Josh McDaniels' agent reportedly terminates relationship with him after Colts fiasco

Frank Schwab
·NFL writer

One of the awkward parts of Josh McDaniels backing out of the Indianapolis Colts head-coaching job is that McDaniels and Colts GM Chris Ballard shared the same agent.

That’s not the case anymore. Bob LaMonte, who for years has represented many big-name coaches and executives around the NFL, has terminated his relationship with McDaniels according to Dan Graziano of ESPN.com.

That reinforces the notion McDaniels alienated a lot of people around the NFL by the way he handled the situation. The Colts had hired assistant coaches for McDaniels’ staff (Ballard said they would be kept on staff because the Colts won’t “abandon” them). Indianapolis hadn’t interviewed other candidates for weeks with the understanding McDaniels would take their job. The Colts announced McDaniels had agreed to terms to be their coach after Ballard thought there was an agreement in place. Then McDaniels reneged and the Colts had to start all over again. Aside from any personal feelings about how McDaniels handled the situation, LaMonte had to distance himself from McDaniels after this. He represents many coaches and executives and being associated with McDaniels’ change of heart would have been bad for his business.

McDaniels will have a tough time getting another head-coaching look after this. His first head-coaching job was with the Denver Broncos a little less than a decade ago, and he was horrendous. Now he publicly embarrassed the Colts, to the point that a highly-respected agent took sides and cut McDaniels loose. NFL.com reported LaMonte told McDaniels he was making the biggest mistake of his professional career by backing out of the Colts job. Time will tell, but McDaniels didn’t come out of Tuesday’s events looking good.

Of course, he might not need a job with another organization. While it has been reported that he received no assurances that he’ll be the Patriots’ next coach when Bill Belichick retires, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if that happened. McDaniels might need that to be his next career step, because he might be a bit of a pariah around the league after what went down with the Colts.

New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels agreed to take the Colts' head coaching job, then declined. (AP)
New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels agreed to take the Colts’ head coaching job, then declined. (AP)

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Frank Schwab is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!