Except for the Bears and Colts, NFL teams are already hard at work preparing for next season. Along with new head coach hires there has been a good amount of staff turnover around the league. However, there is one move in particular that has stood out to me and while it hasn’t received much national attention it deserves to be discussed.
The Cleveland Browns have spent the early part of their off-season revamping their offensive coaching staff. The Browns offense has been anemic the last couple years so cleaning house was only logical. It was even more logical to go outside the organization and hire San Diego assistant Rob Chudzinski as the new offensive coordinator. Chudzinski comes over from a Chargers team with one of the most dynamic offenses in the league. Cleveland needed a change in offensive philosophy after averaging a dismal 14.8 points per game in 2006.
What defies logic is that the Carolina Panthers felt inclined to hire Cleveland assistant Jeff Davidson as their new offensive coordinator. Following a season where the Carolina offense lacked production and coordinator Dan Henning was frequently criticized for being too conservative, the organization had to make a change. However, to hire an assistant from a team that just dismantled its offensive staff hardly will win over the confidence of the players or fans. If the team was worried about being too conservative the last place to look for an offensive coach was in Cleveland. You think Jake Delhomme and Steve Smith heard about the hire and were immediately excited about the prospect of resembling a Cleveland offense that scored the third fewest points in the league this past season (32 fewer than Carolina). Don’t think so. Just don’t expect to see a repeat come next season with all the “experts” picking the Carolina Panthers for a trip to Super Bowl.
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