{"id":9767,"date":"2025-01-09T11:27:21","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T11:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breakingnews.azontree.com\/?p=9767"},"modified":"2025-01-09T11:27:21","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T11:27:21","slug":"breaking-what-went-wrong-on-the-browns-offensive-line-this-year-and-what-new-position-coach-mike-bloomgren-might-bring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breakingnews.azontree.com\/?p=9767","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: What went wrong on the Browns’ offensive line this year, and what new position coach Mike Bloomgren might bring"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"Cleveland<\/p>\n

CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014Jack Conklin explained it best when asked on locker clean out day why he thought it didn\u2019t work out with position coach Andy Dickerson.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a lot of things,\u201d Conklin said. \u201cSwitching our offense and stuff was tough, and unfortunately a lot of times the O-line coach gets blamed when you can\u2019t run the ball, and we didn\u2019t run the ball well enough. So it\u2019s a bummer to see him get fired, but when you go 3-14 changes have to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Browns fired Dickerson and offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey on Sunday, after an extremely underwhelming year. For the 2024 regular season, the Cleveland offense plummeted to the bottom of the league, ranking 31st in yards per play (4.57), 32nd in passing yards per play (5.30) and 23rd in rushing yards per play (4.11).<\/p>\n

While head coach Kevin Stefanski reiterated multiple times this week that the blame doesn\u2019t fall on one person, it\u2019s undeniable that Dorsey and Dickerson got the brunt of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust the bottom line, I want to go in a different direction,\u201d Stefanski said. \u201cWe need to improve, as everybody knows, on the offensive side of the ball and that\u2019s what we plan to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were other contributing factors of course to the poor run game in particular. Injuries on the O-line led to the Browns using seven different starting lineups in their first eight games. The running back room struggled with production as Nick Chubb returned from his 2023 knee injury, and then broke his foot in Week 15 against the Chiefs.<\/p>\n

So where do they go from here?<\/p>\n

While the offensive coordinator search remains underway, the Browns did get a new O-line coach already, announcing the hiring of Mike Bloomgren on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The 47 year old spent the past seven seasons as the head coach at Rice, but was fired in October. When Bloomgren broke into the NFL with the Jets in 2007, he spent two seasons as a quality control coach for the Jets in 2007-08 under Brian Schottenheimer and Bill Callahan, the Browns’ former O-line coach who they missed dearly in 2024.<\/p>\n

Callahan, arguably the best O-line coach in the league, was with the Browns from 2020-23, but left to go coach with his son, Brian, who took the Titans’ head coaching job last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we all knew that Coach Callahan was a great O-line coach,\u201d Joel Bitonio said. \u201cHe\u2019s had the resume, he\u2019s done it. We had four years of experience with him. So I think we all knew that that was going to be something we missed. But we had faith in Coach Andy, as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s different philosophies, the way you coach, Bill\u2019s a little bit more in your face about things and Andy\u2019s more, how do you want to approach this? It\u2019s more of a group think type of thing. But, yeah, we didn\u2019t do enough. We didn\u2019t execute well enough on offense, and I can\u2019t point fingers at one person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Players and coaches may not want to point fingers, but Callahan\u2019s absence was certainly felt.<\/p>\n

In his wide-zone scheme, Bitonio and Wyatt Teller were able to become two of the best pulling guards in the league, making it to multiple Pro Bowls each \u2014 Bitonio made it all four seasons under Callahan and Teller made it in three. Ethan Pocic went from being an insurance policy at center to being one of the highest-graded players at the position in 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought me and Wyatt as pullers running some outside zone, I think that was what I did well in my career, and I probably pulled less than 10 times this year overall,\u201d Bitonio said. \u201cAnd there were games in my career where I pulled eight or 10 times in a game, so it was different, for sure, but I think that\u2019s where the strength of offense is and we can build it up, get the right people in the right position.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s not surprising coming from Conklin and Bitonio, both sounded a similar tone in the direction they believe the offense needs to go from here \u2014 back to more play-action passing and that wide-zone scheme, incorporating more of what Stefanski had success with early in his time in Cleveland with Baker Mayfield, and late in 2023 with Joe Flacco.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I would say where we had our most success is we\u2019re a wide-zone team,\u201d Conklin said. \u201cWe brought in guys that do that and have been very successful at doing that. I hope that\u2019s where we move back to.\u201d<\/p>\n

While a more specific look at scheme won\u2019t come until later, it\u2019s undeniable that Callahan had an influence in the earlier years of Bloomgre\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

After his stint as a quality control coach with the Jets under Schottenheimer and Callahan, he was promoted to offensive assistant in 2009 when Rex Ryan took over as head coach. In 2010, he served as assistant offensive coordinator, and the Jets finished with an 11-5 record, averaging nearly 23 points per game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat time trained and instilled a lot of beliefs I have in the position and in the manner in which it should be taught,\u201d Bloomgren said.<\/p>\n

While so much is at play heading into the 2025 season, including the health of players and what will happen at left tackle, it seems like a return to a version of the old, mixed in with some new, is certainly on the table for a unit that will look to return to dominance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike Bloomgren was hired on Wednesday to replace the fired Andy Dickerson — what might he bring to an O-line that needs a bit of a makeover?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cleveland-browns"],"yoast_head":"\nBREAKING: What went wrong on the Browns' offensive line this year, and what new position coach Mike Bloomgren might bring - Breaking News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/breakingnews.azontree.com\/?p=9767\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BREAKING: What went wrong on the Browns' offensive line this year, and what new position coach Mike Bloomgren might bring - 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