Ephraim Banda, Cleveland Browns assistant coach and safeties coach, has been named to this year’s Reese’s Senior Bowl coaching staff.
The Reese’s Senior Bowl has announced the coaches for this year’s squads. Ephraim Banda, the Cleveland Browns’ safeties coach, will serve as the American Team’s defensive coordinator.
This is part of a recent modification in the Senior Bowl’s coaching format. Since last year, the Senior Bowl has served as a venue for assistant coaches to take on new duties outside of their current ones with their respective teams. Head coaches and general managers suggested coaches for participation in the event. Banda was selected from the Browns.
This will offer Banda and the Browns with further information about the players who will compete in this year’s event. Every team interview has the opportunity to meet with each player, but Banda will be able to coach and communicate with players on the field, observing how they receive and apply instruction, as well as interact with their teammates. Banda recently completed his debut year in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns. Previously, he had only worked at the undergraduate level, including universities like Incarnate Word. Texas, Mississippi State, Miami (FL), and finally Utah State as the team’s defensive coordinator in 2021 and 2022.
2023 was a strong year for the Browns’ safety position. Grant Delpit was chosen an alternate to the Pro Bowl, and when the Browns were without their top three safety, youngster Ronnie Hickman, D’Anthony Bell, and late-season addition Duron Harmon were able to fill in and help the Browns continue to win. This past season, Hickman and his Ohio State colleague Dawand Jones competed in the Senior Bowl.The Browns selected the imposing tackle in the fourth round of this year’s draft, and Hickman signed a contract following the draft. Both players were selected to the PFWA All-Rookie Team.
Prior to the change in coaching format, the Senior Bowl merely defaulted to the two teams with the lowest records that did not change head coaches. Notably, former Browns coach Hue Jackson was the head coach of a team for one year. Curiously, the next year, when the Browns qualified to coach the game again, he declined, almost as if the Senior Bowl requested him to do so because they didn’t want him there.
The Senior Bowl will be held at the University of Southern Alabama in Mobile, with practice beginning on Tuesday, January 30th and continuing through Thursday, February 1st. The game is set to air on the NFL Network on Saturday, February 3rd at 12pm EST.
Report: Titans’ Ryan Crow to Interview for Browns Defensive Line Coaching Position
According to Paul Kuharsky, the Tennessee Titans have granted the Cleveland Browns permission to interview Ryan Crow for the position of defensive line coach, raising various questions.
According to Paul Kuharsky of PaulKuharsky.com, the Tennessee Titans have given their outside linebackers coach Ryan Crow permission to meet with the Cleveland Browns for the defensive line coach post. The inference is that Ben Bloom, the team’s defensive line coach in 2023, will no longer occupy the post.
The Browns fired three offensive assistants: offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt, running backs coach Stump Mitchell, and tight ends coach T.C. McCartney. The team has not declared any coaching changes, but the three have been confirmed through reports. Nobody has said anything about Bloom or anyone else on the defensive side of the ball. So, assuming this is correct, Kuharsky has accidentally revealed that Bloom is no longer with the Browns or is being reassigned.
Bloom was in his first season as a defensive line coach, after Jim Schwartz was hired as the team’s defensive coordinator. Bloom had been with the Browns for the previous four seasons, albeit in various roles. Bloom joined the team as a senior defensive assistant in 2020. In 2021 and 2022, he served as defensive game run coordinator. After Chris Kiffin left the team in 2022, Bloom was appointed defensive line coach.
If Bloom is no longer the defensive line coach, Crow has links to Schwartz from their time with the Titans. Mike Vrabel’s ouster as Titans head coach has prompted his coaching staff to seek new jobs. Crow had been with Vrabel during his entire career as Titans head coach. He began as a defensive assistant coach in 2018 and 2019, before transitioning to assistant special teams coach in 2020. He has served as the team’s outside linebackers coach for the past three seasons.
