Details Emerge On Why Josh McDaniels, Cleveland Browns Agreed 'It Wasn't A Great Fit' For Head Coaching Vacancy
BOSTON (CBS) -- The potential homecoming of Josh McDaniels to his native Ohio to take the Cleveland Browns' head coaching job was thought by many to be a perfect match. As it turned out, reality disagreed.
A report from Steve Doerschuk of The Canton Repository noted that by the end of McDaniels' lengthy job interview on Friday, both he and the team agreed that the fit was not quite right. The team instead moved to hire Kevin Stefanski, who has just one year of experience as an offensive coordinator for Minnesota.
"In the end, both came to a similar conclusion: It wasn't a great fit," Doerschuk wrote. "The Browns want to hang on to some of the ideas they still think can work. McDaniels had quite different ideas."
According to Doerschuk, McDaniels was aware that presenting his vision could lead to the end of his candidacy, based on prior comments from Browns owner Jimmy Haslam not looking for a coach with a "my way or the highway" attitude.
"McDaniels understood the risk of offending in his specific plans to change systems, in some cases dramatically," Doerschuk wrote. "He took care to present his requirements as 'the right way' as opposed to 'my way.'"
Cleveland radio host Dustin Fox added another wrinkle to the process, one that could easily be seen as a major turnoff for any experienced and qualified head coach. Fox reported that candidates "had to agree to turn in game plans to the owner and analytics department by Friday [every week], and to attend an end-of-week analytics meeting to discuss their plan."
Whether it was the analytics-driven approach led by chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta, or the mandates from ownership, or the overall vision of the franchise, or some combination of both, it does seem as though the potential for a "dream job" situation for McDaniels never really existed in Cleveland.
