CLEVELAND, Ohio — Mike McDaniel, who withdrew as a finalist from the Browns’ head coaching search this week, is interviewing with the Bills for their head coach vacancy today, according to reports.
McDaniel, the former Browns receivers coach in 2014 and former Dolphins head coach, canceled his second interview with the Browns Wednesday in Cleveland presumably to take the Chargers offensive coordinator job.
At the time, he still had some interest in the head coach vacancies of the Raiders and Ravens, who hired Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter as their fourth head coach on Thursday, the same day he was supposed to interview for the Browns’ vacancy a second time.
But McDaniel, 42, soon became a head coach candidate for the Bills, and opted to interview with them today.
The absence of McDaniel and Minter from the Browns’ original list of six finalists scheduled to get second interviews leaves them with four: Browns defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken, Jaguars offensive coordinator Grant Udinski, and Rams offensive coordinator Nate Scheelhaase.
Schwartz was interviewed a second time at Browns headquarters on Monday, Monken on Tuesday, and Udinski is there today. The Browns will interview Scheelhaase as early as Monday after he plays in the NFC Championship Game vs. the Seahawks on Sunday, and then they’ll also have to interview one more diverse candidate to satisfy the Rooney Rule before they can make their hire.
All four finalists are still in the mix as the wrap up their second interviews with the two young candidates. They’re very intrigued by both Udinski, 30, and Scheelhaase, 35, but also still like their more experience candidates in Schwartz and Monken, both 59. There’s even a world in which Monken could be hired as head coach and Schwartz remains as defensive coordinator.
Or they could take a chance on one of the younger candidates and hope that Schwartz will want to stick around as coordinator. Another option is to hire Schwartz as head coach and then hire one of the three offensive finalists as coordinator. Monken also has a chance to join John Harbaugh as coordinator with the Giants.
Football Insider newsletter free trial: Take a minute and sign up for a free trial of our Football Insider newsletter, featuring exclusive content from cleveland.com’s Browns reporters.
