After conducting a thorough search for a new offensive coordinator the Cleveland Browns ultimately settled on an internal hire, promoting Tommy Rees into the role after he spent one season as the team's tight ends coach in 2024.
Rees is considered a rising star in the football coaching ranks. The former Notre Dame QB was actually interviewed for the head coaching job at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, before the program stunningly hired Bill Belichick for the job. Then there were the rumors that Mike Vrabel – who spent last season as a consultant with the Browns – would be willing to pluck Rees to be his next OC in New England if he didn't get the promotion in Cleveland.
In the end, the Browns came through, and as Rees explained in his introductory press conference on Thursday, things played out the way he wanted.
"Cleveland is where I wanted to be," said Rees. "I took this job a year ago wanting to be with coach Stefanski, wanting to be a part of this organization. Obviously, the fan base, what this organization represents, the division we're in. All those things added up. So if this was going to be an opportunity for me, this was the one that I wanted to be a part of."
Rees' affinity for the Cleveland Browns dates back to his youth. As a teenager, he worked as a ball boy for the organization while his dad, Bill, served as the team's director of player personnel from 2004-2008.
Looking back, it's not lost on Rees that those were formative years in terms of finding his love for football.
“Growing up, my dad worked for however many NFL teams," said Rees. "For whatever reason, the Browns were kind of the one that stuck, probably because I was here boots on the ground, working training camp. Those were probably the years I really started falling in love with football. And so when I think about my early development in the game, my early love for the game, so many of those memories were surrounded by either being here or watching the Browns on Sunday from home."
From shagging balls for the franchise his father was once constructing, to becoming the organization's newest offensive coordinator – it's a truly full-circle moment for Rees.
"I haven't really had the time to sit down and think about that," Rees admitted. "But I know it's one, just speaking with my brother, speaking with my dad, it is a pretty cool story to be able to say, 'okay, well, when you really fell in love with the game, it was in this building, it was watching these games.' Now to be in the position I'm in is something I'm grateful for.”
