Josh McDaniels Patriots: Former Broncos Coach Won't Help Pats Solve Tebow Puzzle

Tom Brady wants everyone to know that his New England Patriots are going to have a secret weapon on the sidelines for their Divisional Round tilt against the Denver Broncos on Saturday.

His name is Josh McDaniels, none other than the former head coach of the Broncos.

McDaniels, of course, worked for the Patriots from 2001 to 2008, spending three seasons as the team's offensive coordinator. He will be returning to the team as an offensive assistant, and Brady is looking for him to bring plenty of knowledge to the table.

Here's what Brady told WEEI on Monday:

"

He obviously has some inside information on that team and those players, as he coached them. I haven’t seen Josh yet, so I really don’t know. I think coach [Bill] Belichick has a pretty good idea of what he’s going to want Josh to do. I talked to Josh briefly but I really haven’t had a chance to sit down with him. He’s a great coach and we’re lucky to have him. I’m excited to get back to work with him. How that plays into this week, we’ll see. We’ll try to figure that out here in the next five or six days.

"

As far as who Brady means by "those players," that part is not hard to decipher. McDaniels drafted both wide receiver Demaryius Thomas and quarterback Tim Tebow in the first round of the 2010 NFL draft, and the two of them were last seen hooking up on a game-winning touchdown pass in overtime against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Wild Card Round.

Tebow, in particular, has also done other things in recent months. No doubt you managed to catch wind of some of his accolades.

Since McDaniels drafted and coached Tebow and Thomas, he'll know what the Pats will have to do to stop them. Makes perfect sense.

Except it doesn't. In fact, it makes no sense at all.

Despite the fact McDaniels drafted and coached Tebow and Thomas, he really didn't get to influence their development all that much. Thomas was hurt for a good portion of the 2010 season, and McDaniels was long gone by the time Tebow got his first starts at the end of the 2010 season.

John Fox took over at the controls in Denver before the 2011 season, and the success of Tebow, Thomas and the rest of the Broncos is all his doing. Most notably, he installed a run-heavy, college-style offense for Tebow to facilitate after he earned the starting job midway through the regular season.

The Patriots don't need an insider to tell them things like this. All they need are their own two eyes.

How much can McDaniels possibly tell them that they don't already know? Given his relatively limited exposure to Tebow, all McDaniels is going to be able to tell the Pats is that he's a fiery competitor with some serious mechanical and decision-making flaws.

Once again, these are things that the Pats don't need to be told.

Besides which, McDaniels is returning to the team as an offensive assistant. His job will be to worry about the Patriots' offense, not Denver's offense. He'll be focused on helping Brady beat the Broncos, not on what the Pats defense needs to do to beat Tebow and friends. 

The defense can figure that out on its own. It has, after all, already faced Tebow once. He ended up having a pretty good game, but his Broncos got destroyed by Brady's Patriots. Unless Tebow starts completing passes at a Drew Brees-like clip, a similar outcome is very much in the cards.

So, a secret weapon with inside information? That's giving the McDaniels hiring a little bit too much credit.

In truth, he'll be just another guy on the sideline.