Cleveland Browns hire more coaches to fill vacant roster
It looks as though Cleveland Browns head coach Pat Shurmur may follow in the footsteps of New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. The Pats were the only team that didn’t have an offensive coordinator last season and they managed to do pretty well.
Pretty well is an understatement, after all they had a 14-2 record, which is the best record in the entire National Football League (NFL) for the 2010-11 season. It looks as though Shurmur may do the same thing.
In his introductory news conference, he said that he would be calling the offensive plays himself, seeing as he was the offensive coordinator with the St. Louis Rams before coming to lead the team in Cleveland. So it looks as though he really won’t be hiring
a defense coordinator, which is fine. Whatever floats your boat, Pat.
However, that’s the only vacant coaching position left on his team. The team announced the hiring of the rest of the coaches needed to fill their exceptionally empty coaching staff roster on Monday. They hired Mark Whipple from the University of Miami, where
he was an offensive coordinator, and brought him to Cleveland to be the quarterbacks coach.
He was with the University of Miami Hurricanes for two years but was let go after their head coach, Randy Shannon, was fired. He had a chance at the head coaching job for the University of Connecticut but it was given to Paul Pasqualoni instead, who used
to be the head coach for Syracuse University.
Before being the offensive coordinator at Miami, he was an assistant to the offence in 2008 with the Philadelphia Eagles, where he worked with Browns General Manager Tom Heckert and Shurmur himself. From 2004 to 2006, Whipple had been with the Pittsburgh
Steelers as their quarterback coach.
The Browns also hired Dwaine Board from the Oakland Raiders, where he was the defensive line coach, to come to Cleveland and take up the same position. Before that, he was with the Seattle Seahawks for six years where he spent a lot of time with Browns president
Mike Holmgren.
The team also hired Bill Davis for his second run with the Browns, this time as linebackers coach. Before then, he had been defensive quality control way back in 1999 when Chris Palmer was around.
Last but not least, the team has also picked up Mike Wilson from the United Football League (UFL) from Las Vegas. He used to coach wide receivers and tight ends and will be the wide receivers coach with the Browns.
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