BEREA, Ohio (AP) — The Cleveland Browns quickly began trying to fix a brutal, broken 2024 season.
There's no shortage of items needing repair.
Hours after finishing with a loss at Baltimore in the finale of a season that was expected to carry into the playoffs, coach Kevin Stefanski fired offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey and offensive line coach Andy Dickerson.
Those were the initial moves in what will be another busy winter as Cleveland crawls from the wreckage of the franchise's 18th double-digit loss season since 1999.
Dorsey and Dickerson both spent just one season with the Browns (3-14), who closed with a six-game losing streak and are now guaranteed to have one of the first three picks in this year's NFL draft — not what they had in mind after making the playoffs last season.
“Just bottom line, I want to go in a different direction,” Stefanski said Sunday, adding he didn't expect any other “major” changes on his staff. “We need to improve, as everybody knows, on the offensive side of the ball. That’s what we plan to do.”
Dorsey and Dickerson were informed of the moves in the aftermath of the team's 35-10 loss in Baltimore on Saturday.
A two-time AP Coach of the Year, Stefanski survived one of the most disappointing seasons in team history along with general manager Andrew Berry, who is scheduled to meet with the media on Monday.
Stefanski's search for his third offensive coordinator since 2020 is already underway. Tight ends coach Tommy Rees is believed to be one of the internal candidates.
There are several other pressing issues for the Browns, chiefly at starting quarterback and the future of superstar defensive end Myles Garrett, who hinted after Saturday's game that he could be in line for a contract extension.
"There’ll be something coming,” said Garrett, who has made it clear to owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam that he doesn't want to be part of any rebuild and recently opened the possibility of asking to be traded.
Garrett, who has two years left on a $125 million deal, wants to see the team's offseason plans — on both sides of the ball.
While Cleveland's defense underperformed this season, the offense was atrocious.
With Dorsey in charge, the Browns finished last in scoring and only reached at least 20 points in three games. Dorsey, who was fired by the Buffalo Bills last season, had been brought to Cleveland to help structure an offense around quarterback Deshaun Watson's versatile skillset.
But Watson never got going as he struggled in his return from major shoulder surgery and the Browns went just 1-6 in his starts before he ruptured his Achilles tendon in October. That was followed by Stefanski handing play-calling duties over to Dorsey and the offense showed some life when Jameis Winston took over at quarterback.
However, the spark was short-lived and Winston got benched after throwing eight interceptions in three games. Dorian Thompson-Robinson started twice and Bailey Zappe played against the Ravens — Cleveland's 40th starting QB since 1999.
Replacing the respected Bill Callahan, who left to coach with his son, Brian, in Tennessee was going to be tough for any coach. The Browns' running game never got rolling under Dickerson's direction — it didn't help running back Nick Chubb was recovering from knee surgery — and Cleveland's O-line gave up 66 sacks.
Right tackle Jack Conklin said the switch in offensive philosophies was detrimental.
“It was a tall task for anybody to take over,” Conklin said. “I feel bad for Andy having it go this way. Obviously wanted to have success in doing this other offense, but it just didn’t work.”
Left guard Joel Bitonio believes returning to a run-heavy, play-action scheme would be a wise move.
“It’s what Coach Stefanski is most comfortable with,” Bitonio said. “The line was kind of built that way as well. I thought me and Wyatt (Teller) as pullers running some outside zone, That was what I did well in my career, and I probably pulled less than 10 times this year overall. And there were games in my career where I pulled eight or 10 times in a game, so it was different, for sure.”
NOTES: Stefanski stressed that Watson's health is paramount in whether he's in the competition to start next season. He has two years left on a fully guaranteed $230 million contract the team recently restructured to give them future salary cap relief. ... Stefanski did not have MRI results on rookie DT Mike Hall Jr., who was carted off the field against the Ravens with a leg injury. ... Stefanski would only say he's “hopeful” that LB Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah will play next season after finishing on injured reserve with a neck injury. ... Bitonio said he'll take some time to “rest the body and mind” before deciding if he'll play a 12th season.
