Joe Cleveland will admit that when he found out that the Cleveland Browns hired a new head football coach and his name was Rob Chudzinski, my first thought was, "Chud? Really?"
Chudzinski's choice seemed totally out of left field. In fact, when the local and national media reported that Chudzinski was in town a few days ago for an interview, I made a joke about how it's become "The ghosts of Browns offensive coordinators past."
With Montreal Alouetttes head coach Marc Trestman (quarterbacks coach 1988, offensive coordinator 1989) already in for an interview and Colts offensive coordinator/interim head coach Bruce Arians (offensive coordinator 2001-03) supposedly coming in for an interview, the Chud addition (tight ends coach/interim OC 2004, offensive coordinator 2007-08) seemed pretty crazy.
Who would be next, Lindy Infante? Jim Shofner? Jeff Davidson? Brian Daboll?
However, it appeared Chudzinski, who had spent the last two seasons as the offensive coordinator of the Carolina Panthers, helping turn Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton into one of the most dynamic offensive performers in the NFL, showed enough of the virtues that Browns owner Jimmy Haslam III and CEO Joe Banner were seeking in their first head coaching hire (and 14th full-time head coach in Browns history -- sixth since the franchise returned in 1999).
And, as the hiring ruminated around my mind, the more I really liked it.
When the Chip Kelly infatuation went away, either because Haslam and Banner didn't feel he was fully committed to becoming an NFL coach or Kelly didn't want to come to Cleveland (or a combination of the two -- he wound up taking a pay raise to stay in Oregon after talking with the Browns, the Eagles and the Bills), and the Nick Saban ship sailed with Saban wanting to stay in Alabama, the Browns turned to coaches who had been in the NFL.
Haslam wouldn't confirm who he interviewed, but judging by media reports, you could say they talked to the following: Chudzinski, Kelly, Syracuse head coach Doug Marrone (took the Bills job), ex-Cardinals head coach Ken Whisenhunt, Trestman, Bengals defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer and Cardinals defensive coordinator Ray Horton. Arians was on the radar, but his recent hospitalization may have soured the Browns on him. They also reportedly contacted ex-Steeler head coach and current CBS analyst Bill Cowher when Cowher told Newsday was interested in returning to coach, but Cowher told the Browns (and the four other teams that were looking) that he didn't mean he'd return "this year."
It was clear that Haslam and Banner wanted an offensive-minded NFL head coach, even though they did talk to Zimmer and Horton. Zimmer, Trestman and Whisenhunt would have to be considered finalists for the Browns job, especially since Whisenhunt was brought back for a second interview after they talked to him last week in Arizona.
Banner boasted a lot about how, when he was with the Eagles, they unearthed Andy Reid and made him their head coach in 1999. Reid, a Green Bay quarterbacks coach who had never called offensive plays, was on nobody's radar as a legitimate coaching candidate. He wound up staying there 14 years and would likely still be there if his team didn't slump to 8-8 and 4-12 finishes the last two seasons.
When Haslam joined the Steelers, they were in the midst of replacing Cowher, who "retired" to the comforts of being an analyst. The three choices were Whisenhunt (the team's offensive coordinator), Russ Grimm (the team's offensive line coach) and Mike Tomlin (the Vikings' defensive coordinator). Tomlin, who had never been on anybody's radar as a legitimate head coaching candidate, was surprisingly given the job over the two in-house candidates. Tomlin has since taken the Steelers to two Super Bowls in his first four years of coaching, winning one of them.
Chudzinski was a hot candidate last season after Newton's emergence. He interviewed for the Jaguars', Rams' and Buccaneers' openings, but was passed over for all three. This season, the only team out of the seven that were seeking a head coach to contact him was the Browns.
Chud, a Toledo native who grew up a die-hard Browns fan, seemed to fit the profile of the type of guy that Banner and Haslam were looking for -- an off-the-radar guy that they felt would be the next diamond in the rough.
There's no denying Chud's status as one of the NFL's up-and-coming offensive minds. Look no further than the job he did here in Cleveland in 2007.
Chudzinski, who was brought to the NFL by Butch Davis in 2004 after a successful playing and coaching career at the University of Miami, didn't survive the regime change from Davis to GM Phil Savage and Romeo Crennel. He spent the next two seasons coaching tight ends in San Diego, overseeing Antonio Gates' emergence into on of the NFL's best tight ends ever.
