McDaniels, Broncos mile-high after win

The Josh McDaniels propaganda machine has been exposed. And Hoodie Jr. is the one who blew the cover.

Did you see McDaniels after his Denver Broncos — the undefeated, AFC West-leading, sticking-it-to-the-Jay Cutler-and-non-believers-of-the-NFL-world Broncos — won another defibrillator game, this one in overtime against mentor Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots? McDaniels gave not one, but multiple double-fist pumps. And then he almost crushed the rib cage of Broncos wide receiver Eddie Royal with a hug.

“A lot of hugging and screaming and celebrating,” Royal said.

Huh? Since when do graduates of Belichick University go vocal? And fist pumps? McDaniels veered from the Belichick handbook on that one.

“Sometimes you’re allowed to have fun,” McDaniels said. “That’s what I was doing.”

This wasn’t an ordinary win. It was an extraordinary win, against an extraordinary coach and an extraordinary quarterback who are partly, if not largely, responsible for the 33-year-old McDaniels getting the Broncos gig.
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McDaniels spent eight formative years in the Patriots organization. Belichick was his teacher. Tom Brady eventually would become his football partner. Yet McDaniels had insisted that Sunday’s game against Belichick, against Brady, against the team that gave him his NFL start, was no different than any other. With a straight face he had said, “We’re not going to make more of this game than what it is. It’s the fifth game of the year.”

But after the Broncos’ 20-17 victory, those fist pumps and a 5-0 record, McDaniels at last admitted the obvious.

“I lied,” he said.

Of course he lied. The man wears a gray hooded sweatshirt just like Belichick usually does (though Belichick went with a blue coat Sunday). He gushes about Brady at every opportunity.

If it didn’t matter so much, McDaniels would have never made a beeline for the Patriots’ team buses after he was done with his postgame news conference. That’s where he found Brady. And if this was just another game, Belichick himself would have never stopped by McDaniels’ office to congratulate him on the victory.

Read the full story at ESPN.com

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