Ravens Awarded Two Draft Picks For Texans Hire; Browns Won't Be Far Behind
The Houston Texans hired Baltimore Ravens wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator David Culley to be the team's head coach. That has triggered a new rule put into place last year that rewards the Ravens for having a minority coach poached from their staff into a head coaching position. They will be awarded a third round compensatory pick both in the upcoming NFL Draft as well as in 2022.
Although it didn't happen this hiring cycle, it won't be long until the Cleveland Browns benefit from the same rule. The Carolina Panthers interviewed Vice President of Football Ops Kwesi Adofo-Mensah for their general manager job. They ultimately hired Scott Fitterer for the job, but Mensah is on the NFL radar and he will be getting hired for a GM post sooner than later.
The former commodities trader has an excellent understanding of incorporating data into the evaluation process already and he's just trying to learn as much as he can from the scouting side. Before he came to the Browns, he was with the San Francisco 49ers where he was spending a lot of time talking with and gaining insight from scouts.
Mensah is extremely intelligent and is someone who loves to learn, so he's been soaking up information from that side of the NFL like a sponge. It wouldn't be a surprise if he was hired as soon as next offseason.
On the coaching side, Joe Woods, the defensive coordinator, could eventually be in the mix for a head coaching job. But when Kevin Stefanski was hired as the head coach and before this rule was enacted, he made it a point to hire young, black coaches on the offensive side of the ball to increase representation, since the NFL currently has only two black offensive coordinator - Byron Leftwich with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Eric Bieniemy of the Kansas City Chiefs, who will be facing off in this year's Super Bowl.
One of the people the Browns hired was Seitu Smith as their offensive quality control coach. A Harvard graduate with a master's of education from Durham University of England, Smith was the quarterback's coach at Brown University before joining the Browns.
