Van Pelt will enter his 29th season in the NFL and his 20th as an assistant coach. He played nine seasons as a quarterback in the NFL with the Kansas City Chiefs (1993) and the Buffalo Bills (1994-03) after originally being drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the eighth-round of the 1993 NFL Draft after a standout career at Pittsburgh.
Van Pelt was the offensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns over the last four seasons (2020-23). During his time in Cleveland, Van Pelt helped the offense to some of its best numbers with the Browns generating 408 total points in 2020 for the second-most points in team history and 396 points in 2023, the team's fifth-most points scored in a season in team history. Under Van Pelt, the Browns rushing game finished in the top-10 in the NFL in three of his four seasons, including finishing with third in 2016 and in first in rushing average in 2021 with 5.1-yards per rush. The 2022 Cleveland team had the second-most scrimmage yards in franchise history with 6,200 yards.
Upon his retirement as a player, Van Pelt began his coaching career in NFL Europe as the Frankfurt Galaxy's quarterbacks coach in 2005. Van Pelt started his NFL career as a volunteer offensive quality coach with Buffalo in 2005. He then served two seasons as an offensive quality control coach (2006-07), two seasons as a quarterback coach (2008-09) and was promoted in early September of 2009 to offensive coordinator.
Van Pelt served as the quarterback coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for two seasons (2010-11) and then spent six seasons with the Green Bay Packers as running backs coach (2012-13), quarterbacks coach (2014), quarterbacks/wide receivers coach (2015) and quarterbacks coach (2016-17). He spent two seasons (2018-19) as quarterbacks coach with the Cincinnati Bengals prior to joining Cleveland.
Van Pelt was a four-year starter at the University of Pittsburgh (1989-92), where he set school records for most passing yards (11,267), completions (867) and attempts (1,503).
