Albert Breer on Todd Monken to Browns, Klint Kubiak Decision Looming

What's gonna happen tomorrow in Seattle?

All right.

Welcome in to the Breerport for January 30th.

We are just 9 days away from Super Bowl 60.

The Patriots and the Seahawks will face off in Santa Clara, California.

For now, I'm still home in Massachusetts to go to California on Sunday.

And we have 3 non-Super Bowl topics to hit you on this week, all relating, of course, to coaching searches.

And the first one is the Cleveland Browns hire of Todd Monken.

This went down the other day and was a surprise to a lot of people who thought Jim Schwartz would wind up being the pick, and if it wasn't him, it would be Nathan Shielhaas.

So, why do you go this way?

Well, the number one thing to look at here, I think is the player development piece of it.

It's gonna be such an important piece of where the Browns are going over the next couple of years.

They have invested heavily in trying to get the roster younger, and this happened last year with the Travis Hunter trade.

So, one of the biggest jobs for Todd Monken and his new staff is gonna be developing young guys on the roster like Mason Graham, Carson Schlesinger, Quin Quinshaw Judkins, Dylan Sampson, Harold Fannon, and then it's gonna be doing it again with the 2026 draft class, which will include two first-round picks.

So, um, I think the player development end of it is a huge piece of this, and the quarterback, of course, will be a part of that too.

We've seen Um, we've seen very clearly Todd Monken's ability to build different types of offenses for different types of quarterbacks.

It goes back to Jameis Winston.

In Tampa when he was the offensive coordinator there.

His first time in Cleveland when Baker Mayfield was the quarterback, going to the University of Georgia, where he won two national championships with Stetson Bennett as quarterback, and of course, over the last three years in Baltimore with Lamar Jackson.

Lamar Jackson, of course, won the MVP um in their first year together in 2023 and then nearly won it again in 2024.

So, it's developed.

The quarterback, it's finding a way to build the right offense for whatever type of quarterback it is.

It's having the scheme flexibility, it's developing players overall, um, with again, what's gonna be a young team.

And I do think like Todd Monken's experience, both at the college level and the pro level gives him the wherewithal to do it.

He's seen guys come through as 1819, 20 year olds in the college game, most recently, of course, at Georgia, but he was the head coach at one point at Southern Miss.

So the ability to develop players is gonna be a really important piece of this, and that brings us to two other pieces of this that I think are really important.

Number one, who's the quarterback gonna be?

One of the questions on the um testing that they had, the, the, the pre-screening that they had for all the coaching candidates was How would you handle the development of Shado Sanders?

And that doesn't mean they're forcing Shado Sanders on any, on anybody, but they did choose to put that name in there.

He is one of three names of players.

They asked how you develop these guys.

They wanted to see what the coach's development plan would be.

They wanted to see how the coach would approach developing a quarterback as the head coach.

Uh, but the fact that Shado Sanders' name was in there is at least notable.

Maybe an acknowledgement too , and I think this is, this, this is something.

Something to note here, it's probably an acknowledgement too that there may not be a ton of options out there for the Browns to upgrade the position this offseason.

Yeah, Fernando Mendoza likely to go first overall to the Raiders and then a drop-off at the quarterback position or at least a perceived drop-off at the quarterback position in the draft class.

And then veteran options like Kirk Cousins.

So how they move forward at quarterback, of course, is gonna be a big piece of this and maybe it is at least seeing what you've got with Shaor Sanders.

And then, you know, the second piece is what's gonna be on his staff, who's gonna be on his staff, and that's where we get to Jim Schwartz.

Um, the Jim Schwartz situation is an interesting one.

Schwartz is my understanding over the last couple of weeks, has told people the only way he was staying in Cleveland would be as the head coach.

Obviously, that's not happening now.

Um, and so I think as it stands right now, Jim Schwartz would be like to be given a chance to go out and find a defensive coordinator job somewhere else.

The Browns have him under contract.

The Browns would like to keep him.

And now we'll see whether or not Todd Monken can recruit him back on the Browns staff cause I don't think this is gonna be a hostage situation.

We're just holding a guy to a contract and he's gonna coach out cause he's there.

Um, Todd Monken would have to win Jim Schwartz over and when we're talking about the global development plan, obviously having somebody like Jim Schwartz on hand to develop young players on the defensive side of the ball, continue his work with guys like Mason Graham and Carson Schlesinger would be ideal.

OK.

Second topic and third topic, they both relate to Clint Kubiak.

Now, I think the situations in both Vegas and Arizona.

