Tag: Browns coaching search

Report: Browns to hire Shaun Huls as director of high performance

Report: Browns to hire Shaun Huls as director of high performance

The Cleveland Browns will hire Shaun Huls as the director of high performance, a newly created position within the front office and staff under new GM Andrew Berry. That’s according to a report from NFL.com’s Mike Garafolo that was quickly picked up by other media outlets.

Huls previously spent several seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles as their head of sports science performance. His background is in strength and performance conditioning, including a stint working with the Navy as a trainer for the SEALs. Huls also worked at Hampton University.

During his Eagles tenure, the team produced a video profiling Huls and showing a little bit of his work.

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Browns complete their coaching staff, add 6 more assistants

The Kevin Stefanski staff for 2020 is now complete

With days to go in advance of the 2020 NFL Scouting Combine, the Cleveland Browns have completed the hiring process for the entire coaching staff under head coach Kevin Stefanski. The team announced the hiring of six more assistants on Wednesday in conjunction with the inaugural press conferences for new coordinators Alex Van Pelt and Joe Woods.

The Browns added the following sextet of assistants to Stefanski’s staff:

  • Ben Bloom – senior defensive assistant
  • Stephen Bravo-Brown – defensive quality control
  • Ryan Cordell – coaching assistant
  • Jeremy Garrett – assistant defensive line
  • Brandon Lynch – assistant defensive backs
  • Seitu Smith – offensive quality control to the coaching staff

Cordell is the only coach who is a holdover, having served as a football research analyst for the Browns in 2019.

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Jason Tarver officially hired as the Browns new LBs coach

The Cleveland Browns have hired Jason Tarver as the new LBs coach

After weeks of speculation and different reports of different names, the Cleveland Browns finally have themselves a new linebackers coach. Jason Tarver was officially hired to coach the LBs under new head coach Kevin Stefanski.

Tarver’s name had been the most prominent among those connected to the job. He comes to the Browns from Vanderbilt, where he was the Commodores’ defensive coordinator. Tarver spent two years in Nashville after several NFL seasons.

Some of that NFL experience came as the coordinator of the Oakland Raiders defense. Cleveland’s new defensive coordinator Joe Woods worked under him as the DBs coach in 2014. He spent many years in San Francisco on the 49ers staff in various defensive capacities, as well as college stints at Stanford and UCLA.

Tarver’s hiring nearly completes the inaugural Stefanski staff. All the major position groups now have coaches on both sides of the ball. There are still some positional and general assistants to be hired, but the important base of the staff is complete.

There were virulent reports connecting former Ohio State coach Fred Pagac to the Browns LB coach job, but those proved false leads.

 

Browns still have some coaching vacancies to fill

The openings include

Kevin Stefanski has been busy building up his support staff as the new head coach of the Cleveland Browns. With three more assistants officially joining the Browns this week, the coaching roster is nearly complete.

However, there are still a couple of openings left to fill.

On offense, the biggest opening is for the quarterback coach. Both Stefanski and offensive assistant T.C. McCartney have experience as QB coaches in the NFL, but as of today (Feb. 16th) there is no quarterbacks coach on the Browns staff. Expect McCartney to work closely with Baker Mayfield in his vaguely defined role.

Defensively, there are just two coaches under coordinator Joe Woods. The new DL coach is Chris Kiffin, while Jeff Howard will serve as the passing game coordinator and DBs coach.

That leaves openings for assistants under those two, as well as a linebackers coach. A more general defensive assistant like McCartney on the offensive side could be in the works as well.

Reports of Jason Tarver being hired as the LBs coach have been rampant for over a week, but as of yet, the position is still vacant on the team’s website.

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T.C. McCartney officially hired as Browns offensive assistant coach, not QB coach

McCartney worked for the Browns in 2014 and spent 2019 in Denver as the QB coach

The offensive coaching staff for the new-look Cleveland Browns got one step closer to completion with the late-week hiring of T.C. McCartney. The newest staffer joins Kevin Stefanski’s staff as an offensive assistant coach.

McCartney comes to the Browns from Denver. He spent one season under rookie head coach Vic Fangio as the Broncos quarterbacks coach, where he worked with rookie Drew Lock and veteran Joe Flacco. Prior to that, he served as an offensive assistant and quality control coach in San Francisco under Kyle Shanahan.

