CLEVELAND — After a 6-10 season that ended with three straight double-digit defeats, the Cleveland Browns once again find themselves in the market for a head coach.
And if the betting odds are to be believed, the person who is most likely to be the Browns' next head coach isn't an up-and-comer, but rather an experienced veteran with a Super Bowl ring on his resume.
Shortly after the Browns announced the firing of Freddie Kitchens on Sunday, SportsLine released its odds on who Cleveland's next head coach will be. And at +300 odds, it's former Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy who's the betting favorite, leading New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels (+450), former Carolina Panthers head coach Ron Rivera (+600), former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer (+800), Minnesota Vikings offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski (+1000) and Baylor head coach Matt Rhule (+1500).
For the betting uninitiated, a successful $100 wager on McCarthy would result in a $300 profit and so on.
This isn't the first time the Browns have been linked to McCarthy, who served as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers from 2006-2018, amassing a career 125-77-2 regular-season record (10-8 postseason) and a win in Super Bowl XLV. It's perhaps also worth noting that Cleveland general manager John Dorsey spent time in Green Bay with McCarthy, as did assistant executives Alonzo Highsmith and Eliot Wolf.
As for McDaniels, the Massillon native has also been linked to a return to Northeast Ohio after having spent the past eight seasons as the Patriots' offensive coordinator. Whether or not there's any smoke to that fire remains to be seen, but if nothing else, it appears Cleveland could have an intriguing list of candidates to choose from in the weeks to come.