After Crennel's hand-picked offensive coordinator, Maurice Carthon, was a colossal failure and run out of town midway through his second season, the Browns needed a new offensive mind. They turned to Chudzinski.
The result was, arguably, the best offense this town has seen during the expansion era. In fact, you could say that it was the best offense since the Bernie Kosar heydays of 1986-89.
The Browns were eighth in the NFL in total offense that year. The offense sent four players to the Pro Bowl -- quarterback Derek Anderson, wide receiver Braylon Edwards, tight end Kellen Winslow and rookie left tackle Joe Thomas. Anderson came out of nowhere to throw for 29 touchdowns and 3,500 yards. Edwards and Winslow gave the Browns a pair of 1,000-yard receivers for the first time in team history. Also, Jamal Lewis rushed for 1,300 yards, so the Browns had a 3,000-yard passer, a 1,000-yard rusher and two 1,000-yard receivers all in the same year.
And, that team won 10 games, the only time since 1999 the Browns have reached double-digits in wins and the most wins the Browns have had since they won 11 (12 overall) in 1994. They were denied a playoff berth due to tiebreakers with the Tennessee Titans.
The following season, the Browns slumped to 31st in total offense and to a 4-12 record. The Browns went through four starting quarterbacks that season -- Anderson, Brady Quinn, Ken Dorsey and Bruce Gradkowski. Lewis barely rushed for over 1,000 yards, but was clearly not the same runner. Edwards regressed and became a liability due to his butterfingers and antics on the sideline, and Winslow ended the season not only injured, but bickering with the team's GM.
Savage and Crennel were shown the door following that dismal season. New head coach Eric Mangini elected not to retain Chudzinski, despite his being under contract through 2011, and decided to go with his hand-picked OC, Brian Daboll. Great choice, Mangini!
Chudzinski went back to San Diego, where he was named the assistant head coach behind Norv Turner in 2009 and 2010, before joining Ron Rivera's staff as the offensive coordinator in Carolina in 2011.
History will show that Chudzinski got the absolute most of his offensive personnel in 2007. Anderson's career has flamed out since that miracle season, to the point where he's been nothing more than a clipboard holder in Carolina the last two seasons. Edwards got to back-to-back AFC Championship Games with the Jets, but never made the Pro Bowl again and has spent the last two seasons as a journeyman. Winslow battled injuries in Tampa Bay and was released by both Seattle and New England this past season, only playing in one regular season game. Lewis' career ended in 2009 on injured reserve, while Joe Jurevicus (who caught 50 balls for 800 yards in 2007) was out of the NFL following the 2008 season.
You could make a case that the best Brady Quinn has ever looked as an NFL quarterback occurred while Chudzinski was the offensive coordinator in Cleveland. He put up 30 points against Denver in his first professional start in 2008, but was injured the following week and missed the rest of the regular season. He regressed in 2009 under Daboll and didn't take another NFL regular season snap until this past season with the Kansas City Chiefs.
After hearing all the talk about Chip Kelly and how his gimmicky offense would be a poor fit for Brandon Weeden and Colt McCoy, you've got to think that Weeden fits Chud's offense like a glove. His vertical-based passing attack should play into Weeden's strengths, which is a strong arm that can make all the throws. Weeden was really reined in with Pat Shurmur's and Brad Childress' West Coast Offense, rarely getting the chance to throw deep. Chud wouldn't comment on Weeden or any of the Browns' personnel, but I'm sure Weeden isn't worried about his status for next year anymore.
Same goes for Trent Richardson. Chud's offenses can get the most out of their running backs. In Carolina, he split things pretty evenly around DeAngelo Williams, Jonathan Stewart, Newton and Mike Tolbert. But, as we've seen with the Browns, a powerful runner can excel. Jamal Lewis rushed for the most yards in a single season by a Browns running back not named Jim Brown or Leroy Kelly (both Hall of Famers) in 2007. I'd expect the same for T-Rich, if he stays healthy.
Joe Thomas has already proclaimed this to be a great hire. Winslow has chimed in via Twitter and Cleveland radio to say that Browns fans won't regret it and that Chud was the most innovative offensive mind he'd ever been around. Of course, Bernie Kosar gave his 100 percent endorsement, considering both are from "The U."
Above all else -- his offensive prowess, his age (44), who he's bringing with him (Norv Turner) -- probably the one thing that sold me the most on Chud was this one intangible -- he gets it.
