Josh McDaniels returns to Patriots, plays mind games with Tim Tebow

Josh McDaniels gave Tim Tebow a chance in the NFL. He’ll be back on the Pats’ sidelines Saturday night.

Everyone assumed it would be Patriots-Steelers. But it’s not the first time Tim Tebow proved us all wrong.

Tebow and the Broncos upset the Steelers and are heading to Foxboro for a Saturday night showdown at Gillette Stadium. And that’s probably fine with the Patriots.

The Pats beat the Broncos 41-23 on Dec. 18 in Denver, shutting up the Tebow-holics for the time being. Now, the Pats have a couple key defensive players back (safety Patrick Chung and linebacker Brandon Spikes). Oh, and Denver’s head coach from last season.

Josh McDaniels, the former Broncos head coach (2009-10) as well as former Patriots offensive coordinator (2006-08), has officially joined the team as an offensive assistant for the remainder of the postseason, with the idea that he will take over for current offensive coordinator, Bill O’Brien, at season’s end when O’Brien leaves for Penn State.

“He’s a very experienced coach in the league; a good coach that we have a lot of background with,” Bill Belichick said. “I think he can help us in a lot of different ways … I think he’s an asset because of his knowledge, his work ethic and his familiarity with what we’re doing. Right now it’s just a one game season, so whatever we can do to help ourselves this week we’ll do and then we’ll worry about next week and next year later.”

So McDaniels will show up with Denver’s playbook, right? Well, not exactly. The John Fox-coached Broncos are a new team, but it can’t hurt to bring on a guy who’s familiar with certain players and tendencies — on both teams.

“I’ve enjoyed our conversations the past couple days as we’ve gotten caught up on some things and moved forward into the playoffs here,” Belichick said. “I think that he’ll be a good asset to our team for the remainder of the season.”

Bonus baby

Tim Tebow’s upset victory over the Steelers on Sunday paid off in more ways than one:

$250,000 was the extra amount of cash the Broncos quarterback received due to an escalator in his
contract for each playoff victory.