While Browns fans wait for a coaching hire, history shows the most decorated NFL coaches had paper-thin resumes before landing their jobs. It’s what you do with your experience that matters.
Updated: Jan. 24, 2026, 5:14 a.m.The Steelers surprised many in the NFL when they hired Mike Tomlin as a first-time head coach.CLEVELAND, Ohio - From Mike Tomlin’s one year as defensive coordinator to Andy Reid’s time as a QB coach, the NFL’s elite coaches emerged from surprisingly modest backgrounds.
As cleveland.com columnist Terry Pluto argued on the latest Terry’s Talkin’ podcast, the Browns’ search reminds us nobody truly knows what makes a great NFL leader.’ coaching search is in full swing, but, Pluto says, nobody – not analysts, not GMs, and certainly not us fans – has any clue who will succeed and who will fail. “I’m very, very serious. I’ve said this for decades,” Pluto said. “When you’re covering coaching searches or even manager searches ... for example, the Guardians want to hire Terry Francona. Easy. You can look at his record, all that stuff. OK.Learn more and sign up here. “They want to hire Steven Vogt to replace Terry Francona. Well, he was a pretty good defensive catcher and he did spend a year as a bullpen coach in Seattle, and his wife’s a really good softball coach. And this is the guy that’s going to take Terry Francona’s place.” This uncertainty isn’t unique to baseball. The truth is, many of the NFL’s most legendary coaches had startlingly thin resumes when they were hired. Take the Steelers’ Mike Tomlin. Before Pittsburgh handed him the keys to one of football’s most storied franchises, his only coordinator experience was a single season as Minnesota’s defensive coordinator in 2006. Before that? Five years as a defensive backs coach in Tampa Bay. Or consider John Harbaugh, who just landed the Giants job after a decorated run in Baltimore. His previous experience? Several years as a special teams coach for Philadelphia and one year as a defensive backs coach there. Even Andy Reid, arguably the most accomplished coach in today’s NFL, was merely a quarterbacks coach in Green Bay before Philadelphia hired him. “So you got a special-teams coach. You got a one-time, one-year defensive coordinator; and you’ve got those two guys who were, you know, the preeminent other than Andy Reid,” Pluto said. “I want anybody to say ‘I looked at those resumes and said, ”Oh yeah, those guys are going to be coaching for decades.“ ‘ ” This reality makes the current Browns search – with candidates ranging from seasoned coaches like Jim Schwartz to relative unknowns – almost impossible to evaluate on paper. One of the most intriguing candidates, Jaguars offensive coordinator Grant Udinski, has a resume that would raise eyebrows in any other profession. Pluto traced Udinski’s meteoric rise: from sleeping in his car as a graduate assistant at Baylor, to serving as a “coaching assistant” for Matt Rhule in Carolina, to various assistant positions in Minnesota before landing in Jacksonville. “Clearly he impressed a lot of people along the way to get these jobs because there are tons of coaches want these jobs. They’ll sleep in Walmart if it would get them a job,” Pluto said. The paradox of coaching hires is captured in an anecdote Pluto shared from his conversation with Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert about hiring inexperienced coaches: “This is when Gilbert hired Mike Brown as the head coach of the Cavs the first time. And so I went up to Gilbert afterwards, it was just he and I talking. “I said, ‘Dan, this guy has no experience as a head coach, not in college or anywhere.’ And he said, ‘Well, you know what it is about experience?’ “I said, ‘Well, what?’ He goes, ”Actually, that’s it. I say he has experience doing what, being mediocre or being good or what?’ “He said just because you have experience ... experience is neutral, and that is based on exactly what you did with the experience.”“All these teams, the same guys that have floated from team to team, interview to interview... who knew?”Here’s the podcast for this week:, and put “Terry’s Talkin’” in the subject line.This article was produced with assistance from AI tools and reviewed by Cleveland.com staff.
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