Chudzinski talked about how coaching the Cleveland Browns was his "dream job," and how he grew up pretending to be Ozzie Newsome and Brian Sipe in his backyard. He talked about how he and his family always wanted to sit in the Dawg Pound but never got a chance to, so, during cold-weather games, they'd face the TV out the window and they'd all sit outside watching the game. He says he's eaten a few dog biscuits back in the day.
Obviously, you won't have to twist his arm to have him watch "Cleveland 95: A Football Life" like the media did with Pat Shurmur. Hell, he probably doesn't have to watch it because he LIVED IT.
He doesn't have to be schooled about why the Steeler games mean so much to this fan base, or why there is still a deep-seeded hatred for the Ravens because of what the Dead Judas did to this town, or why the Battle of Ohio still means something around here. He suffered through The Drive and The Fumble and Red Right 88 like we all did. He remembers the Kardiac Kids and Bernie's Bunch.
You don't think a guy who spent his childhood living and dying with every Browns game wouldn't be totally motivated to turn this franchise into a winner so the next generation of children will have the same love affair with this team as he did, as you and I did?
I'll use Ohio State as an analogy. We all remember how miserable it was under John Cooper's tenure as Buckeyes' coach. His 2-10-1 record as Michigan speaks for itself, because he never understood the rivalry and what it meant to Buckeyes fans. Ohio State replaced him with a Division I-AA head coach named Jim Tressel -- a life-long Ohio resident who spent a few seasons as an assistant under Earle Bruce. The first thing he tells the fan base is that they'll be proud of his teams "in the classroom, in the community and especially in 310 days in Ann Arbor, Mich., on the football field," and everyone went nuts!
Tressel went 9-1 against Michigan in his 10 years. He GOT IT! And that's why a lot of Buckeyes fans have forgiven his transgressions that caused him to be fired and place the school on probation.
They replaced him with Urban Meyer, another native Ohioan who had an impeccable college coaching resume who grew up bleeding Scarlet and Gray. He said Ohio State was his "dream job."
Despite a bowl ban, his Buckeyes went 12-0, the only undefeated team in the country. Oh yeah, and they beat Michigan, who Meyer refers to as "That Team Up North."
Most everyone wanted Jon Gruden to come here because he grew up in Ohio and was a die-hard Browns fan growing up. Saban was attractive because he spent time in Ohio while in college and coached the Browns from 1991-94. Both those guys appeared to GET IT.
Chudzinski doesn't have the resume that Gruden or Saban have, but there's no denying that the man GETS IT.
All the Browns fans lamenting about what a "letdown" this hiring is now I believe will be singing a different tune in about a year or two. It's funny how some fans proclaim they really wanted Trestman to be the head coach (really? Marc Trestman?). In reality, those fans would be crying about hiring a Canadian retread who failed as the Browns' offensive coordinator in 1989. Hearing fans say they wanted Whisenhunt makes me believe those same fans would be crying about why the Browns would hire a retread who couldn't develop a QB and suffered through some dismal seasons in Arizona the last 2-3 seasons. Listening to fans pine for Arians like he's the second coming of Tom Landry makes me laugh.
Honestly, the only coach the Browns could have hired that would have been universally accepted is Bill Cowher. Not even Gruden or Saban would have been universally accepted. No matter who the Browns hired, a large segment of the fan base was going to bitch and moan.
I don't agree with it, but I get it. We're all tired of losing and we want to see a winner. We want to see a champion. We want to see our team bring in the big-name head coach, but it doesn't always work that way. And, I'll remind everyone again -- Andy Reid, John Harbaugh and Mike Tomlin weren't "sexy" big names when the Eagles, Ravens and Steelers hired them as their head coaches.
Yes, Chud's lack of head coaching experience ANYWHERE is concerning. But, I'll say it again -- would you have rather had an unproven NFL commodity and career college coach in Chip Kelly come here? Would you have rather had an NFL head coach that flamed out in his previous job with back-to-back losing seasons like Ken Whisenhunt come here? How about a college coach that went 25-25 in the Big East like Doug Marrone? Sure, there would be a segment that would have been on board with these hires, but there would still be a lot of naysayers.
