Cleveland Browns: Why we can, and cannot trust Josh McDaniels

Reasons to trust McDaniels

When it comes to concerns about McDaniels, his time with the Broncos should be thrown out the window. Not only was that a long time ago, but this would be a completely different situation, plus McDaniels surely learned from his time in Denver.

Looking back he should know now that shipping off the quarterback wasn’t the right move — although, in the end, it looked like he was right about Cutler. On top of that, in Cleveland, we wouldn’t have that problem for two reasons — one, they have their franchise gun-slinger already in Baker Mayfield. Two, the duties of shaping the roster fall on the shoulders of John Dorsey and McDaniels won’t have the full control he had in Denver.

That means the situation in Indianapolis should be the most concerning issue regarding McDaniels. Here’s why we can rest easy about that.

McDaniels is an offensive guy and he was obviously interested in the Colts partially because of Andrew Luck. However, Luck wasn’t healthy at the time and the reports weren’t very good back then. In fact, Luck didn’t even start gripping a football until the summer of 2018 — which came after surgery in Jan. 2017.

McDaniels may have had reservations about taking the job without knowing full well how healthy his best player would be. Again, we look at Cleveland and he doesn’t have that worry. The Browns offer him a franchise passer and some talent around him that a creative offensive mind like McDaniels can do wonders with.

All that being said, there’s still no reason to go all in on McDaniels unless he proves he’s all in first. Even then, most of us wouldn’t sleep well until we actually saw him show up to the facility and actually start coaching the team.