Cleveland Browns Bring In Coaches Through Bill Walsh Diversity Fellowship

While the NFL has received and deserves criticism for how poorly they have done in terms of hiring minorities for head coaching roles, offensive coordinator positions and executives within franchises, the Bill Walsh Diversity Fellowship offers coaches from various diverse backgrounds an opportunity to be up close learn from a professional franchise.

Through this program, the Cleveland Browns welcome six coaches through the programs and a couple of the names are noteworthy.

Leonard Hankerson jumps out simply because he was a player that some were hoping the Browns might draft when he came out of the University of Miami(FL). Hankerson was drafted 71st overall in the 2011 NFL Draft by the Washington Redskins. After spending the length of his rookie contract in D.C., Hankerson played his final season for three different teams, including appearing in eight games with the Atlanta Falcons.

Hankerson caught 107 passes for 1,408 yards and 9 touchdowns in his NFL career and is currently a coach at Stephen F. Austin after going back to Coral Gables to be a graduate assistant.

Ray Smith Jr. stands out because he has been coaching at Southeastern Missouri State the past four years. That would obviously include three of the seasons that Drew Forbes played left tackle there before he was drafted by the Browns in the sixth round of the 2019 NFL Draft.

Smith is a passing game coordinator and defensive backs coach at SEMO, but he has experience with special teams as well.

There are two women that will be part of the program with the Browns as well, including Angela Baker and Elena Grigelevich. Baker is a former player, who spent eight seasons with the Pittsburgh Passion. She spent the last three years helping out the Pittsburgh Steelers with their training camp. She has a gold medal as part of the 2017 Women's National American Football team.

Grigelevich is coming from the data side, working as an analyst, breaking down opposing gameplans. She a program called "Think Tank" while at Bryant University, a analytic program the football team adopted. She could benefit from working with a number of Browns personnel including Ryan Cordell, who is likely to be the analytics person wearing a headset in the box on gamedays providing head coach Kevin Stefanski information as he needs it.

Chris Cook is currently the tight ends coach at the University of Akron under Tom Arth. Cook played at Chattanooga and was part of Arth's staff when he took the job at Akron. He spent the past two seasons with the Atlanta Falcons, obviously much closer to Chattanooga where the Browns are conveniently located near Akron.

Ashton Grant is interesting because he played in the lone season of the AAF as a member of the Salt Lake Stallions. He had some opportunities in some NFL training camps and played his college ball at Assumption.

The coaches began on Monday, but it's unclear what they are able to do given the situation with COVID. It's not clear if they are in the building or are in effect accessing this as players would through Zoom calls and virtual classrooms. The number of people currently allowed in the Browns facility in Berea is 100, so they would count against that number.

The program goes through training camp, so depending on how far the pandemic has progressed, they may be able to work as coaches normally would through this initiative. However, they could also be limited in what they can offer as teams want to limit the risk of infection and have less people around and actively touching equipment.