People complain about not hiring Zimmer, but there's a reason why so many teams bring him in to get interviewed and he gets passed over year after year after year after year. The man's been on the head coaching radar for a long as I can remember. Yet, he doesn't get any jobs. Perhaps because he says what's on his mind without a filter. Fans may love it, but it could alienate his own players, his opponents, his bosses, even some of his fans. Just look at Rex Ryan and what a buffoon he's turned out to be, and realize that Rob Ryan was nothing more than a windbag during his two years as the Browns' defensive coordinator and is out of job once again.
Some fans are concerned that Chud may switch defenses from a base 4-3 to a base 3-4. We all remember how Crennel tried to force feed a 3-4 to the Browns and how it failed for four years and then another two under Mangini's watch. We saw how the defense immediately got better when Mike Holmgren, Tom Heckert and Shurmur switched to a 4-3 with Dick Jauron as defensive coordinator, and fear that a switch would set the team back a few years. Calm down.
Chudzinski said he'd leave the choice of schemes to whoever he hires as his defensive coordinator and favored a "hybrid" scheme that featured multiple mix-and-match defensive fronts. Yes, they'd need immediate help at linebacker if they go to a 3-4, but then again, they need immediate help at linebacker if they stay with a 4-3. D'Qwell Jackson is the only legitimate starter this team has, and keep in mind he began his career as an inside linebacker in Crennel's 3-4.
Some fans may see Chud as not a legitimate upgrade from Shurmur, and I can see your point. Both guys were unproven head coaching commodoties. Both were off-the-radar hires. However, Shurmur got his job because Mike Holmgren wanted to hire everyone that his agent represented and felt like he could manipulate Shurmur into becoming a legitimate head coach (he failed, which is why he's in Arizona sipping umbrella drinks begging teams to bring him in for interviews). Chudzinski got his job because Haslam and Banner believe he's the best candidate.
Haslam and Banner may have "settled" for Chud after losing out on the grand college coach sweepstakes last week. However, if the other choice was bringing in Chip "Don't call me Steve Spurrier" Kelly, than I'll take this type of "settling" any day of the week.
Go Browns!
Until next time, remember that Cleveland Rocks!
Showing posts with label Chip Kelly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chip Kelly. Show all posts
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Monday, January 7, 2013
Chip shot
Joe Cleveland is relieved that the Chip Kelly infatuation is over and done without him being named the 16th full-time head coach in Cleveland Browns history.
I never understood the infatuation with the guy, other than his college teams tend to score a lot of points.
This was Kelly's second flirtation with the NFL in as many years. Last season, he appeared to have a deal in place with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers but walked away. They wound up hiring Greg Schiano from Rutgers.
This season, the Browns, Eagles and Bills all staked out Arizona to try to interview the University of Oregon coach after his Ducks finished beating the tar out of Collin Klein and Kansas State, 35-17. In the meantime, all three interviewed some candidates that were affiliated with the Arizona Cardinals (Ray Horton and ex-head coach Ken Whisenhunt) along with former Saints offensive coordinator and Syracuse head coach Doug Marrone while they waited for Kelly's game to finish.
Jimmy Haslam III and Joe Banner were up first on Friday, and they wined and dined Kelly for about seven hours. It was to the point that many media members were saying that Kelly to the Browns was essentially a "done deal." However, Kelly walked away from that meeting without a contract, expressing a desire to meet with the Bills and Eagles.
On Saturday, the Eagles wined and dined Kelly for over eight hours. It caused Kelly to cancel his follow-up meeting with Haslam and Banner that evening.
By Sunday, Haslam and Banner decided that it wasn't worth the trouble and flew back to Ohio. Kelly wound up spurning the Eagles overtures as well, getting a hefty pay raise to stay put at Oregon when it seemed all but a virtual certainty that he was going to leave for the NFL.
The Browns fan base seemed divided about Kelly, although most of them weren't sold on the so-called offensive "genius" taking his gimmicky zone-read offense to the NFL. For every one who thought that Kelly's playcalling would revolutionize Browns football, there were at least three who feared the worst.
This is what happens when a college coach who has never been affiliated with NFL in any fashion -- as a player, front office person or an assistant coach -- gets talked to. Kelly would have been the ultimate boom-or-bust choice to be the head coach of the Browns.
Haslam and Banner ultimately walked away because they didn't believe he was fully committed to being an NFL head coach. They were right. Better to find that out now than this time next season, when Kelly pulls a Bobby Petrino and leaves midway through his first season to go back to the college ranks.
