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On Thursday, the Cleveland Browns parted ways with offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan. Prior to Shanahan's exit, there had already been rumors about potential offensive coordinators for the Browns due to the possibility of him being hired away as a head coach by another NFL team. We have already covered the track record of two of those early candidates -- former Bears head coach Marc Trestman and the currently jobless Charlie Weis.
According to Lane Adkins of the OBR, though, there are three other names who are garnering more interest in Berea:
Hackett, DeFilippo and Cavanaugh -- the names most discussed.
— LA - theOBR (@LaneAdkins) January 9, 2015
We will cover each candidate more in-depth over the weekend, but here is a brief line about who each person is:
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Nathaniel Hackett is currently the Bills' offensive coordinator. He was hired in 2013, so he spent a year with (but not under) Mike Pettine when Doug Marrone was the head coach. With Marrone gone, the Bills' next head coach might opt to bring in a new staff.
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John DeFilippo has been the Raiders' quarterbacks coach since 2012. The Browns interviewed him last year, and he was compared to Broncos offensive coordinator Adam Gase, who the Browns' upper management had really liked. Last year, Pettine noted that DeFilippo had an outstanding interview, but the team went with Kyle Shanahan.
- Matt Cavanaugh is the Bears' quarterbacks coach, but Trestman is gone so Cavanaugh is likely on the way out too. Cavanaugh was with the Ravens and the Jets at the same time as Pettine, so there is history there. It's possible that Cleveland could be interviewing Cavanaugh to become their quarterbacks coach too, similar to how they approached the Dowell Loggains situation a year ago.
With other teams in need of coaches and coordinators, you have to imagine that the Browns would prefer to act quickly in finding Shanahan's replacement.