Offensive line coach Mike Munchak left the Steelers for Denver after the 2018 season, and Pittsburgh’s O-line immediately declined. Shaun Sarrett initially replaced Munchak, but after two disappointing seasons he wasn’t retained this offseason. It was a big hire for Mike Tomlin that was talked about a lot, and in the end he opted to promote from within. The Steelers are promoting Adrian Klemm to the role, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network tweets. Klemm had spent the past two seasons as an assistant offensive line coach. A second-round pick of the Patriots back in 2000, Klemm spent a handful of years in the league as a player. He then started coaching in the college ranks, and was the run game coordinator and associate head coach at UCLA for a while under Jim Mora.
Here are a few more coaching notes from the NFL universe:
- Urban Meyer continues to build his inaugural Jaguars staff, and now he’s settled on a secondary coach. Chris Ash has agreed to fill that role, Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com tweets. Ash, the former head coach at Rutgers, is a pretty big name by secondary coach standards. Meyer continues to surround himself with guys who have coordinating and head coaching experience, most recently adding Brian Schottenheimer to the staff. Ash has an extensive college coaching history, but this will be his first NFL gig. He was Meyer’s co-defensive coordinator for a couple of years at Ohio State, so there’s plenty of familiarity here. He’ll work under new Jacksonville DC Joe Cullen.
- Legendary Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi is getting into the college coaching game. He’ll serve as a senior adviser to new Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch, the university announced. Bruschi is an Arizona alum and Fisch served under Bill Belichick as the Patriots’ quarterbacks coach this past season, so this isn’t totally out of left field. Bruschi will apparently be staying on as an analyst at ESPN, so you’ll still be seeing him on your TV screens.
- Robert Saleh is adding two people he’s familiar with to his new Jets staff. New York is hiring Marquand Manuel as safeties coach and Tony Oden as senior defensive assistant/cornerbacks coach, Tom Pelissero of NFL Network tweets. As Pelissero points out, Manuel and Saleh coached together in Seattle while Oden was DBs coach in San Francisco with him last year. Manuel was the Falcons’ defensive coordinator for two seasons from 2017-18, and spent last season coaching DBs in Philly.
Promoting the assistant of a failure doesn’t exactly scream success. I miss Munchak!
Amen to both. I get promoting Canada to keep things familiar for Ben, but I would’ve liked to see an outside hire here to get a fresh look for the line/ that dead last running game
BRUSCHI is back in the desert. One of the best players to ever dawn a jersey for the Wildcats.
Jedd Fisch has impressed me with the staff and people he is bringing in to the University of Arizona.