The NFL is a different animal than Division I college football. There's no Southwest Louisana States on your schedule in the NFL. Sure, there's usually a handful of teams that suck in the NFL (like the Browns, sad to say), but the beauty of the NFL is that any team can win on any Sunday.
You don't have that assurance in college football. Thanks to recruiting, there is a big disparity between the haves and the have-nots in Division I football. Teams aren't as focused on building a defense in college and seem to be more focused on putting up gaudy offensive numbers instead.
That's Chip Kelly in a heartbeat, and that's what the Browns almost got.
To be honest, I don't see the appeal of a Chip Kelly. It's not like his hands are lined with BCS National Championship rings or anything.
Kelly was an assistant coach at such football hotspots like Columbia, Johns Hopkins and New Hampshire before becoming Oregon's offensive coordinator in 2007. In his two years as the offensive coordinator, the Ducks led the PAC-10 in both scoring and total offense each year. When Mike Bellotti was promoted to athletic director, Kelly ascended to the head coaching job.
Kelly's first game as a head coach, which was a 19-8 loss to Boise State, was marred by running back LaGarrette Blount's punch to a Bronco player's face following the game. Kelly kicked Blount off the team.
Kelly wound up winning PAC-10 Coach of the Year honors and won Oregon's first PAC-10 championship since 1995. He became the first rookie head coach to win the PAC-10 outright title in his first season. His Ducks wound up losing to Jim Tressel, Terrelle Pryor and the Ohio State Buckeyes, 26-17, in the Rose Bowl to finish 10-2.
The next season, the Ducks went a perfect 12-0 in the regular season and finished as the No. 2 team in the BCS standings, earning a berth in the National Championship Game. Against Heisman Trophy-winner Cam Newton and Auburn, the Ducks trailed 19-11 before a touchdown and 2-point conversion with 2:33 remaining tied the score. However, a failure to tackle Michael Dyer on what wound up being a 37-yard run highlighted a game-winning 73-yard drive by the Tigers, and Wes Bynum's chip-shot field goal with no time remaining handed Kelly's Ducks a 22-19 loss.
Kelly's Ducks won the PAC-12 each of the last two seasons and qualified for BCS bowls each year. They defeated a Russell Wilson-led Wisconsin team, 45-38, in the 2012 Rose Bowl, then beat K-State in the Fiesta Bowl a few days ago.
His teams were 46-7 overall over the last four years and were known for their flashy uniform combinations and overall team speed and offensive prowess.
Kelly's methods achieved some legitimacy within the NFL when Bill Belichick, the NFL's so-called "genius" coach of the New England Patriots, summoned him to talk two seasons ago and share some of his offensive secrets. While the Patriots don't run a zone-read option offense, they have utilized his spread tendencies, the break-neck speed of offensive plays and the simple playcalling terminology to make that happen. New England has had one of the best offenses in the NFL the last several seasons.
Because "Don Belichick" seemed to give his seal of approval to Kelly's methods, many NFL teams were willing to risk their franchises for this unproven commodity. The Browns, included.
While the Browns waited for Kelly, Marrone (who was believed to be their second choice) accepted the Bills head coaching position. Also, Penn State head coach Bill O'Brien, Belichick's former offensive coordinator, interviewed with the Browns and Eagles but decided to stick around (especially after PSU gave him a nice pay raise).
Alabama coach Nick Saban, whose Crimson Tide are playing Notre Dame in tonight's BCS National Championship Game, was believed to be Haslam's first choice. However, both publicly and privately, Saban has said he's not leaving Tuscaloosa. We'll see if that's still the case 24 hours from now, but it appears he's out of the running.
So, where does that leave the Browns?
Of course, that Baltimore-shilling AFC North blogger for ESPN was trying to say that not landing Kelly made Haslam and Banner look bad. That same person couldn't stop typing sonnets dedicated to that accessory-to-murdering linebacker on the Ravens who decided he was ready to retire this week, so you see where his objectivity plays in.
