If Browns want to keep Jim Schwartz, is hiring him as head coach their best option? – The Athletic

Assuming the Cleveland Browns interview Los Angeles Rams pass game coordinator Nate Scheelhaase next week, when the NFL’s coaching-search rules allow, the team will have completed at least four second interviews with head-coaching candidates.

Scheelhaase, Jacksonville Jaguars offensive coordinator Grant Udinski and Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken — all three of whom are on the Browns’ list — have a combined 19 years of NFL coaching experience. Monken has 11 of those years, including one (2019) as the offensive coordinator of the Browns. Monken has also spent 26 years as a college coach.

Browns defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz has 29 years of NFL experience, including a five-year stint as a head coach in Detroit. He’s spent the last three seasons with the Browns. Schwartz was first to get a second interview with Cleveland earlier this week.

He’s clearly the most experienced of the known candidates and the only one who’s well known inside the locker room. Schwartz’s 2025 Cleveland defense deserved better on many Sundays, and Myles Garrett set a new NFL single-season sacks record with 23.

How much does experience matter? How much might the Browns, in a search overseen by team owner Jimmy Haslam and general manager Andrew Berry, value the known over the unknown? Presumably, we’re about to find out. And we might also find out if the Browns need to promote Schwartz to head coach to keep him.

As what was always going to be an extensive search moves into its final stages, the Browns have two young candidates: Scheelhaase, 35, who has just two seasons of NFL coaching experience; and Udinski, 30, who has six. Schwartz also worked for the Browns as a personnel scout from 1993 to 1995. Udinski was born in January 1996, which means he’s younger than Garrett.

There’s been a lingering thought — one that’s made its way through various NFL circles — that the Browns might hire a young, offensive-minded head coach and ask him to retain Schwartz as defensive coordinator. On the surface, that makes sense given that Cleveland has an established defense and is making a coaching change in large part because of the messy state of the offense.

But there’s no certainty that the dynamic would work, or if Schwartz would want to stay after spending the last three seasons under Kevin Stefanski — unless he’s named head coach.

Schwartz, 59, was 29-51 in five seasons as the Lions’ head coach from 2009 to 2013. He took over a team that went 0-16 in 2008 and led it to the playoffs in 2011, his only winning season. Detroit fired him after the team went 7-9 in 2013.

Nearly three full weeks into Cleveland’s search, there’s still a lot of guessing involved. The Browns must hold two in-person interviews with minority candidates to satisfy the Rooney Rule, so at least one more name will be added to the list even if Scheelhaase remains on the schedule.

Scheelhaase initially spoke with the Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, Ravens and Las Vegas Raiders, all of whom had open jobs before Jesse Minter was announced as Baltimore’s new coach Thursday evening. It’s assumed that Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Las Vegas all plan to follow up with Scheelhaase.

Because the Rams play in the NFC Championship Game on Sunday, NFL rules state that Scheelhaase can’t do in-person interviews until next week. If the Rams win Sunday, he can’t be officially hired until after the Super Bowl. But if he’s going to be some team’s head coach, he’ll likely know next week.

Grant Udinski, left, would become the youngest head coach in NFL history if hired during this cycle. (Megan Briggs / Getty Images)

The Browns were Udinski’s only first-wave interview, but he’s now scheduled to interview with the Buffalo Bills on Sunday after they fired longtime head coach Sean McDermott this week.

Udinski’s second interview with the Browns is scheduled for Friday, and the rest of the team’s interview itinerary is to be determined. The Browns always had to be prepared for an extended search because they’d be vetting candidates coaching in the playoffs, and because some simply would choose teams with better quarterback situations and offensive rosters. Even if they wanted to hire Schwartz, Monken or Udinski immediately, they couldn’t until meeting Rooney Rule requirements.

From the outside, it looks like a bit of a mess because a candidate needs to be added, and because Minter and ex-Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel canceled second interviews to pursue other jobs. McDaniel will reportedly take over as the Chargers’ offensive coordinator.

Stefanski was fired for not winning enough, and Berry got to stay despite the state of the offensive roster. Schwartz is unquestionably the best hire the franchise has made in many years. Might he get to stay, too?

There are two questions the Browns could ask Schwartz that they couldn’t ask any other candidate:

1. What went wrong — and right — inside the building (and the process of team-building) over the course of the last two seasons?

2. As a second-time head coach, what would you do differently than the first time?

Both answers would presumably give insight that could be helpful on multiple fronts. Outside the walls of the team facility, we don’t know Schwartz’s answers — or even if those exact questions were asked — and we don’t know if he will leave if he’s not the choice.

