The Cleveland Browns search for their next head coach hit another bump in the road on Thursday.
That is because Jesse Minter, who has spent the past two seasons as defensive coordinator of the Los Angeles Chargers, will not be attending his scheduled second interview today with the Browns.
According to Mary Kay Cabot at cleveland.com, Minter reportedly believes there are better opportunities available as he has drawn interest from the Arizona Cardinals, Las Vegas Raiders, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Baltimore
Ravens.
Minter was one of five candidates the Browns had planned to host for a second interview, joining current defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz (completed), Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken (completed), Jacksonville Jaguars offensive coordinator Grant Udinski (scheduled for Friday), and Los Angeles Rams pass game coordinator Nate Scheelhaase (hopefully next week).
This is the second time this week that a candidate has said that Cleveland was not a preferred destination.
On Tuesday, Mike McDaniel informed the team that he was withdrawing his name from consideration and subsequently accepted the offensive coordinator position with the Los Angeles Chargers.
Losing out on McDaniel is likely not the end of the world, but it does put the Browns in the position of needing to interview another minority candidate to comply with the NFL’s Rooney Rule. If the second interview with Scheelhaase goes off as planned, that would be one minority candidate, but general manager Andrew Berry would still need to interview another minority candidate.
Cleveland is not the only team looking for a head coach, of course, so they have competition for all four of their current candidates:
- Schwartz – Has interviewed for the Baltimore Ravens head coach position
- Monken – Expected to be the New York Giants offensive coordinator if he doesn’t get the Browns head job
- Udinski – The Buffalo Bills have requested to interview Udinski for their head coach opening
- Scheelhaase – Has interviewed with the Ravens, Raiders, and Steelers
The week opened with the Browns having a solid interview schedule in place, but McDaniel and Minter threw those plans out the window.
Hopefully, Berry is using his newly cleared calendar to figure out how to wrap up this head coach search in a favorable way.