Here's a few people to keep your eyes on this week:
1. Whisenhunt -- Haslam was reportedly impressed with the former Browns special teams coordinator (1999), Steelers offensive assistant (2001-06) and Cardinals head coach (2007-12). Under Whisenhunt, the Steelers reached their first Super Bowl since 1995 in 2004, where they won, 21-10, over Mike Holmgren's Seahawks. The defining play of that Super Bowl was Whisenhunt's decision to call a flea-flicker wide receiver pass from former college quarterback Antwaan Randle-El to Hines Ward that went for the game-clinching touchdown. Two seasons later, Whisenhunt was passed over by the Steelers to replace Bill Cowher for Mike Tomlin, and he took several Steeler offensive assistants with him to Arizona. Two seasons later, he took the Cardinals to their first-ever Super Bowl against (coincidentally) the Steelers. His 9-7, AFC West champion Cards led Pittsburgh, 23-20, following 16 unanswered fourth-quarter points with 35 seconds left before Santonio Holmes made the play of his life for a fantastic, six-yard touchdown reception, which gave the Steelers a 27-23 victory. The Cardinals have struggled since Kurt Warner retired following the 10-6 2009 season and haven't found a capable replacement, going through Matt Leinart, Derek Anderson, Max Hall, Kevin Kolb, John Skelton, Ryan Lindley and Brian Hoyer. All four started this past season, which the Cards squandered their first 4-0 start since 1974 and finished 5-11. His ties to the North Division, and his ability to turn around a moribund franchise, makes him appealing to the Browns.
2. Lovie Smith -- Smith is reportedly going to be interviewed by the Browns this week. Smith had been the head coach of the Chicago Bears since 2004, where he compiled an 81-63 regular season record. Like Whisenhunt, Smith took a team to the Super Bowl (the 2006 Bears), where they lost, 29-17, to the Indianapolis Colts. Prior to the Bears job, he was the defensive coordinator for the St. Louis Rams from 2001-03. The 2001 Rams reached the Super Bowl, but were stunned, 20-17, by the heavy-underdog Patriots. Smith led the Bears to the playoffs three times over his 9-year career, but was let go after the final game of this season despite a 10-6 overall record. The Bears squandered a 7-1 start and wound up missing the playoffs when the Vikings knocked off the Packers in one of the season's final regular season games. Smith has a defensive background, which may not appeal to Haslam and Banner. However, Smith's teams have won, and he does have a Super Bowl to his resume. In fact, his resume is arguably more appealing than Whisenhunt's is because of his win-loss record and more recent success.
3. Bruce Arians -- Arians guided the Colts to a 9-3 record as their interim head coach while Chuck Pagano was sidelined due to leiukemia. Arians helped rookie first-round choice Andrew Luck blossom in his first professional year while lending some stability to an otherwise rocky coaching situation. However, the 60-year-old Arians is currently hospitalized in Baltimore with an undisclosed illness. The illness prevented Arians from fulfilling his duties as the team's offensive coordinator in yesterday's 23-9 playoff loss to the Ravens, and may be a red-flag to some prospective suitors. The Chargers, Cardinals and Eagles have also sought permission to interview the long-time assistant, and it looks like he'll parlay that successful interim stint into a head-coaching gig. Arians does have links to the Browns -- he served as the offensive coordinator under Butch Davis from 2001-03 before becoming a Steelers offensive assistant from 2004-11. He was their offensive coordinator from 07-11, helping Ben Roethlisberger reach two Super Bowls during that span and winning one. He was the offensive playcaller for the the 2002 Browns team that reached the playoffs with a 9-7 record -- still the only team in the expansion era to reach the postseason -- and helped turn a non-descript backup journeyman quarterback in Kelly Holcomb into a decent starting quarterback. He was forced out by the Steeler brass before last season because they felt he was "too close" with Roethlisberger, and the offense struggled with Todd Haley calling the plays this season. Haslam was a minority owner of the Steelers while Arians was the team's offensive coordinator.
4. Marc Trestman -- Trestman's name has suddenly popped up on the NFL radar ever since the Bears sought to interview him for their vacant head coaching gig. Trestman has been the head coach of the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League since 2008, and his team reached three straight Grey Cups in his first three seasons, winning the last two in a row (2009-10). He is 59-31 in five seasons as a head CFL coach and is a respected offensive coach. In fact, he has deep ties with Browns legend Bernie Kosar. He served as Kosar's offensive coordinator at the University of Miami from 1981-84 (including that 1983 National Championship year), then joined the Browns' coaching staff in 1988 as Kosar's quarterbacks coach. He served as the offensive coordinator in 1989 under Bud Carson, which was the last year the Browns reached the AFC Championship Game, before he resigned under pressure after some up-and-down play calls. He stayed in the NFL from 1990-04 with the Vikings, 49ers, Lions, Cardinals, Raiders and Dolphins as an offensive assistant, varying from quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator. Prior to joining the CFL, Trestman was the offensive coordinator at North Carolina State from 2005-06. He is actually a licensed Florida attorney after graduating from Miami Law School in 1983. Browns fans old enough to remember yelling for Trestman's head during 1989 (like me) may not be comfortable with the idea of him being the head coach. However, the 56-year-old Trestman has become a respected offensive mind at the professional ranks. The Browns are set to interview him this week.
