Browns tab Travis Switzer as OC, Mike Rutenberg as DC, and Byron Storer as special teams coordinator

CLEVELAND (AP) — Todd Monken started the process of filling out his first coaching staff with the Cleveland Browns by naming his coordinators on Friday.

Travis Switzer was named offensive coordinator, Mike Rutenberg will direct the defense and Byron Storer will be the special teams coordinator.

This is Monken’s first NFL head coaching job after 11 years as an assistant. He spent the previous three seasons as Baltimore’s offensive coordinator.

Switzer was the run game coordinator in Baltimore the past three seasons. During that span, the Ravens led the league in rushing yards (166.9 per game), average rushing yards per carry (5.31) and rushes of 10-plus yards (230).

The Ravens also had the league's top-ranked offense in 2024, becoming the first team in NFL history with at least 4,000 passing and 3,000 rushing yards in a season.

Switzer went to college at Akron and has spent his entire NFL coaching career in Baltimore, starting as an administrative/performance staff assistant in 2017.

It will be the fourth straight season the Browns have had a different offensive coordinator. Monken, however, will call the offensive plays.

Monken and Switzer will need to determine the starting quarterback. The Browns have had a league-high 13 quarterbacks since 2020, including seven over the past two seasons.

Shedeur Sanders started the final seven games, going 3-4. He had a 56.6% completion rate and a 68.1 passer rating with 1,400 passing yards, seven touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

Deshaun Watson has played in only 19 games since being acquired in 2022. He has gone 9-10 as Cleveland’s starter with 19 touchdowns, 12 interceptions and an 80.7 passer rating. He did not play in 2025 while rehabbing from a torn Achilles tendon.

Dillon Gabriel, last year’s third-round pick who started six games, is also on the roster.

Rutenberg replaces Jim Schwartz, who resigned after being passed over for the head coach opening. Monken said in a statement that Rutenberg has been in systems similar to Schwartz “but not the exact system because Jim was unique.”

“They can say attacking style, but then there’s attacking style, which is what they’ve done here up front," Monken said. “I think that background of being a four-down attacking style, but not exact, (and) to add some things that they had done before that I thought would mesh really well with the current staff, was a big part of that.”

Schwartz was the architect of one of the league’s top defenses the past three seasons. Cleveland led the league in total defense in 2023 and ranked fourth this season as Myles Garrett had 23 sacks and broke the NFL single-season record.

Garrett was named the NFL Defensive Player of the Year and linebacker Carson Schwesinger the Defensive Rookie of the Year.

Rutenberg — who was Atlanta's defensive pass game coordinator this past season — has 16 years of NFL experience. He came into the league as a player personnel intern and assistant to the head coach in Washington (2003-05) along with stops in Jacksonville (2013-19), San Francisco (2020) and the new York Jets (2021-24).

Storer has coached in the NFL for 12 years, including the past four as the assistant special teams coach in Green Bay. Storer has also coached in Tampa Bay (2010-11), San Diego (2012-13) and the Raiders (2018-21). He stepped way from coaching for four years to help start a new branch of his family’s transportation business in San Francisco.

Storer replaces Bubba Ventrone, who was Cleveland's special teams coordinator the past three seasons before heading to the Los Angeles Rams.

Even though the NFL scouting combine begins next week, Monken said during his introductory news conference that there wasn't a deadline to get his entire coaching staff hired.

“I don’t control that. I mean we’re going to vet as many candidates as we can to get it right," he said. "I think, just like they all vetted for the head coach coaching position, don’t get worn out — make sure you get the right people at the start, and that’s what we’re going to do. So, there is no timeline to get it right.”

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FILE - This is a 2025 photo of Byron Storer of the Green Bay Packers NFL football team. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - This is a 2025 photo of Mike Rutenberg of the Atlanta Falcons NFL football team. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - This is a photo of Travis Switzer of the Baltimore Ravens NFL football team. (AP Photo/File)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA aims to send astronauts to the moon in March after acing the latest rocket fueling test.

Officials announced the decision Friday, two weeks ahead of the first targeted launch opportunity on March 6.

“This is really getting real, and it's time to get serious and start getting excited," said Lori Glaze, NASA’s exploration systems development chief.

Administrator Jared Isaacman noted that launch teams made “major progress” between the first countdown rehearsal, which was disrupted by hydrogen leaks earlier this month, and the second test, which was completed with exceptionally low seepage Thursday night.

The test was “a big step toward America’s return to the lunar environment," Isaacman said on the social media platform X. Astronauts last ventured to the moon more than half a century ago.

While more work remains at the pad, officials expressed confidence in being ready to launch four astronauts on the Artemis II lunar fly-around as soon as March 6 from Florida's Kennedy Space Center. To keep their options open, the three Americans and one Canadian prepared to go into the mandatory two-week health quarantine Friday night in Houston.

The space agency has only five days in March to launch the crew aboard the Space Launch System rocket, before standing down until the end of April. February's opportunities evaporated after dangerous amounts of liquid hydrogen leaked during the first fueling demonstration.

Technicians replaced two seals, leading to Thursday's successful rerun. The countdown clocks went all the way down to the desired 29-second mark.

The removed Teflon seals had some light scratches but nothing else noticeable that could have caused such heavy leakage, officials said.

A bit of moisture also was found in the area that could have contributed to the problem. The fixes worked, with barely any leakage detected, said launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson.

Commander Reid Wiseman and two of his crew monitored Thursday's operation alongside launch controllers. The astronauts will be the first to fly to the moon since Apollo 17 closed out NASA's first chapter in moon exploration in 1972.

Still ahead is the flight readiness review, scheduled for late next week. If that goes well, the astronauts will fly back to Kennedy around the beginning of March for a real countdown.

“Every night I look up at the moon and I see it and I get real excited because I can really feel she's calling us, and we're ready," Glaze said.

The nearly 10-day mission is considered a test flight with astronauts soaring atop the 322-foot (98-meter) SLS rocket for the first time. The only other SLS flight, in 2022, had no one on board.

The next mission in the series, Artemis III, will attempt to land a pair of astronauts near the moon's south pole in a few years.

Given all the details still to be worked out for that mission — including whether Elon Musk's SpaceX or Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin will provide the lunar lander — Glaze said it will be months, perhaps even a year, before NASA selects that first moon-landing crew.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

This image provided by NASA shows NASA's moon rocket sits on the pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (NASA via AP)