Um, tied to what's gonna happen tomorrow in Seattle.

Clint Kubiak's plan is to interview with both those teams tomorrow in Seattle.

I think he's high on both teams' lists, if not number one on the list of both teams.

And so there will be a little bit of a competition between the two of them for his services.

I also don't think it's impossible that Clint Kubiak decides to stay in Seattle another year .

Um, he is genuinely, and I, I'd say this is from the most respectful place possible, he's genuinely torn.

Um, over going through all this right now and feels like he owes it to his players, um, to the staff in Seattle to put everything he can in the Super Bowl.

With some guys, that's just coach speak.

I don't think it is with Clint.

You know, I think he's very serious about trying to focus as best he can on, on bringing another world championship to Seattle.

Um, but, you know, he is gonna, at least the plan is sit down with these two teams and weigh everything.

And so we're gonna start with the Raiders and where they're at.

Now, yesterday, Davis Webb, the Broncos quarterbacks coach, pulled his name out of the Raiders search.

He called the team to tell them and inform them.

And so that would seem to clear the runway for Clint Kubiak to get this job.

And it really positions Clint Kubiak as the premier candidate for the job.

I think it makes sense for Clint to go there as well, because you have a very clear path to a quarterback that's what the first overall pick in Fernando Mendoza.

Now, you know, we'll see how you see not everybody sees Fernando Mendoza as a potential first overall pick, but if he is what most people think he is, which is a Jared Goff type of prospect, having a player like that at a young age and on an affordable contract makes sense.

There are some pieces in place there, right?

Like, so you have Um, not a very good roster overall, but you have a generational type of weapon and Brock Bauer is a tight end.

You have a left tackle in Colton Miller, you have Max Crosby, who you could either keep as one of the best defensive players in football or trade and get more draft capital.

And you have Ashton Genty at running back.

So there is some, there's a foundation, some pieces in place, and then there are ties there as well.

And I think this part of it is important.

So Tom Brady is there.

What the, if you go back and you look at Tom Brady's history in New England, nobody gave Tom Brady and Bill Belichick more trouble over the , over the years than Mike Shanahan when he was with the Denver Broncos, and that offense was always a problem for Belichick's defenses, and Brady knows that.

And so there's gonna be a certain level of respect for Clint Kubiak and what he does offensively there.

And then there's also John Spytek's presence there as the general manager.

Spytek was in Denver.

When they won a championship with Gary Kubiak, Clint's father as the head coach.

So, that one lines up and a lot of things make sense there.

If it's not Clint Kubiak at this point with Davis Webb out of the running, I, I think you have to kind of look at maybe somebody like a, a Brian Daball who accepted the job in Tennessee as offensive coordinator.

Uh there's not a clear path, um, after Clint Kubiak because I think this really was at this point down to, to, to Kubiak and Webb.

As for Arizona, this will be our 3rd and final topic.

Arizona is an interesting situation here because you've got Kubiak here, and then if the Raiders get Kubiak, you're the last team out there, so you're not in a race with anybody to finalize the hire.

So the guys they've had in for 2 interviews, Michael LaFleur, the Rams' offensive coordinator, Anthony Weaver, the ex-Dolphins, um, defensive coordinator who's got a lot of presence to him.

Um, and then Anthony Campanelli, the Jaguars' defensive coordinator, and Raheem Morris didn't have a second interview, but he sort of got a first, first-round buy into the second round of interviews because his first interview was actually in person.

Ron Rivera's name is out there.

He sat down with the Cardinals for 7 hours.

So you've got a wide range of names there.

And I, I think the Cardinals are sort of in that spot where they've had the last few days to discuss all those guys and where those guys set up and how those guys compare against one another.

And I do think at the very least that can give them a chance to set a pecking order if the Clint thing for one reason or another doesn't work out this weekend.

But, um, the Cardinals certainly have a list of names here that they can go to.

Um, LaFleur, Morris, I think both make a lot of sense if it's not, if it doesn't wind up being Kubi.

I appreciate you guys coming out.

This will be the last Breer report from here in Massachusetts for the 2025 season.

I know I'm not at home right now in my normal setup.

I'm actually at the radio studio, but we will be coming to you live from San Francisco all week next week.

I go there on Sunday.

I believe we'll have our first Breer report on Monday or Tuesday from there.

As always, you can leave your comments down below here on the YouTube page or you can get to me on my social media at Albert Breer, on Twitter at Albert R Breer on Facebook, at Alberts at Albert_Breer on Instagram.

Appreciate you guys coming out.

We will see you next week from California.