After the pair graduated from John Carroll in 1999, they were each hired as graduate coaching assistants — McDaniels at Michigan State, and Caserio at Saginaw Valley State — but remained close. In February 2001, McDaniels was hired in the New England Patriots’ personnel department, where he worked for Scott Pioli.
When a job in the department opened up a few months later, McDaniels got Caserio — who had since taken a graduate assistant job with Central Michigan — in the door for an interview. Caserio nailed it, and the former college teammates became coworkers.
“We’ve known each other a long time,” said Caserio, who is now the Patriots director of player personnel. “We’ve had a great relationship through the years, going back to college. He’s responsible for me being here in New England. If it wasn’t for him, I’m not even sure if this opportunity would have come up on this end. We’ll always be friends.”
Caserio and McDaniels evolved with the Patriots in different capacities. McDaniels started by breaking down defensive tapes and then worked as a defensive coaching assistant. He was eventually promoted to quarterbacks coach and took an extended role with the offense when offensive coordinator Charlie Weis took the head coaching job at Notre Dame. Caserio, on the other hand, has split time between working with the Patriots’ offense and the scouting department.
Last offseason, Caserio and McDaniels each earned the biggest breaks of their careers. McDaniels was hired to replace Mike Shanahan as the Denver Broncos' head coach, and Caserio was promoted when Pioli left to join the Kansas City Chiefs.
Caserio’s Patriots visit McDaniels’ Broncos on Sunday, and it’s the first time the pair will be in competition with one another since their days at John Carroll, when Caserio beat out McDaniels to win the team’s quarterbacking job.
“The most important thing is we’re on opposite ends of the spectrum this week, and I’m sure Josh feels the same way,” Caserio said. “Our goal is to go out there and play well against the Broncos. I’m a Patriots fan this week. When we’re not playing Denver, then I can be part Patriots fan, part Bronco fan on a personal level.”
Caserio knew McDaniels was cut out to succeed as a head coach because of his football mind and his ability to communicate with players. Young coaches have to prove to their players they’re willing and able to help them improve on a daily basis while also getting them ready to implement those lessons on Sundays. Once players start listening, they’ll follow the coach, and as a result the Broncos are one of five teams to start the season 4-0.
Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has also seen the potential in McDaniels. After all, Belichick sent McDaniels to Denver with well wishes and a ton of support because the mentor knew his understudy was ready for the challenge, which clearly wasn’t the case when former Patriots defensive coordinator Eric Mangini departed for the New York Jets in 2006.
Belichick said he actually knew McDaniels was ready to be a head coach near the end of the 2007 season, and Belichick tried his best to prepare McDaniels for that role whenever it would arise. They exchanged ideas from their own perspectives, which would eventually help Belichick move forward with the offense and McDaniels to better understand a head coach’s thought process through different situations. These were conversations, Belichick said, that would last “hours and hours.”
“Josh and I talked about a lot of things from a head coaching perspective during his last year here,” Belichick said. “I think we both knew at that time there was a pretty good possibility that he would be a head coach.”
