CLEVELAND (AP) — Tommy Rees went from being a ball boy for the Browns to running their offense.
Cleveland coach Kevin Stefanski hired Rees as his offensive coordinator on Wednesday, promoting him after firing Ken Dorsey following a season in which the Browns went 3-14 and averaged a league-low 15.2 points per game.
Rees spent last season as Cleveland's tight ends coach, working with Mike Vrabel, who spent a year as a consultant with the Browns before being named New England's coach this week.
Vrabel had been expected to bring Rees with him to the Patriots, but Stefanski, who said on Jan. 6 that he planned to interview internal candidates, beat him to the punch.
“Tommy has an incredible football mind,” Stefanski said. “He is extremely bright and has been around the game his entire life. Before joining our staff, he established himself as one of the top assistant coaches in college football. Last season, he transitioned into our tight end room and with our pass game, and he didn’t miss a beat."
Stefanski also interviewed New Orleans Saints offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, Miami Dolphins quarterbacks coach/pass game coordinator Darrell Bevell, Seattle Seahawks quarterbacks coach Charles London and Atlanta Falcons tight ends coach Kevin Koger.
The 32-year-old Rees has been considered a rising star in the NFL coaching ranks. He was the first candidate to interview with Stefanski, who fired Dorsey hours after the Browns ended their dreadful season with a loss at Baltimore in the finale.
Rees has deep football roots in Cleveland. As a teenager, he worked as a ball boy with the club when his dad, Bill, was the team's director of player personnel.
Stefanski's familiarity with Rees was certainly a factor in the Browns keeping him. He knows the offense and it's possible Stefanski could assume play-calling duties after handing them over to Dorsey midway through last season.
Stefanski called plays during his first four seasons with Cleveland.
Rees knows all about pressure, having played quarterback at Notre Dame and working for a year on Alabama's coaching staff under Nick Saban. Before joining the Crimson Tide, Rees was the offensive coordinator and QB coach at his alma mater from 2020-22.
The Browns allowed Rees to interview for North Carolina's coaching job before the school signed six-time Super Bowl winner Bill Belichick.
Rees tried to get all he could out of Cleveland's tight end group last season. But David Njoku, one of the team's top playmakers, couldn't build off a Pro Bowl year because of injuries and finished with 64 catches for 505 yards — a career-worst 7.9 per grab.
“Due to injuries, there was a lot of uncertainty at tight end, but Tommy did a phenomenal job with that group and always had his players ready for game day, despite, in some cases, only being with the team for a short period of time,” Stefanski said. "Innovation is such a critical element to the offensive game-planning process and Tommy brings that. Our intent is to build a sound and explosive offense that will put points on the board, and I’m looking forward to working with Tommy to re-shape the Browns offense in 2025.”
Now that their coordinator is in place, the Browns can continue to fix an offense that was among the league's worst in 2024.
Dorsey, who replaced Alex Van Pelt, had been brought in to restructure Cleveland's scheme around quarterback Deshaun Watson's skills. However, Watson never got on track and went just 1-6 as a starter before rupturing his Achilles tendon in October.
Last week, the Browns said Watson recently re-injured his Achilles and they expect him to miss “significant time” in 2025. Cleveland is expected to sign a veteran quarterback in free agency and the club could use the No. 2 pick this year to draft a QB.
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Tom Withers, The Associated Press