We do know that Schwartz represents the known. Defensive backs Denzel Ward and Grant Delpit, two of the Browns’ better players and established locker room leaders, are among those who publicly advocated for Schwartz to get the head-coaching job on the day Stefanski was fired.

On any list of pros and cons with these candidates, Schwartz’s overall experience and 22 years as either a coordinator or head coach stand out. The Rams hired Scheelhaase as an offensive assistant and pass-game specialist in 2024 before promoting him to pass-game coordinator in 2025.

Udinski’s title in 2022 in Minnesota was assistant to the head coach/special projects before he became assistant quarterbacks coach in 2023. In 2024, the Vikings promoted him to assistant offensive coordinator and assistant quarterbacks coach, and he was impressive enough in that job that Liam Coen hired him as Jacksonville’s offensive coordinator last year.

It was always fair to think the Browns might try to find their own version of the Los Angeles Rams’ Sean McVay or San Francisco 49ers’ Kyle Shanahan. If Udinski gets hired, he’ll supplant McVay as the youngest head coach in NFL history. At 32, Berry became the youngest general manager in league history when the Browns hired him in 2020, so he’s probably not afraid of going young — and the candidate pool suggests he’s willing to go with an offensive-minded coach.

Scheelhaase and Udinski have made rapid rises on paths similar to the one Coen took, going from Rams assistant wide receivers coach (2018-19) to assistant quarterbacks coach (2020) to Kentucky’s offensive coordinator in 2021. Coen then returned to the Rams as the offensive coordinator (McVay called the plays) in 2022, then went back to Kentucky in 2023 before serving as Tampa Bay’s offensive coordinator in 2024, a stint that earned him the chance to take the Jacksonville job a year ago.

Scheelhaase climbed the college ranks and served as Iowa State’s offensive coordinator for one season before McVay hired him for a low-level staff position in 2024. Udinski’s previous boss in Minnesota, Kevin O’Connell, also worked under McVay as offensive coordinator in 2020-21. If the Browns have a McVay protege prototype, they have options.

Schwartz coaches defense, but he knows offensive coordinators. Over the last three years, he’s proven he’s pretty good at figuring out their tendencies and using his attack-style defense to speed up opposing play callers and quarterbacks.

Maybe Berry, Haslam and the Browns believe Schwartz can work with and support a young offensive coach as defensive coordinator. Maybe they’ll think Schwartz is the best bet for the Browns to keep a high-level defense mostly intact and that he can identify the right people to work as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for a position group that currently includes Shedeur Sanders, Deshaun Watson and Dillon Gabriel, but with no long-term certainty.

No sane person thinks this Cleveland offense is a quick-fix situation, which makes the job at least somewhat of a tough sell. Improvements from the last two seasons are possible and should be expected, but with Cleveland potentially replacing all five of its offensive linemen who started in the back half of last season and looking to improve the depth at wide receiver, tight end and maybe running back, too, it’s unlikely the 2026 offense will go from one of the league’s worst to one of the best.

Probably, 2026 will be a new offensive system that serves as a fact-finding mission at quarterback amid an evolving offensive line rebuild. The Browns signed three offensive linemen off other teams’ practice squads in December because they needed options.

With pick Nos. 6 and 24 in the first round of this year’s draft, the Browns will explore all avenues but are likely to focus on quarterback, wide receiver and offensive tackle, in some order. With 10 total selections and Berry already acknowledging the offseason focus will be on adding to the offense, the team can attempt to draft young players at multiple spots and potentially use at least one of those picks in a trade for more experienced help.

Obviously, the new head coach and his offensive staff will have input on personnel decisions and further shaping of the quarterback room. It’s probably fair to assume that no current offensive player, aside from running back Quinshon Judkins and tight end Harold Fannin Jr., should feel totally secure about his future in Cleveland.

If the Browns go with Schwartz as head coach, it will be easier to view 2026 expectations as higher than last year’s — and to believe that folks atop the organization expect the defense to drive the team to wins. If they go young at head coach, it might lead to a longer-term sell of expectations and vision. A coach such as Scheelhaase or Udinski would need time to grow into the role, much as the offense as a whole will need time to improve.

But the bet would be on the Browns eventually becoming an offense-driven team rather than the defense-dependent one they are now.

In Schwartz, the Browns would be going with experience, familiarity and a big bet on the current defense. In any other direction, they’d be willing to choose offense as their path further into the unknown.