5. Mike McCoy -- The 40-year-old McCoy was one of the candidates reportedly interviewed by Mike Holmgren and Tom Heckert two years ago when they ultimately decided to hire Pat Shurmur. McCoy has been the Broncos' offensive coordinator since 2009, when he stayed with John Fox after Fox left the Carolina Panthers to take the Broncos' job. McCoy had been an offensive assistant with the Panthers since 2000 after a two-year quarterbacking career in the CFL and a successful collegiate career at the University of Utah. McCoy has helped three different starting quarterbacks with the Broncos have successful seasons. Kyle Orton set career-highs in virtually every passing category in 2009, and Orton finished fourth in passing yards in 2010. In 2011, McCoy adopted a new offensive scheme on the fly to accomodate new starting quarterback Tim Tebow, and the team not only led the NFL in rushing using an option scheme, but also reached the playoffs and won their first-round game with Tebow under center. This season, McCoy switching things up with Peyton Manning under center, and Manning is enjoying an MVP-esque season for the Broncos. The Bears, Cardinals and Eagles have also requested to interview McCoy, and the Browns may have to wait until after the Super Bowl if they believe he is their guy. McCoy's versatility and ability to get the very best out of his offensive personnel, along with his age, make him a very appealing head coaching candidate.
I would expect the Browns' next head coach to come from that group of five names, unless Saban suddenly has a change of heart in the next 48 hours or Haslam is able to pull Jon Gruden out of thin air.
None of those five are as "sexy" as Chip Kelly. However, they all may be more stable hires in both the short and long-term for a franchise that is desperately trying to become a perennnial winner that has a lot of young building blocks already in place.
One other good thing to come out of this -- Kelly, Marrone, O'Brien and Saban were all head coaching candidates being built up by NFL "insider" Michael Lombardi, who has been linked to a Browns front office job since midseason. It appears that Lombardi was unable to deliver on any of these candidates, which I'm sure doesn't help his future job prospects here in town.
Losing out on Chip Kelly is not the worst thing ever, Browns fans. In reality, the Browns probably avoided hiring the next Steve Spurrier, Bobby Petrino, Butch Davis, Howard Schellenberger, Lou Holtz and Dennis Erickson, among other college coaches that became NFL washouts. I can only imagine how much the Ravens and Steelers would have licked their chops trying to stop that gimmicky Kelly offense in December.
Hiring Kelly would have prompted another change at quarterback. Supposedly, Kelly told Haslam and Banner that none of the Browns' current quarterbacks could run the type of offense he wanted to run. What's disturbing is that Haslam and Banner were still interested in hiring the guy. Weeden was already linked to being possibily traded to the Kansas City Chiefs (where Tom Heckert could wind up being Andy Reid's hand-picked GM) before the Browns decided the risk outweighed the reward on Kelly.
Who knows, perhaps any one of these new hires will prompt a change at quarterback again. Weeden's rookie season was certainly an up-and-down one, but perhaps a change in schemes -- away from the basic West Coast offense Shurmur was trying to install to a more vertical-based, run-oriented attack -- would help him develop more as a second-year quarterback.
Joe Cleveland, for one, was ecstatic that the rumors (by the way, nice job, media, for blowing every little rumor out of proportion and virtually assuring everyone that Kelly was the new head coach) were unfounded and Kelly will keep his gimmicky-ass in Eugene, Ore. Now, let's bring in a proven commodity and turn this Brown and Orange ship around.
Until next time, remember that Cleveland Rocks!
I never understood the infatuation with the guy, other than his college teams tend to score a lot of points.
This was Kelly's second flirtation with the NFL in as many years. Last season, he appeared to have a deal in place with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers but walked away. They wound up hiring Greg Schiano from Rutgers.
