The Browns’ History of Hiring Names Nobody Knew

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Mike Rutenberg was hired as defensive coordinator of the Browns the other day at about the same time that Nick Saban and Urban Meyer were playing golf with President Trump.

"I thought his energy, his ability to teach, his juice, I mean, it popped. It was what I was looking for."

Todd Monken on hiring Mike Rutenberg as the new defensive coordinator. pic.twitter.com/DLWCuJmdVw
— The Dawgs – A Cleveland Browns Podcast (@thedawgspodcast) February 21, 2026

Now, you may ask, how in the world are those two situations linked to the point that they can be put into the same sentence?

Let me explain. Rutenberg is a virtual unknown in Cleveland right now. Hmmm, was that guy i saw driving a big SUV down Bagley Road in Berea yesterday the replacement for Jim Schwartz? Or was it just someone heading to a construction job? Who knows?

Browns fans are pretty parochial in that they warm up better to people they already know. It will take time for them to get acquainted with Rutenberg.

This, along with hiring a complete unknown in head coach Tom Monken, is not new for the Browns. When Bill Belichick got the head-coaching job with the team in 1991, the first person he hired was some guy named Nick Saban as defensive coordinator.

We knew Saban — only slightly — from his having played as a defensive back on historically great teams at Kent State two decades before, and having spent one season, 1990, as the head coach at Toledo. That is, as the guy in charge of the Rockets, not the Mud Hens. In addition, he was a low-level assistant at Ohio State in 1980 on Earle Bruce‘s staff.

If someone had asked us if the Browns had just hired a guy who would someday be known as the greatest college football coach of all-time, we would’ve laughed in their face. First, we needed to know what Saban looked like so we could differentiate him from all the other nameless, faceless people Belichick was hiring.

That includes Kirk Feeentz. In 1993, Belichick hired him as offensive line coach. One of the media types covering the team wisecracked, “The Browns have just shifted the the balance of power in the AFC Central because they now have the head coach of the Maine Bears.”

Not the Chicago Bears, mind you, but the Maine Bears.

But Ferentz did, eventually, shift the balance of power in the Big Ten coaching ranks, because he has more career wins than anybody, including Woody Hayes, the legend that Bruce followedwith the Buckeyes.

Then there was Ozzie Newsome, not as a tight end but as a pro personnel assistant; Pat Hill, not Calvin Hill, as an assistant coach; and Jim Schwartz as a low-level personnel guy.

Newsome could be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a contributor in addition to being enshrined as a player. Hill is the greatest head coach in Fresno State history, and is a legend at the school and in that part of the country. And Schwartz, well, you probably know all about him, as one of the best defensive coordinators the Browns have ever had, along with that Saban guy.

But at one time, other than Newsome, we had no idea who any of these guys were. And in the case of Newsome, there was no expectation that he would be almost as good off the field as he was on it.

They just all needed time to hone their craft. We can’t say for sure and we would never try to compare the two groups of then and now, because that’s not fair to the new guys. But that may also be the case, to some degree, with Rutenberg and Monken, and maybe some of the other coaches who will be on the staff. We’ll just have to wait and see, but we can’t just dismiss them out of hand because we don’t know who they are right now.

Steve King