These are the Titans’ featured pass rushers. Over the last three seasons, he has worked with players such as Harold Landry, Denico Autry, Rashad Weaver, and Bud Dupree. That list would also include Jadeveon Clowney, who played for the Titans in 2020, Crow’s first season. Clowney famously lambasted the Titans during his initial news conference after signing with the Cleveland Browns. Clowney would then tear the Browns in 2022, clearing the route for his release.
Crow has connections to Ohio that extend beyond Schwartz. He is from Findlay, Ohio, and was a walk-on who won a football scholarship at Bowling Green. He formerly worked as an offensive line coach at Baldwin Wallace University, beginning in 2014. In 2015 and 2016, he served as the team’s offensive coordinator. Crow spent 2017 as a graduate assistant at Ohio State, where he concentrated on linebackers.
Cleveland Browns News (1/16): Watson Optimism, Backward Confusion, and the Super Bowl We Need
With the Cleveland Browns out of the playoffs, our cranky resident webdork searches for a cause to watch NFL football and eventually finds one, presumably dooming us all to the worst Super Bowl ever…
Good morning to Cleveland Browns fans!
My friends, welcome back to the working week. As usual, I greet you with a couple of dozen links to Browns news and a morning bloviation. I’ve mostly recovered from Saturday afternoon’s events and am looking forward to a pleasant week. I hope you are too.
The most obvious indicator of my recuperation is that I watched some NFL football yesterday. My instinct after the Browns’ loss on Saturday night and Sunday was to do anything else. I conducted household tasks, worked on the OBR, organized some items, and so on. Anything but watching other people’s preferred teams compete in the playoffs. It’s a shame and a lost chance, but that’s how I felt. I took this one very hard.
My wife, who enjoys watching football and does not respond to Browns losses with my craziness, drew me back in by informing me that the Bills had dominated the Steelers yesterday afternoon. That drew me back. I always want to see the Steelers lose. The more embarrassing, the better.
In true Steelers fashion, they clawed their way back into the game, cutting the deficit to a touchdown at one point, but Buffalo finally pulled away by running through the Steelers defense on an AFC North-style drive.
On an attempted touchdown pass against the Bills in their end zone, I spotted a well-placed snowball attempting to disrupt the play. (Not excellent; I disagree, but I chuckled). After the Bills scored their final touchdown, the stadium exploded in snow, with snowballs flying everywhere. It’s very Cleveland Browns-esque.
It was then that I remembered Ralph Wilson was the sole NFL owner who voted against Art Modell’s move to Baltimore in 1996. A affection for the Buffalo Bills franchise overcame me, and my curiosity was rekindled in a positive way.
With the Browns gone, I have rekindled my rooting interest. Despite my affinity for the Packers, I want to see my Lake Erie Bros in the Super Bowl, a desire that will most likely lead to something terrible, such as the Ratbirds vs. Buccaneers game. But if the world cannot have the Lions-Browns Super Bowl it deserves, perhaps it can have the Lions-Bills Super Bowl it requires.
After all, like the Browns, these franchises understand frustration and pain. The Lions, like the Browns, have battled for years under inept ownership, experimenting with quarterbacks and coaches. The Bills, like the Browns, have a history of last-minute collapses on the big stage. As fellow inhabitants of Rust Belt flyover nation, in towns plagued by lousy weather, depressing football, and other problems, here’s a non-Browns Super Bowl outcome I could support.
It’s not the same as the Browns being involved, but at the very least, I now have an excuse to watch the NFL playoffs.
Go Lake Erie Brothers.
Your mileage may vary.
Have a good one! Go Browns!
FROM YESTERDAY: Jake and Andrew return for the first time since the Browns’ 45-14 loss to Houston. They discuss the game and how the outcome influences emotions, but perspective is important. They discussed the game’s positives and negatives, as well as the overall season. Topics covered include the unexpected, the group’s resiliency and if that foundation was established this season, Jim Schwartz’s defense and what lays ahead, the return quarterback Deshaun Watson, and a brief look at offseason assets.
