Pat McManamon, ESPN Staff Writer 6y

Championship game staffs littered with Browns connections

A team that hires and fires coaches with regularity is going to have a fair amount of alumni sprinkled around the league.

So it is with the Cleveland Browns, who have had nine coaches, 15 offensive coordinators and 12 defensive coordinators since 1999, the year of the team’s return from a three-year hiatus.

“It’s our badge of honor,” said one former Browns assistant of the diaspora of former employees.

The upcoming championship weekend for the NFL has a heavy Browns flavor on every one of the final four coaching staffs, both in coaches hired and coaches almost hired.

New England's ties are the most obvious, of course. Bill Belichick was the head coach of the Browns from 1991 through 1995 and has maintained he was building something good in Cleveland before Art Modell’s move pulled out the foundation.

Belichick has a point. The Browns won six, seven and seven games his first three seasons before going 11-5 in 1994 and making the playoffs. Belichick beat New England and his old mentor Bill Parcells in the wild-card round before losing to Pittsburgh the following weekend that season.

The Browns started 3-1 in 1995, but the season was submarined by Modell’s move. Belichick finished 5-11 and was fired after the team got to Baltimore.

Belichick’s tenure in Cleveland was rocky. He had a tough relationship with the media and fans and was vilified for releasing Bernie Kosar. But had the team not moved, it’s worth wondering what he could have done in Cleveland. His success in New England -- which of course has been dependent on getting Tom Brady in the sixth round in the 2000 draft -- leaves many in Cleveland gnashing their teeth.

As for Jacksonville, the Jaguars are coached by Doug Marrone, who could have come to the Browns. Marrone actually was offered the job in 2013. Marrone was the second coach interviewed by Joe Banner and Jimmy Haslam, after Chip Kelly.

Banner and Haslam liked Marrone and offered him the job after a second interview. At that point, though, Marrone had already committed to the Bills.

The Browns hired Rob Chudzinski, who lasted one year.

One quirky connection on the Jaguars is their quarterback coach, Scott MIlanovich. He was the quarterback the Browns took in the 1999 expansion draft. He never played a down for the Browns. The other quarterback on the list of 1999 castoffs: Kurt Warner. He’s in the Hall of Fame.

Minnesota is coached by Mike Zimmer, another who could have been in Cleveland. He was interviewed in 2013, but not hired. He wound up with the Vikings a year later and has guided Minnesota to 39 wins in four seasons.

Zimmer is a crusty straight-shooter who would have played well in Cleveland.

His offensive coordinator is Pat Shurmur, who coached the Browns in 2011 and 2012. Zimmer interviewed for the job after Shurmur was let go.

Shurmur was part of the Mike Holmgren-Tom Heckert era, when the Browns had some good draft picks (yes, even with the Trent Richardson pick). His tenure was doomed, though, the day that word broke before the 2012 season that Jimmy Haslam was buying the team.

On the broadcast Sunday, Troy Aikman related that Shurmur quipped he can now be laid back because he survived two years in Cleveland and that’s as stressful as it can be.

Shurmur is an eminently good man who was done in by the Cleveland tornado. It’s good to see his name being circulated again for coaching hires.

Finally, in Philadelphia, the Eagles' quarterback coach is John DeFilippo, who was the Browns' offensive coordinator in 2015 under Mike Pettine.

DeFilippo had an underrated tenure in his one season in Cleveland. Even though the Browns lost, he got 2,109 yards, 12 touchdowns and just four interceptions from Josh McCown. And he somehow had Johnny Manziel playing like an NFL quarterback.

Manziel threw for 372 yards in a mid-November loss in Pittsburgh, by far the best game he played as a starter. That game came one week after Manziel played a clunker in Cincinnati, which prompted DeFilippo to spend countless extra hours preparing the quarterback.

Given his struggles on and off the field, Manziel's 372-yard effort against what was then a formidable Steelers defense was an impressive showing. Unfortunately, the bye week followed, which led to Manziel’s social media appearance after being told not to embarrass the team, and his benching. He came back to play well in Kansas City on the second-to-last weekend of the season but left the game with a concussion and left the team on his infamous Las Vegas weekend jaunt as the Browns were playing the season finale.

DeFilippo is given much credit for the development of Carson Wentz in Philadelphia and has interviewed to be a head coach this offseason in New York (Giants), Chicago and Arizona.

The Eagles' head coach Is Doug Pederson, who helps bring things full circle in this Cleveland drama. Pederson played in Cleveland in 2000 after Ty Detmer tore his Achilles tendon and Tim Couch broke his thumb.

He won one game, in November, over the Patriots and Belichick. That loss dropped Belichick to 2-8 in his first season.

The next season the Patriots won the Super Bowl, the first of five in the Belichick/Brady era.

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