While the Eagles and Patriots are celebrating their newly won trips to play in Super Bowl LII, the Browns are at work still trying to figure out their coaching staff – mostly on the offensive side.
Jason LaCanfora of CBS today talked about the ‘pickle’ that the Browns are in when it comes to this situation involving the offense, and if the team is actually going to hire a ‘coordinator’ or not.
Here’s what LaCanfora had to say about the situation earlier on Sunday:
New general manager John Dorsey, a well-respected football man, is overhauling the front office, and they are going to find better players and draft a talented quarterback first overall. As an added bonus, should Jackson continue his dogged pursuit of the record books (0-16 and 1-15 in two years on the job in Cleveland), then it’s easy to predict an in-season firing in 2018 … which could give the new offensive coordinator a chance to run the entire team, break Cleveland’s long losing streak and greatly raise his visibility and viability for future head coaching jobs, there or elsewhere. (I’d also note that Browns defensive coordinator Gregg Williams did a nice job with his unit last season under extreme duress and has head-coaching experience as well.)
So, given all of that, it makes perfect sense to be interviewing guys like Ben McAdoo and Todd Haley for the OC job. Of course, the only way the Browns are going to land someone who has prior head-coaching experience and vast time spent running an offense is if this job comes with full authority to run the offense without meddling from Jackson. And, well, let’s just say there is are all kind of rumblings about just that. Will Jackson sign off on a coaching hire that could quickly undermine his own job status? How will all that play out, with constant clashes between coaching and personnel part of what’s undermined the Browns for years? Might always-embattled and rarely-winning owner Jimmy Haslam have to intervene?
Let’s just say that people are talking about this dynamic, both in that organization and around the league. Jackson, who has failed to identify or develop a quarterback in Cleveland to this point and earned considerable criticism for how he handled rookie DeShone Kizer last season, is fairly set in his ways and has offensive concepts he strongly believes in. And he already hired a quarterback coach a few weeks back that he knows well through his Bengals ties in Ken Zampese, who didn’t make it through September in Cincy last season.
While there’s plenty of good coaches with good offensive minds out there, it might come down to Jackson finally having to wipe his hands of forcing the situation, and allow someone with a solid mind for offense to come up and run this team once and for all.
The last thing the Browns can afford with a hopeful offseason full of promise is early issues with Dorsey and Jackson and this mess involving an offensive coordinator.
Get an offensive coordinator, and let Hue try to manage other aspects of the team that suffered in 2017, not continue to try an juggle an offensive system while coaching the entire team.
It was a disaster over the last two seasons, there’s no reason to stick with what obviously isn’t working.
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