With the 2023 NFL Playoffs down to four teams, the other 28 squads are starting to prepare to make moves that they hope will give them a better shot of winning next season’s Vince Lombardi Trophy.
There are a number of coaching vacancies and attractive coaching candidates across the league right now. While lots of attention is focused on a handful of head coaching openings and who may fill them, there are also teams looking to fill positions underneath their incumbent head coaches.
The New York Jets and Cleveland Browns, according to Browns beat writer Mary Kay Cabot, are both competing to hire Duce Staley, presumably as a running backs coach.
“The Browns have competition for Duce Staley, the former Panthers running backs coach they interviewed this week,” wrote Cabot.
“Staley, 48, would replace Stump Mitchell, who was fired on Wednesday, the same day the Browns parted ways with offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Alex Van Pelt and tight ends coach T.C. McCartney.
“Staley spent that day interviewing with the Browns at CrossCountry Mortgage Campus in Berea, and they plan to make him an offer, a league source told cleveland.com. But the Jets plan to do the same, the source said.”
NFL News & Rumors: Duce Staley, New York Jets, Cleveland Browns Updates
Coming into this season, New York looked to have perhaps the best running back duo in the NFL with Breece Hall, who was a standout rookie last season, and Dalvin Cook, who made the Pro Bowl in each of the previous four seasons. While Hall had a solid year, Cook was a festering disappointment. Cook got only 67 carries for 214 yards, and he was ultimately released earlier this month before he signed with the Baltimore Ravens.
Therefore, it’s little surprise that the team finished 22nd in rushing yards and 30th in rushing touchdowns this season.
Cleveland, meanwhile, had to endure multiple key injuries, including a severe knee injury to star running back Nick Chubb that prematurely ended his season in Week 2. It somehow finished 12th in rushing yards behind a patchwork effort from Jerome Ford and Kareem Hunt, and it ended up raising some eyebrows by finishing 11-6 and making the playoffs.
Staley, 48, was once a star running back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He surpassed the 1,000-yard mark three times and was a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2005 Super Bowl championship team.
After his retirement in 2007, he spent a decade on the Philadelphia Eagles’ coaching staff starting in 2010. He eventually got promoted to running backs coach and helped the Eagles win it all during the 2017 season.
In 2021, Staley moved on to the Detroit Lions before being hired by the Carolina Panthers two years later. He was a running backs coach and assistant head coach for both teams until he was fired on Nov. 27 along with quarterbacks coach Josh McCown and head coach Frank Reich.
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