Pat Shurmur got his second head coaching job this month and he’ll get a chance to improve on the 9-23 record he compiled in two years as the Browns head coach.
Another former Browns head coach isn’t looking for the same chance at redemption. Mike Pettine, who went 10-22 in his two-year tenure, is the new defensive coordinator of the Packers, but said at a Wednesday press conference that he doesn’t see the job as a stepping stone back up the ladder.
Pettine described himself as “beat up” physically and mentally after two years in Cleveland and said it took him the better part of a year “until I felt like I could smell smells and see colors.”
“When I was the head coach, I didn’t enjoy the lack of interaction with the actual football part of it,” Pettine said. “I always made the comparison of going from being the teacher to now you’re the principal. As a coordinator [you’re] 90 percent football and 10 percent administrative stuff. That essentially flipped and I didn’t like it.”
Pettine worked as a consultant with the Seahawks in 2017, which he said served as a “springboard” for his interest in coaching again in any capacity. He has a strong record as a defensive coordinator and more success in Green Bay would likely put him back on the head coaching carousel should he change his mind at some point down the line.
