Who is the ideal coach to pair with Baker Mayfield in Cleveland?

The Browns have hired eight head coaches since 1999, and those have not frequently been the best candidates. That may not be the case when the ninth search begins because the Browns' roster brings more promise than at any other point on their postreboot timeline. 

The coaching hire the Browns soon make will be one of the most important decisions of the franchise since respawning 19 years ago. John Dorsey is believed to have autonomy to hire a head coach for the first time in his career — Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt brought in Dorsey after hiring Andy Reid in January 2013 — and that would be a smart decision for a Browns franchise that has botched so many key decisions under its current ownership.

This hire may well determine whether Dorsey will be successful in Cleveland and if the Baker Mayfield-Myles Garrett-Denzel Ward era will be the defining period of Browns 2.0 football — or merely the latest in a long line of failed rebuilds.

So who is out there for Cleveland to consider?

Bruce Arians 
The former Browns offensive coordinator (2001-03, under previous ownership) hinted he is interested in the Cleveland job. In a strange twist for a franchise recently forced to consider lower-tier options — as it did during a lengthy 2014 search that ended with Mike Pettine — Arians said he will only consider the Browns in a return to the sidelines. The CBS analyst has been in the booth for multiple Browns games this season, and this sudden interest in the Cleveland job seemingly points to a ringing Mayfield endorsement. (Their shticks do kind of match up.)

Having aided in the developments of Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger before coaxing near-MVP-level work from Carson Palmer in 2015, Arians would be the most proven offensive coach out there. But the NFL is semi-obsessed with finding younger offensive minds in hopes of a franchise-changing hire, like the Rams found in Sean McVay. The Bears are faring well here, too. Vikings 39-year-old offensive coordinator John DeFilippo, whom the Browns fired in 2016 to give the keys to Hue Jackson, could be next. (It may be a grim winter for defensive coordinators with head-coaching aspirations.)

Overlooking Arians would be a mistake, however. 

A glance at the Cardinals’ horrendous 2018 offense reveals what they lost — a deep-passing enthusiast and proven play-caller — and Arians’ Arizona tenure felt incomplete. Palmer’s 2014 and 2017 injuries, the first of which sidetracked an 8-1 team, gutted multiple Cardinals teams. In 2015, Arians assembled the league's No. 1 offense.

That said, Arians’ 2016 team went 7-8-1 with a healthy Palmer. And at 66 (and months removed from a retirement), how long would this partnership last?

Matt Campbell
This would be an unconventional hire, but Dorsey's connections to the Iowa State head coach are materializing. The two-time reigning Big 12 Coach of the Year, Campbell is the first Cyclones coach to string together consecutive eight-win seasons since the 1970s. A Cleveland-area native and former Toledo coach, Campbell has landed on the Browns' radar. His stock might not be higher than it is right now.

However, Iowa State produced the No. 105 offense this season (out of 130 Division I-FBS schools). Regardless of the 39-year-old Campbell growing up a Browns fan and being a potential rising star, is he what the team needs to work with its young quarterback? 

This may be a tad early for a coach who will likely have NFL options at some point.

Mike McCarthy
Despite his present unpopularity in Wisconsin, this is fairly obvious. Dorsey and McCarthy’s Packers tenures overlapped during a seven-year period. Former Green Bay execs Eliot Wolf and Alonzo Highsmith are now Dorsey lieutenants in Cleveland. The Browns will almost certainly consider the new coaching free agent.

Of course, McCarthy was fired for his inability to lead a Packers team blessed with arguably the most talented quarterback ever. Is he going to be ready to take over Mayfield’s development in 2019? 

The professionalism disparity between McCarthy, 55, and Jackson would surely be striking. But after what became a tense environment in Green Bay, McCarthy may not view a job where the primary task is molding another headstrong quarterback as an ideal rebound spot.

But if Dorsey and McCarthy do link up, the latter's career arc would resemble Reid’s. The Chiefs coach spent 14 years with the Eagles before being fired, and his now-Patrick Mahomes-centered bounce-back effort has been one of the league’s dominant storylines. However, Reid is a superior offensive innovator to McCarthy, who worked with a Future Hall of Fame quarterback in all 13 Packer seasons. And when McCarthy takes his next job, he will have to overcome the perception that he held Rodgers back.

Josh McDaniels
McDaniels not only burned the Colts last year, but he also was part of the Browns’ search that led to Pettine. Jimmy Haslam pursued McDaniels aggressively in 2014 when the Patriots’ OC interviewed for the job. The current Browns, compared to the team that was then months away from the Johnny Manziel investment, are a much more appealing destination for the Cleveland-area native. But McDaniels would be a dicey hire.

The one-time wunderkind coordinator did elevate Tom Brady into an all-time great, transforming a rich man’s game manager in the early 2000s into a future three-time MVP. Everything else in McDaniels’ NFL career: less of this. 

Immaturity made McDaniels’ Broncos stay brief, and the 2011 Rams — with whom McDaniels caught on as OC — finished as the league’s 32nd-ranked offense. These failures, the depressing Bill Belichick coaching tree and the Indianapolis snafu should cool teams on the 42-year-old New England assistant.

Lincoln Riley
This would probably be the most popular in Cleveland and in NFL circles. Mayfield’s college coach is 35 and would bring a new-age system with which NFL teams are eager to experiment. 

Riley’s first year succeeding Bob Stoops produced a Mayfield Heisman Trophy, and it launched a 6-foot-1 quarterback to the top of the 2018 draft. Both Football Outsiders and Pro Football Focus rate Mayfield as the top rookie passer — by a substantial margin — thus far. Considering Mayfield's atypical rise to the No. 1 overall pick, Riley’s instructional acumen should be taken seriously. 

Plus, there has never been a better time for college coaches to make this jump, though the 21st-century success-to-failure pendulum — Jim Harbaugh vs. Steve Spurrier, Nick Saban, Bobby Petrino, Chip Kelly and the Browns' Butch Davis (Pete Carroll's pre-USC AFC East stints disqualify him) — is worth examining.

However, a Riley-Mayfield reunion, one the second-year Sooners coach said was not on his mind in the wake of Jackson’s ouster, would infuse the kind of excitement no other hire would. And Mayfield would not need to spend too much time acclimating to the young coach’s system (which would surely be tweaked to some degree for the NFL).

But in being gifted Oklahoma's resources, Riley also enjoys built-in advantages only select college coaches possess. Transitioning to an NFL job — in the league’s most success-starved market — with a salary cap would be dramatically different. 

The Browns' young talent notwithstanding, they may now be competing with a better situation. The Packers, who should be desperate to find someone who can reinvigorate Rodgers, may pursue Riley.

Cleveland would represent Riley’s smoothest possible transition. But leaving a place which offers a stacked competition deck for the Browns would be a massive risk.