Browns: Rice not in coach search

Associated Press

CLEVELAND

The Browns’ coaching search isn’t quite ready to cross gender or diplomatic lines.

General manager John Dorsey, who opened the possibility of hiring a woman to be Cleveland’s next coach, said Sunday that the team has not discussed former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a candidate to become the club’s ninth coach since 1999.

ESPN, citing an anonymous league source, reported that the team would like to interview Rice, an ardent Browns fan since childhood, for its coaching job.

However, Dorsey said she is not on the team’s current list of candidates.

“Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is a great leader, possesses the highest possible character and also happens to be a Browns fan,” Dorsey said.

“I have the utmost respect and admiration for all she’s accomplished and was honored to meet her for the first time earlier this season. Our coaching search will be thorough and deliberate, but we are still in the process of composing the list of candidates and Secretary Rice has not been discussed.”

Earlier this week, Dorsey said he would consider a wide-range of candidates.

“I just want the best possible head coach to move this thing forward regardless of age,” he said. “It could be a woman, too. I am serious. Who knows?”

The 64-year-old Rice would be an historic and outside-the-box candidate for the Browns, who fired Hue Jackson last month after he won just three games in two-plus seasons and went 0-16 in 2017.

There has never been a woman interviewed for a head coaching job in the NFL.