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FILE - Andy Dickerson, Cleveland Browns offensive line coach, talks with Michael Dunn (68) during an NFL football training camp practice in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, Thursday, July 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
FILE - Cleveland Browns offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey watches as players warm up before an NFL football game against the Los Angeles Chargers Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday visited a makeshift memorial at the site of the deadly New Year’s attack in New Orleans, holding a moment of silence before meeting with grieving families and attending a prayer service.
Biden and first lady Jill Biden made their first stop in the city Monday evening at a memorial that sprung up on city’s famous Bourbon Street, where the attack began last week when an Army veteran drove a truck into revelers, killing 14 and injuring 30 more.
Flowers and messages had been left at the base of more than 14 crosses erected on the sidewalk in the French Quarter. After Jill Biden placed white flowers at the memorial, she and the president stood in silence and bowed their heads.
Joe Biden crossed himself, and the the couple headed to the historic St. Louis Cathedral nearby, where the president was expected to have a private meeting with the families of those killed and attend an interfaith prayer service.
The visit is likely to be the last time Biden travels to the scene of a horrific crime as president to console families of victims. He has less than two weeks left in office.
“I think what you’re going to see this president do today is show up for the community, be there for the community in the hardest time," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Louisiana.
She went on, speaking about Biden's own understanding of loss, and said, “He believes this is also an important part of the job that he believes he needs to do as president.”
It's a grim task that presidents perform, though not every leader has embraced the role with such intimacy as the 82-year-old Biden, who has experienced a lot of personal tragedy in his own life. His first wife and baby daughter died in a car accident in the early 1970s, and his eldest son, Beau, died of cancer in 2015.
“I've been there. There’s nothing you can really say to somebody that’s just had such a tragic loss," Biden told reporters Sunday in a preview of his visit. "My message is going to be personal if I get to get them alone.”
Biden often takes the opportunity at such bleak occasions to speak behind closed doors with the families, offer up his personal phone number in case people want to talk later on and talk about grief in stark, personal terms.
In addition to the meeting with families, Biden hoped to visit with first responders in New Orleans, according to Jean-Pierre.
The Democratic president will continue on to California following his stop in New Orleans. With a snowstorm hitting the Washington region on Monday, Biden's trip began with Air Force One starting its takeoff from inside a large hangar instead of on the tarmac as thick snow covered the ground at Joint Base Andrews and snowplows worked to clear the runway.
In New Orleans on Jan. 1, the driver plowed into a crowd on Bourbon Street. Fourteen revelers were killed along with the driver. Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who steered his speeding truck around a barricade and plowed into the crowd, later was fatally shot in a firefight with police.
Jabbar, an American citizen from Texas, had posted five videos on his Facebook account in the hours before the attack in which he proclaimed his support for the Islamic State militant group and previewed the violence that he would soon unleash in the French Quarter.
Biden on Sunday pushed back against conspiracy theories surrounding the attack, and he urged New Orleans residents to ignore them.
“I spent literally 17, 18 hours with the intelligence community from the time this happened to establish exactly what happened, to establish beyond any reasonable doubt that New Orleans was the act of a single man who acted alone,” he said. “All this talk about conspiracies with other people, there’s not evidence of that — zero.”
The youngest victim was 18 years old, and the oldest was 63. Most victims were in their 20s. They came from Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, New Jersey and Great Britain.
Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican, was asked on “Fox News Sunday” what the city was hoping for from Biden's visit.
“How can we not feel for both the families of those who die but also those who’ve been injured in their families?” he asked.
“The best thing that the city, the state, and the federal government can do is do their best to make sure that this does not happen again. And what we can do as a people is to make sure that we don’t live our lives in fear or in terror — but live our lives bravely and with liberty, and then support those families however they need support.”
Jean-Pierre said Monday that Biden was directing additional resources to help New Orleans with major upcoming events, including Mardi Gras and the Super Bowl, with both events being assigned the highest level of federal support for security measures.
Associated Press writers Fatima Hussein in Washington and Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this report.
President Joe Biden is greeted by New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, Rep. Cleo Fields and Rep. Troy Carter and wife Andree Carter, as he arrives Air Force One at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden stop at the site of the deadly New Years truck attack, in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
President Joe Biden speaks with reporters after signing the Social Security Fairness Act in the East Room of the White House, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
