By
Mary Kay Cabot, cleveland.com
ORLANDO, Fla. — For the Browns, it was a no-brainer to bring Akron native and former Ohio State Buckeye Mike Vrabel back home as a coaching and personnel consultant.
“It actually came together pretty quickly,” Browns GM Andrew Berry said Tuesday at the NFL annual meeting. “When Kevin (Stefanski) and I talked about it initially, the open question was, ‘OK, this is probably the first time in his life that he’s had a chance to step away and kind of relax away from football. Would he be even interested in coming aboard and helping?’ And we learned very quickly that he was interested and if he wasn’t interested, his wife was probably going to make him be interested (laughing), that type of thing.”
Stefanski, who’s relied on strong mentors and advisors his entire career, was thrilled to add Vrabel to a staff that’s been completely overhauled in all three phases over the past two offseasons. When Vrabel, 48, was passed over for head coaching gigs with the Chargers, Falcons and Panthers after getting fired by the Titans, Stefanski didn’t hesitate. Afterall, how often to you get to have a fellow NFL Coach of the Year (2021) in the building?
“From my perspective, we’re very excited to get Vrabes up there,” Stefanski said. “I can tell you having him in and throwing a Browns sweatshirt on was a big deal for me. Get the kid back up to Northeast Ohio. I feel real strongly about the person and the coach. I’ve developed a relationship with Vrabes over the years, Andrew as well. So when he didn’t have a head coaching job this last cycle I made sure that he knew that we would like to get him up there in some capacity. So that was really the beginning of that conversation. We had him up there last week. He’s a resource. He’s a resource for me, he’s a resource for Andrew, and I’m very very excited to have him.”
Berry can’t wait to rely on Vrabel’s talent-evaluation skills, which he already put to use for the Browns at the NFL combine and in free agency.
“Any person who sat in a head coach’s seat, they just have a broader perspective,” Berry said. “No different than if you go from being a scout to a general manager, you just have a broader perspective in terms of team building and some of the challenges that come into place. There are a lot of good relationships with Mike in our building between (head coach) Kevin (Stefanski), myself, (defensive coordinator) Jim (Schwartz). We love having him around and we’re using him in a variety of areas that we think that he can help with, but we’re happy to have him aboard.”
The consultant role got a ringing endorsement from Schwartz, who was hired by Vrabel as a senior consultant in Tennessee in 2021 and 2022 when he had to step away from his full-time coordinator duties because of a thyroid condition. In addition to helping Stefanki and Berry, he’ll undoubtedly assist Schwartz on defense.
“If you’re a GM or a head coach, you don’t usually have the opportunity to use another general manager or head coach as a sounding board within your league,” Berry said. “You may have friends in the NBA or hockey or baseball that you can do it. And with Mike, because we’d had such a good relationship with him for a number of years, he really was the perfect fit for that group.”
Stefanski explained that Vrabel’s role here will evolve over time.
“We’re kind of going week by week here, honestly, so we’ll see how it plays out,” he said. “Certainly just letting that job grow as it makes sense for Vrabes. As much as he wants to be (around), as much as he can. He still has a son in college, so it’s as much as he’s comfortable with.”
Berry said Vrabel has a “good working space when he’s been in” but they don’t anticipate having him around long-term.
“Quite honestly, our assumption is that he’s going to be well back into the head coaching cycle next year, just being realistic,” Berry said. “So we’re hopeful to use him as a resource and have a little fun with Mike along the way for the next year and then we’ll see how it goes from there.”
A Browns fan growing up, Vrabel jumped at the chance to help his hometown team.
