3. McCarthy and Wolf
Here’s what I’ve been able to gather from the countless words spoken about the Haslams in the last 48 hours. They really like Paul DePodesta. They love his brilliance and the fact that he’s been right and they’ve been wrong the past two searches and only made his stock jump through the roof.
At one point, and it still may be this way, they really held Browns’ assistant GM Eliot Wolf in high regard. Wolf’s still here, and he’d be an ideal candidate to pair with Mike McCarthy, with whom he has a history with dating back to their time in Green Bay.
McCarthy, a Super Bowl winning coach, may be more willing to take a job under DePodesta because the perception is he may be more desperate. While he won in Green Bay, there are some who believe he squandered Aaron Rodgers‘ talent and should’ve won more.
If McCarty replicates what he did in Green Bay with the Browns, he’ll have the next statue on order at FirstEnergy Stadium.
As for Wolf, he seems like the other personnel guys on this list. He’s not someone who is perceived as being power hungry and being a big personality. Like Berry and Ziegler, he’ll let the coach be the figurehead, while he goes out and supplies the player.
McCarthy becomes more and more intriguing by the day because he’s climbed the mountain before. The discipline problems that haunted the Browns constantly throughout the 2019 season should disappear.
Plus, he knows how to work with a quarterback who has an ego. It didn’t end well, but it worked for a long time. He was the coach for 12 years in Green Bay. If he did that hear, he’d be THE elder statesman of Browns football.