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Cleveland Browns: Go all-in for Lincoln Riley after the season

By Sayre Bedinger

NORMAN, OK - OCTOBER 27: Head Coach Lincoln Riley of the Oklahoma Sooners watches warm ups before the game against the Kansas State Wildcats at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on October 27, 2018 in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma defeated Kansas State 51-14. (Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images)
NORMAN, OK - OCTOBER 27: Head Coach Lincoln Riley of the Oklahoma Sooners watches warm ups before the game against the Kansas State Wildcats at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on October 27, 2018 in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma defeated Kansas State 51-14. (Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images) /
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The Cleveland Browns fired Hue Jackson and Todd Haley, paving the way for a reunion between Baker Mayfield and Lincoln Riley.

The NFL is a copycat league, and right now, college football coaches are the ones the league is emulating. This, along with a number of other reasons, is why the Cleveland Browns need to go all-in this offseason and hire Oklahoma Sooners head coach Lincoln Riley.

Riley’s Sooners are a dominant offensive force, and have been since he became the offensive coordinator in 2015. With the NFL starting to utilize so many college concepts, jumping to the NFL could happen as soon as 2019 for Riley if he’s up for the challenge.

What’s working in the NFL right now is the right combination of a coach who is adaptable to these concepts, a quarterback capable of running them, and a group of offensive skill players with diverse talent.

Riley has gotten the most out of his players at basically every stop in his relatively short coaching journey so far.

Remember Shane Carden, the wildly productive quarterback out of East Carolina? Riley was his quarterbacks coach/offensive coordinator/assistant head coach at ECU before becoming the offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach at Oklahoma.

While at Oklahoma, Riley coached Baker Mayfield, the number one overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft of the Cleveland Browns (2015-17) and if he were going to move from the college ranks to the NFL, having a franchise quarterback in place would probably be a requirement.

The Browns also have a good general manager in John Dorsey who is going to be armed with a lot of cash in free agency. If you bring in one of the hottest young college football coaches who has familiarity with your franchise quarterback, that’s going to be a nice draw for prospective free agents.

Riley understands how to maximize offensive talent and scheme against defenses in unique ways, something we’re seeing from Sean McVay, Andy Reid, Doug Pederson, Matt Nagy, and others. Riley is somewhat ahead of the curve in that he’s been running these types of offenses now for years where the NFL seems to be in the beginning stages of running some of these concepts.

This move would be very beneficial for Baker Mayfield for obvious reasons. This would essentially reunite him with his college coach who helped make him into such an attractive NFL prospect in the first place.

One of the craziest things about Mayfield coming over from the Texas Tech program and having a backyard style of play etched in the DNA of his game was the fact that he was always so technically proficient.

That’s a testament to Riley’s quarterback coaching, and obviously his background as a college quarterback (ironically also a walk-on at Texas Tech in 2002) was a big help there.

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Though Riley isn’t a long-tenured college coach, his concepts have proven successful wherever he’s gone whether it was East Carolina with Shane Carden or Oklahoma with Baker Mayfield and another Heisman candidate in Kyler Murray.

Riley’s offensive mastery is exactly on-trend in the NFL and he’s exactly what the Cleveland Browns need.

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