He’s a former college quarterback at LSU and has worked extensively with the position since entering the NFL coaching ranks with the Browns back in 2014, but McCartney is not the Browns’ QB coach. That position remains vacant for now.

 

Browns hire martial arts expert Scott Peters as assistant OL coach

Peters has trained MMA champs and won Jiu Jitsu world championships since retiring from the NFL

New Browns assistant offensive line coach Scott Peters is not someone players will want to fight. Even though Peters has been retired from the NFL for over a decade, he’s still able to whip some tail.

Peters, hired Thursday to be the top assistant under OL coach Bill Callahan, is a martial arts expert. He’s won several Brazilian Jiu Jitsu world championships and also competed in MMA events. In fact, Peters created his own MMA gym and has trained the likes of Chain Velasquez and Brock Lesnar at his The Lions Den gym in Arizona.

He’s a former NFL offensive lineman, playing center and guard for five teams between 2002 and 2008, finishing his career with the Cardinals team that lost to the Steelers in the Super Bowl.

Jeff Howard hired as Browns DBs coach and passing game coordinator

Howard has worked with Kevin Stefanski and Joe Woods in Minnesota

The defensive coaching staff under Kevin Stefanski is officially starting to take shape. While there have been all sorts of reports on several different defensive assistant positions, the first coach to officially join the Browns behind defensive coordinator Joe Woods is Jeff Howard.

Howard will be the defensive backs coach and passing game coordinator for the Browns defense. He’s spent his entire NFL coaching career working with Stefanski in Minnesota in a variety of assistant positions.

His NFL coaching timeline, all with the Vikings:

2013 – assistant to the head coach

2014-2015 – defensive assistant

2016-2017 – defensive assistant/linebackers

2018-2019 – assistant DBs coach

Before joining the Vikings, he coached at Texas Tech as well as Odessa Perriman High School, made famous in Friday Night Lights. He played linebacker in college at Eastern New Mexico.

Browns Hire T.C. McCartney As Offensive Assistant

This is McCartney’s second stint with the Browns

The Cleveland Browns are not quite done completing their staff. New head coach Kevin Stefanski made another hire with the addition of T.C. McCartney. The former quarterbacks coach of the Denver Broncos will be joining the Cleveland staff as an offensive assistant.

This will be McCartney’s second stint on the Browns staff. He was an offensive quality control coach in 2014 under Mike Pettine and Kyle Shanahan.

After his first stint in Cleveland, McCartney worked in San Francisco in 2015 with the same quality control title. It should be noted that despite working with and being credited for helping to develop rookie quarterback Drew Lock in Denver last season, McCartney was fired after the season.

Browns hire Jason Tarver as the new LBs coach

Tarver has NFL experience and was most recently Vanderbilt’s defensive coordinator

The Cleveland Browns have added another experienced coach to the defensive staff. Per multiple reports, the Browns are hiring Jason Tarver as the LBs coach under new defensive coordinator Joe Woods.

Tarver most recently served as the defensive coordinator for Vanderbilt, where he spent two seasons. The 45-year-old has coached linebackers in the NFL for the San Francisco 49ers in two separate stints. He also had three seasons (2012-2014) as the DC of the Oakland Raiders.

Tarver replaces Al Holcomb, who also served with the title of run game coordinator.

No word on the fate of Fred Pagac, who was widely mentioned in reports on Friday to be the new LB coach.

Joe Woods officially hired as the Browns new defensive coordinator

The weeks of reports and rumors finally came true on Friday

The worst-kept secret is no longer shrouded in the shadows and whispers. It’s now official:

Joe Woods is the defensive coordinator of the Cleveland Browns.

Several weeks of speculation and reports finally proved true on Friday when Woods officially signed on to run the Browns defense under new head coach Kevin Stefanski.

Woods was unavailable for an extended period while he coached the defensive backs for the San Francisco 49ers on their run to Super Bowl LIV. He completed his final interview for the new position this week on the same day Andrew Berry was officially named the new Browns GM.

Woods has previous coordinating experience in Denver and familiarity with Stefanski from their days together on the staff in Minnesota.

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