Capers coming ‘home’ to Ohio

Cleveland Browns name Guernsey County native senior

defensive assistant for what will be his 52nd year in coaching

I knew this photo of Dom Capers in an orange shirt would come in handy sometime and that time is now! Capers, the highly regarded defensive guru who has been in coaching more than a half century, was named a senior defensive assistant with the Cleveland Browns for the 2026 season. This photo was taken at The Dockside Restaurant at Seneca Lake in 2015 when I was doing a feature on Capers’ 30th year in the NFL. A long-time Minnesota Vikings’ fan, I bit the bullet and tried on Capers’ ring he received as defensive coordinator of the Green Bay Packers who had defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV to cap the 2010 season.

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By Jeff Harrison

  After more than a half century in coaching, Dom Capers is finally coming “home”.

  Actually, the long-time, highly-successful defensive guru will be serving as a senior defensive assistant/analyst with the Cleveland Browns, just an hour from his college alma mater – the University of Mount Union.

  The 75-year-old Capers – one of the premier defensive minds over four decades in the NFL – will be a major asset for newly-hired first-year Browns’ defensive coordinator Mike Rutenberg.

  “I have been blessed to be coaching 52 years with 40 in the NFL and 12 in college football,” he said when we spoke on Tuesday. “I’ve had so many good mentors that helped me along the way and I get great pleasure out of helping the young coaches along their way. He (Rutenberg) is a young, first-time coordinator who was the quality control guy in Jacksonville when I was there (as a senior assistant) and I look forward to the challenge of helping him get started running the defense in Cleveland.”

  Rutenberg succeeds veteran Jim Schwartz as the Browns’ DC and inherits a team whose defense was its only bright spot in 2025 led by NFL Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett.

  Capers’ knowledge in all aspects of coaching should also be valuable for first-year head coach Todd Munken, first-year offensive coordinator Travis Switzer, and first-year special teams’ coordinator Byron Storer.

  The opportunity to coach in Ohio after all these years was not lost on the always-accommodating Capers.

  “I’m looking forward to coming back home and finishing up with the Browns not far from where everything started at Mount Union and Kent State,” he said.

  A 1968 graduate of Meadowbrook High School who played quarterback, Capers was born in Cambridge and grew up in Buffalo. He also played football and baseball at Mount Union, graduating from there in 1972.

  After graduating from ‘The Mount’, Capers’ coaching career began at the college level as a graduate assistant at Kent State (1972-74) and Washington (1975). He then was an assistant coach at Hawaii (1975-76), San Jose State (1977), California (1978-879), Tennessee (1980-81) and Ohio State (1982-83).

  Next came the move to professional football, first with the Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars of the USFL (1984-85); defensive backs coach of the New Orleans Saints (1986-91); defensive coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers (1992-94); head coach of the expansion Carolina Panthers (1995-98), reaching the NFC Championship Game in 1996 while being named NFL Coach of the Year; defensive coordinator of the Jacksonville Jaguars (1999-2000); head coach of the expansion Houston Texans (2002-05); defensive coordinator of the Miami Dolphins (2006-07); special assistant/secondary coach of the New England Patriots (2008); and defensive coordinator of the Green Bay Packers (2009-2017), reaching the pinnacle there when the Packers beat the Steelers in Super Bowl XLV to cap the 2010 season.

  In recent years, he’s held the senior assistant role with the Jacksonville Jaguars (2019), Minnesota Vikings (2020), Detroit Lions (2021), Denver Broncos (2022) and Carolina Panthers (2023-25).

  Beyond coaching, Capers hosted a golf scramble at Salt Fork State Park for 13 years (raising funds for the Cardiac Rehabilitation Center at East Ohio Regional Hospital in memory of his father, Eugene, and for a college scholarship at Muskingum University in memory of his high school coach, Dale Dickson. He also made a sizeable contribution to Meadowbrook in memory of his father for the artificial surface at the football stadium; did likewise to Mount Union for the Dom and Karen Capers Coaching Center; and funded the aptly named Dom Capers Press Box at the football stadium.