Do The Patriots Miss McDaniels?

We've been led to believe that Josh McDaniels is a moron and one of the worst head coaches to lead a team. He traded away Jay Cutler, signed the Miami Dolphins shoddy secondary and seriously committed to Kyle Orton as his starting quarterback. 

But maybe we were misled?

Online sports betting handicappers are wondering what has happened to that explosive, record-setting New England Patriots offense and to be quite frank, there aren't many explanations other than McDaniels was a significant loss for the Pats.

Sure, the Broncos have played the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals in the first two weeks, so there is no reason to anoint McDaniels as a genius for leading them to 2-0 but there is enough reason to suggest that he's brighter than we think.

The Patriots offense is supposed to be better than last year - or even the year before. They added Fred Taylor and Joey Galloway into the mix, and Tom Brady and Laurence Maroney are healthy.

But after two weeks, not only have the Patriots failed to crush the spread in the sportsbook, they have barely scraped by. Last week against the Jets, the Patriots couldn't even score a touchdown.

Something is wrong in Patriotland and more than anyone wants to admit, the loss of McDaniels is hurting this team. We knew that eventually, losing one of their coordinators and it's finally happened. This offense was more effective with Matt Cassel as the starter last year.

It's early in the season but if this continues, just remember that McDaniels deserves more credit than people give him for his work in New England - even if he ruins the Broncos franchise.