The Cleveland Browns have quickly filled their offensive line coach vacancy, hiring Mike Bloomgren to lead the unit in 2025 and, hopefully, beyond. Bloomgren is replacing Andy Dickerson, who was fired the Sunday after the Browns' Week 18 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, according to Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com.
Bloomgren is the former head coach of Rice University's football team. He also coached the offensive line at Stanford University.
Dickerson led an offensive line that had one of the worst pass protection and run blocking grades in the NFL. They were completely decimated at tackle by injuries to Jedrick Wills Jr., Dawand Jones, and Jack Conklin, and were never able to fully get into a rhythm under Dickerson's tutelage.
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What's major about this hire of Bloomgren is that he actually worked alongside Bill Callahan on the NY Jets. Callahan, as Browns fans know, was the team's offensive line coach for three seasons and was brought on alongside Kevin Stefanski back in 2020. Since his departure, the O-line and the quarterback protection on the Browns has gone from one of the best to one of the worst.
Bloomgren is now going to have a unique opportunity to both coach up raw talent in Dawand Jones as well as help get back the talent from Conklin, Wyatt Teller, and Ethan Pocic. In addition to that, he'll also likely be tasked with coaching up whoever Cleveland drafts this upcoming year. It's been speculated that Cleveland will be aiming to draft several O-lineman this year.
If Cleveland can somehow get back to a team that's focused on their ground game, then it'd be a huge lift for whoever they bring in as the quarterback to begin 2025. That begins with their offensive line, which at times seemed to really struggle with creating holes for Nick Chubb or Jerome Ford. As a result, they relied heavily on their pass game, and ended up with one of the worst turnover ratios in the NFL.
It should be interesting to see if this hire also convinces someone like Joel Bitonio to return for another season. Bitonio is a consistently great guard for the Browns on the O-line, but it seemed like he was toying with the idea of retiring after 2024. He hasn't made any official announcement as of yet, but maybe bringing on a coach like Bloomgren changes his mind.