Elliott, Magnificent Three QBs under consideration in early Heisman odds
January 31, 2015
Behind the Box Score: Cleveland Cavaliers at Minnesota Timberwolves
February 1, 2015Alex Marvez from FOX Sports has reported that the Browns will hire Kevin O’Connell as the new quarterbacks coach. Kurt Roper will join him as an offensive assistant. It was known that the Browns were to interview O’Connell earlier this week. O’Connell will join John DeFilippo (or “Flip” for the “hip” folks out there) on a staff that’s now nearly complete after the departure of Kyle Shanahan.
Source tells @NFLonFOX that Kevin O'Connell is @Browns new QBs coach; Kurt Roper hired as senior offensive assistant
— Alex Marvez (@alexmarvez) January 31, 2015
O’Connell is an unproven commodity as a coach. Despite having experience coaching at football camps or for individuals seeking his services, he has never had a job coaching for a collegiate or professional football team. He has served as a college football analyst for ESPN for the last several years.
Kevin O’Connell quarterbacked the San Diego State Aztecs in college before bouncing around in the NFL for five seasons with the New England Patriots, Detroit Lions, New York Jets, Miami Dolphins, and San Diego Chargers. O’Connell only appeared in two NFL games, but after crossing paths with him in New York, coach Mike Pettine was apparently impressed enough by his football intellect to approve of him for a position such as this.
Eerily, O’Connell also has connections with Brian Hoyer (to whom he lost the backup quarterback job to in New England) and Johnny Manziel (whom he tutored leading up the 2014 NFL Draft). Hopefully the Browns aren’t mistaking familiarity with talent. O’Connell’s connections to Manziel and Hoyer lend credibility to theories that the Browns intend to fix their perpetually calamitous quarterback situation in-house. Kevin O’Connell’s Twitter profiles says that he’s “blessed,” but Browns fans will see if O’Connell feels #blessed when he realizes what the Browns have at the position he’s been hired to fix and that the weather in Cleveland in December is much different than that in San Diego.
**2/17 UPDATE**
The Browns finally announced the hire of Kevin O’Connell as their new quarterbacks coach. The Browns also named Kurt Roper as senior offensive assistant, Frank Edgerly as assistant wide receivers coach and Michael McCarthy as offensive quality control coach.
6 Comments
Cool!!
Can’t get any worse. Well, I guess technically we were #31 as a team in QB rankings last year. I would be happy to break into top 15. Highest we have been since we have been back is #17 in 2007.
This shows that nobody qualified wants to coach for the Browns.
No idea if he can be good or not because we won’t know until we know. But, IMO, the QB coaches job is mostly there to work on the QB’s mechanics much like a pitching coach works on pitcher. So, not much different between running camps, mentoring QBs for the draft and being QB coach.
Is it the QB Coach’s job to work with the guys to learn to read defenses?
I’m cool as long as he stays clear of Arkansas radio stations.