IT’S UP TO DORSEY TO FIGURE IT OUT

By STEVE KING

The Browns – specifically General Manager John Dorsey, that is – need to take a long look at fired Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy.

Make that a hard, honest look.

What really happened in Green Bay?

Is it just that quarterback Aaron Rodgers is a knucklehead at times and a hard guy to work with?

Or is it that McCarthy was also a knucklehead, and a hard guy to work with?

No matter the case, if McCarthy couldn’t get along with Rodgers – couldn’t make it work –could he get along with another high-octane quarterback in Browns rookie Baker Mayfield? The answer to that question can’t be a guess. It has to be a definiteyes or no, with plenty of thought and evidence backing up the choice Dorsey makes.

McCarthy was, at one time at least, a great head coach. Is he still? Or has he lost something off his fast ball?

Or is this Andy Reid all over again, a guy getting booted out the door by the Philadelphia Eagles after a long and distinguished tenure but then landing with the KansasCity Chiefs and re-discovering himself – re-inventing himself — in a very big and impressive way?

Again, Dorsey, who knows Reid, too, just like he knows McCarthy, has to figure it allout.

If McCarthy needs to change and be receptive to new ideas and doing things in new and different ways, will he acquiesce and do it? Or will he be stubborn and resist? Older people – he just turned 55 – sometimes dig in their heels and refuse tobudge. I should know. I’m one of them. And when I’ve done it – when a lot ofolder people have done it – it hasn’t worked out well. We end up changing after the fact – sometimes when it’s already too late in some respects.

 That’s another one Dorsey has to decipher.

He absolutely has to decipher it 100-percet accurate

HOW ABOUT BRUCE ARIANS?

A lot of people – and that would include me – may have, at least at first glance, pretty much dismissed out of hand Bruce Arians as a legitimate candidate for the Browns head-coaching job.

Arians has retired from coaching, and the thought of hiring a retiree to lead the Browns out of the wilderness has all the sizzle of a 10-pound bag of ice. The public seems to want a young guy, namely Lincoln Riley, the head coach at Oklahoma.The fact that he was the college coach of Browns rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield makes his appeal just that much better, as does, of course, the fact that he’s accomplished quite a bit in only a small period of time.

But what if Riley doesn’t want the job? Or if Cleveland General Manager John Dorsey ends up not liking Riley. The latter doesn’t seem plausible, but you never know. After all, these coaching searches take some crazy, unexpected turns at times, as fans of the Browns in this expansion era know all too well.

If that – Riley being out of the picture — happens, though, the No. 2 candidate would, it is presumed, be fired Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy. He might even be the No. 1 candidate. Who knows?

But, like Riley, McCarthy is being wooed by other suitors, so it could be that the Browns find themselves without at least one, if not both of those men.

So, then, what about Arians? Would he be such a bad choice?

I don’t think so. In fact, if it came down to it, I now believe, as I think more and more about it, that he would be a great choice.

Why?

First and foremost, because Arians wants it. He says the Browns job is the only one the former Browns offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach would jump back into coaching to take. That may seem stupid, but it’s not, for if a man’s heart isn’t in it, then all the selling in the world by someone even as good of a salesman as Dorsey, might not help.

And Arians really, really, really knows offensive football, and quarterbacks. In addition, he’s a people person through and through, something that McCarthy may not be, and a great communicator, which is probably not McCarthy’s greatest strength, either.

Red flag No. 1? Red flag No. 2?

Could be.

Considering all that, then, it – Bruce Arians getting this job – is certainly something to think about.

Dorsey is halfway there in the two biggest acquisitions – hires –he will make while with the Browns, no matter how long he stays.

Unless everybody is wrong – and there’s a chance that it could happen, because he’s only 75 percent of the way through his rookie season – it looks for all the world that Dorsey had his quarterback in Baker Mayfield.

Now he’s got to find the right head coach to pair with Mayfield.

It can’t be just a good coach, or an accomplished coach, although he will be that, but more than anything, he must be the right coach – that is, the right coach for Mayfield.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be the right coach for the left tackle or the tight end or the defensive tackle or the string safety or the long snapper. Hopefully, he will, but it’s not a requirement.

But because quarterback is the most important position in team sports, and as such quarterback-headcoach is the most important relationship in team sports, Dorsey has to find ahead coach who will fit with Mayfield like a glove – someone who will nurture and develop Mayfield into the quarterback the Browns hope he will be, want him tobe, expect him to be and, most of all, need him to be if they’re going to get to where they and their fans desire them to go.

And that, of course, is not just to the Super Bowl, but also to the winner’s podium after the game.

That’s what all this is about. Anything short of it will, in at least some regards, be looked upon as a failure.

Dorsey knowswhat it will be like if, as he calls it, the “sleeping giant” that is the Browns is awakened. To the fullest extent. It will be off the charts.

That’s what he’s been hired to do. He knows that full well.

And it –hitting the bullseye with the second part of this seminal hire — is what drives him every single day.