the longtime offensive coordinator and one-time failed head coach of the Denver Broncos was in the right place mentally and emotionally to make the most of his second head coaching opportunity. That may still be the case for the 46-year-old McDaniels, but his stint as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders is off to a truly dreadful start.

That rough ride was extended on Monday night, when McDaniels and the Raiders lost a wild, back-and-forth affair in Kansas City. 

It was a game not short on controversy -- a tough roughing the passer penalty on Chris Jones, an odd defensive holding penalty when the Raiders were defending a field goal, and a missed hold against Jones were just some of the unusual quirks from Carl Cheffers' officiating crew. The game also involved a very questionable decision by McDaniels to go for two after the Raiders scored what should have been the game-tying touchdown.

With 4:27 left in the fourth quarter, Davante Adams hauled in a deep bomb from Derek Carr, cutting the Chiefs' lead to 30-29. Yet instead of kicking the PAT to tie the game, McDaniels opted to go for two. Carr handed off to Josh Jacobs, who almost got into the end zone but was tackled just shy of the goal line, leaving the Raiders in a one-point hole.

The decision was curious, no doubt. Even if the play was successful, then the Chiefs would have only needed to drive for a field goal to win the game -- the same stakes if the game were tied, only with the threat of a loss if Patrick Mahomes and Co. failed to get it done. Considering the Chiefs had five drives of 50 yards or more to that point, and considering Travis Kelce was uncoverable all night, it felt like a safe bet that the home team would be able to utilize all that time on the clock to win the game.

Alas, they didn't have to. And the call by McDaniels technically worked out, as the Chiefs went ultra-conservative with their play-calling and ended up punting to the Raiders with 2:36 left in the game, and with the Raiders having burned two of their timeouts. Now it was the Raiders who only needed to drive for a field goal to win, and they likely would have done it if Davante Adams hadn't bobbled a catch before stepping out of bounds at the Chiefs' 39-yard line.

Instead of a first-and-10 at the Kansas City 39, the Raiders faced a fourth-and-1 at their own 46. Hunter Renfrow collided with Adams on the play, Carr's pass fell incomplete, and the game was over.

It dropped McDaniels and the Raiders to 1-4 on the season.

While everyone predicted some tough battles in the AFC West, the Raiders are coming off a year in which they went 10-7, mostly under an interim head coach, while making the playoffs and losing a one-possession postseason game to the eventual AFC champs. With the reinvigoration of McDaniels on the sideline and Dave Ziegler in the front office, as well as the addition of Adams and Chandler Jones, the Raiders were supposed to be loaded up for a potential Super Bowl run.

Instead, they're 1-4, in last place in their division, tied for the worst record in the entire NFL.

Maybe they'll find a way to steer out of it, but as of right now, things are very bad.

Despite those circumstances, McDaniels kept a cool head after Monday's loss.

"No, no, this is a marathon," McDaniels said when asked if his message to the team would have to change at 1-4. "You know, I mean, if it was a sprint, we lost the sprint, you know. But unfortunately, that's not what it is, you know. Fortunately for us, it's a marathon. And so, we understand, you know, what, you know, these games mean, and they each matter. They're each significant at the end of your season. You now, we know that. They add up. But I think the thing we have to focus on is take the positives and then also try to learn from the things that we're not quite doing well enough. That's our job. That's what we're gonna continue to do. That's what we've done after we've won, and that's what we've done after we've lost. And we're gonna continue to do that."

McDaniels added: "There's progress, you know, that we've made. And, you know, like I said, that's a good football team out there and, you know, we're right there at the end. We have to learn how to be able to finish some of those games. That's what we have to do. And that's my job."

As for the decision to go for the two-point conversion, McDaniels -- while saying "you know" eight times in rapid succession -- didn't express any regret.

"Just, you know, felt like in that situation, you know, we hadn't, you know, we hadn't really -- they had kind of had a lot of momentum offensively, obviously, in the second half. And just, you know, we had a play that we felt really good about, I thought we would get a look that gave us a shot at it, for sure," McDaniels said. "And we had a chance, we had a fair fight at it, you know. They played it a little bit better than we did. Gave ourselves an opportunity to take the lead there, and you know, and then maybe put a little extra pressure on them when they had the ball, you know. Nothing more, nothing less. Just trying to be aggressive, just trying to win the game, and I know it's four and a half [minutes], or whatever the time was, but just, our team felt good about it, and just, you know, felt like that was the right call at the right time."

Right or wrong, the late-game strategizing didn't work out. And McDaniels' head coaching record dropped to 12-21. After a 6-0 start as a head coach in 2009, McDaniels has lost 21 of his last 27 games. Whether or not it's fair to invoke a head-coaching record from a dozen years ago, Raiders fans -- and, really, NFL fans at large -- will hold a healthy skepticism about McDaniels' abilities as a head coach until he can prove that he can consistently win. Starting 1-4 after inheriting a 10-7 team is a rough reintroduction to the head coaching world.

On the plus side, after taking their bye week to reassess matters, they'll host the Texans, followed by three winnable games (at New Orleans, at Jacksonville, home vs. the Colts) before getting back into AFC West competition. If they can get to .500 by midseason, the tensions are sure to cool. If not ... things could stay hot in the desert through the start of winter for McDaniels.