Josh McDaniels’ coaching career took another hit last week, with the Las Vegas Raiders pulling the plug on him after an MNF loss to the Detroit Lions.
The 47-year-old is set for a huge payday as team owner Mark Davis owes him around $45 million. But no amount of money can repair a reputation when you’ve been unsuccessful as a coach, and it might be a long time before we see him coaching in the NFL again.
Several reports have made claims of players being unhappy under McDaniels, which is not hard to believe as two of their biggest stars, Davante Adams and Josh Jacobs, went public with their disenchantment earlier in the season. Those same players are now excited to work with Antonio Pierce.
McDaniels’ fractious locker room relationships date back to his days as coach of the Denver Broncos. An incident that sticks out is his trade of running back Peyton Hillis to the Cleveland Browns in 2010.
It’s been rumored that McDaniels traded the player because he believed his wife, Laura, was attracted to him. Josh and Laura got married in 2002 and have four kids together. They were thought to be happily married at the time but rumors of her attraction began swirling after said trade.
Peyton is said to have hit on Laura during a team event, with Mark Schlereth and Alfred Williams claiming it was “common knowledge around the Broncos organization,” though details are sketchy.
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Former Broncos tight end Nate Jackson resurrected the rumor after McDaniels was fired last week.
“McDaniels’s ego wasn’t only fragile on the field. He famously shipped out running back Peyton Hillis because, rumor had it, McDaniels thought his wife was attracted to Hillis,” he wrote for Defector.com. “For those of us accustomed to being handled with class—Shanahan, agree with him or not, could be counted upon for this—Josh’s approach to leadership left much to be desired.”
There’s been nothing to support the claims of Hillis being traded for anything other than football-related issues but, given that this is being brought up by a former player 13 years later, maybe there is some truth to it.
