BEREA, Ohio — Cleveland Browns tight ends coach and passing game specialist Tommy Reese has garnered a lot of attention from teams across the league for various positions, but he's a candidate for internal promotion as the Browns consider him for their vacant offensive coordinator position.
Rees completed an interview with his current team for the role, a league source confirmed.
The Browns hired Rees last February after he spent the previous year as Alabama’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Before that, he spent six years as a coach at Notre Dame, starting as a quarterbacks coach before being promoted to offensive coordinator.
Just before the end of the season, Rees reflected on his growth as a coach in a season that didn't go the way anyone in the organization hoped.
"For me, the personal growth there has been tremendous. Look, when you deal with adversity, you learn a lot and this year has not gone the way any of us had planned for. But I think when you’re faced with those times, you learn in different ways and you learn how to keep moving forward, how to keep coaching guys, how to make sure that you’re week in, week out putting your guys in positions to have success. Sometimes you learn more in these types of situations than you do when everything’s going great," Rees said.
The day after the Browns played their final game of the season, a 35-10 loss to the Baltimore Ravens that saw Cleveland finish the season 3-14, the team fired offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey and offensive line coach Andy Dickerson.
On Wednesday, the Browns hired Dickerson's replacement, bringing in former Rice head coach Mike Bloomgren.
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Rees is one candidate for Dorsey's vacancy. He's been considered for other positions recently, including the head coach position at the University of North Carolina—a position that was eventually filled by legendary former NFL head coach Bill Belichick.
Executive vice president of football operations Andrew Berry said that he believes head coach Kevin Stefanski, who will be making the decision on the offensive coordinator, will find a coach who can get the best out of the players.
"I think whenever we talk about coaching staff, Kevin's goal is to make sure that he surrounds our players and builds a system that can accentuate their strengths and really minimize their weaknesses. Any decision that he makes in that regard is really with that in mind," Berry said during his end-of-season press conference.
As for Stefanski, he said that while there's nothing specific he would be looking for, there would need to be a shared vision with his new OC.
"One quality. I'm just looking for, we are looking for somebody to come in and help us sharing in a vision where we can go play sound explosive offensive football. I feel confident that we'll be able to do that," he said at the end of the season.
