Name McDaniels already

All right, it’s time to end this little charade. From just about every indication, the Browns know who their next head coach is.

What they are doing now – interviewing every available hot assistant coach around the National Football League – is nothing more than a sham. Sort of makes them look as though they are doing their due diligence.

Unless something dramatically different happens in the next week or so, Josh McDaniels will become the seventh head coach (interim, inherited or otherwise) since Jimmy Haslam III took over as owner midway through the 2012 season

That something different includes the New England Patriots' offensive coordinator surprising just about everyone by accepting the head coaching vacancies in either Carolina or New York with the Giants after his interviews with them.

A much higher profile with the Giants and taking over a pretty good roster in Carolina might be tempting, but it isn’t every day a new coach has the opportunity to pick his new boss as general manager and that’s what the Browns reportedly have on the table for him.

I don’t see McDaniels landing in either market for one major reason. Both those clubs have general managers. The Browns do not with the firing of John Dorsey and they, at least reportedly, will throw McDaniels that GM bone.

Among the possibilities of joining him with the Browns are suburban Cleveland (Lyndhurst) native Nick Caserio, director of payer personnel with the Patriots, and Dave Ziegler, the Pats’ director of pro personnel.

Ziegler, who is from nearby Tallmadge, Ohio, McDaniels (Canton) and Caserio all attended John Carroll University in  University Heights. The possibility of an all-Ohio front office has to intrigue Haslam.

The Browns have yearned for a while now the chance to lure McDaniels, the long-time and well-regarded offensive coordinator for Bill Belichick, back to his northeast Ohio roots.

Now that the Patriots have been knocked out of the playoffs by the Tennessee Titans, he is expected to finally interview with the Browns later this week. Unless he stumbles in a major way, he is the odds-on favorite to succeed Freddie Kitchens

That includes failing to impress Chief Strategy Office Paul DePodesta, whose power within the organization grows exponentially. However, McDaniels has more than enough savvy in that department to pass that test.

The Browns nonetheless plod on this week, interviewing the likes of offensive coordinators Brian Daboll (Buffalo) and Kevin Stefanski (Minnesota), the latter a semifinalist a year ago at this time for the job that eventually went to Kitchens. Stefanski will also interview with Carolina.

It will be interesting to see whether he interviews with the Browns considering how close he came the last time to being chosen. It would be understandable if he declined, not wanting to put himself in a position to be a two-time loser for the same job.

Besides, he is relatively new to the coordinator position while McDaniels has truckloads of gravitas with numerous Super Bowl rings while serving as Belichick’s offensive guru.

One last note: DePodesta and his search committee have already complied with the Rooney Rule with regard to minority candidates, having interviewed San Francisco defensive coordinator Robert Saleh and Kansas City offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy.

It’s a ridiculous rule to begin with because clubs can escape being charged with violating it merely by interviewing at least one minority candidate. It has done very little to increase the number of minority head coaches or high profile front office types.