New year, same story. It’s late January which means that the Browns are conducting their annual search for an offensive coordinator who would actually take the job here. To recap: Shanahan couldn’t leave town fast enough. Hoyer wants nothing to do with us. Manziel and Gordon are visiting every bar between here and LA. And the names popping up on the Browns’ radar are as exciting as CSPAN.

The names that have popped up recently are names you might have heard of 10 years ago. Charlie Weis, Al Saunders, and Mike Martz being linked with the opening shows you just how desperate the situation is. Weis is famous for being lucky enough to coach Tom Brady, then striking out on his own and falling flat on his face ever since. Martz is well regarded as an offensive genius… by people who stopped following sports in 2001. He hasn’t coached at any level in 4 years following a disastrous run as the OC of the Bears. Saunders has an extensive background which doesn’t seem to fit the Browns at all. He’s a passing fanatic whose playbook makes War and Peace look like a short story. Seriously, he once had a playbook that was over 500 pages long! I’m thinking Manziel wouldn’t get past page 3.

Some of the other names are silly as well. Mary Kay Cabot seems to think that Packers OC Tom Clements is on our radar. Why would a guy who has been running an amazing offense that took his team to the NFC Championship game want to leave Aaron Rodgers to move to Cleveland and take the same position with us? So he can warm his toes by our dumpster fire? If he can bring Aaron Rodgers with him then I’m all for it! Chan Gailey has only been out of football for 3 years which makes him a slightly better option than Mike Martz. Matt Cavanaugh has spent the last 2 seasons changing Jay Cutler from a guy who was getting benched into a QB with champion potential. Oops, I got that backwards. Cutler went fromt Champion potential to the bench. But does the order really matter?

The unfortunate truth is that no Browns OC in the last half decade has lasted more than a season and the only people who would take a job like this are guys that are seriously desperate because they’ve failed often in the past.