This season, the Browns, Eagles and Bills all staked out Arizona to try to interview the University of Oregon coach after his Ducks finished beating the tar out of Collin Klein and Kansas State, 35-17. In the meantime, all three interviewed some candidates that were affiliated with the Arizona Cardinals (Ray Horton and ex-head coach Ken Whisenhunt) along with former Saints offensive coordinator and Syracuse head coach Doug Marrone while they waited for Kelly's game to finish.
Jimmy Haslam III and Joe Banner were up first on Friday, and they wined and dined Kelly for about seven hours. It was to the point that many media members were saying that Kelly to the Browns was essentially a "done deal." However, Kelly walked away from that meeting without a contract, expressing a desire to meet with the Bills and Eagles.
On Saturday, the Eagles wined and dined Kelly for over eight hours. It caused Kelly to cancel his follow-up meeting with Haslam and Banner that evening.
By Sunday, Haslam and Banner decided that it wasn't worth the trouble and flew back to Ohio. Kelly wound up spurning the Eagles overtures as well, getting a hefty pay raise to stay put at Oregon when it seemed all but a virtual certainty that he was going to leave for the NFL.
The Browns fan base seemed divided about Kelly, although most of them weren't sold on the so-called offensive "genius" taking his gimmicky zone-read offense to the NFL. For every one who thought that Kelly's playcalling would revolutionize Browns football, there were at least three who feared the worst.
This is what happens when a college coach who has never been affiliated with NFL in any fashion -- as a player, front office person or an assistant coach -- gets talked to. Kelly would have been the ultimate boom-or-bust choice to be the head coach of the Browns.
Haslam and Banner ultimately walked away because they didn't believe he was fully committed to being an NFL head coach. They were right. Better to find that out now than this time next season, when Kelly pulls a Bobby Petrino and leaves midway through his first season to go back to the college ranks.
The NFL is a different animal than Division I college football. There's no Southwest Louisana States on your schedule in the NFL. Sure, there's usually a handful of teams that suck in the NFL (like the Browns, sad to say), but the beauty of the NFL is that any team can win on any Sunday.
You don't have that assurance in college football. Thanks to recruiting, there is a big disparity between the haves and the have-nots in Division I football. Teams aren't as focused on building a defense in college and seem to be more focused on putting up gaudy offensive numbers instead.
That's Chip Kelly in a heartbeat, and that's what the Browns almost got.
To be honest, I don't see the appeal of a Chip Kelly. It's not like his hands are lined with BCS National Championship rings or anything.
Kelly was an assistant coach at such football hotspots like Columbia, Johns Hopkins and New Hampshire before becoming Oregon's offensive coordinator in 2007. In his two years as the offensive coordinator, the Ducks led the PAC-10 in both scoring and total offense each year. When Mike Bellotti was promoted to athletic director, Kelly ascended to the head coaching job.
Kelly's first game as a head coach, which was a 19-8 loss to Boise State, was marred by running back LaGarrette Blount's punch to a Bronco player's face following the game. Kelly kicked Blount off the team.
Kelly wound up winning PAC-10 Coach of the Year honors and won Oregon's first PAC-10 championship since 1995. He became the first rookie head coach to win the PAC-10 outright title in his first season. His Ducks wound up losing to Jim Tressel, Terrelle Pryor and the Ohio State Buckeyes, 26-17, in the Rose Bowl to finish 10-2.
The next season, the Ducks went a perfect 12-0 in the regular season and finished as the No. 2 team in the BCS standings, earning a berth in the National Championship Game. Against Heisman Trophy-winner Cam Newton and Auburn, the Ducks trailed 19-11 before a touchdown and 2-point conversion with 2:33 remaining tied the score. However, a failure to tackle Michael Dyer on what wound up being a 37-yard run highlighted a game-winning 73-yard drive by the Tigers, and Wes Bynum's chip-shot field goal with no time remaining handed Kelly's Ducks a 22-19 loss.
Kelly's Ducks won the PAC-12 each of the last two seasons and qualified for BCS bowls each year. They defeated a Russell Wilson-led Wisconsin team, 45-38, in the 2012 Rose Bowl, then beat K-State in the Fiesta Bowl a few days ago.
His teams were 46-7 overall over the last four years and were known for their flashy uniform combinations and overall team speed and offensive prowess.
Kelly's methods achieved some legitimacy within the NFL when Bill Belichick, the NFL's so-called "genius" coach of the New England Patriots, summoned him to talk two seasons ago and share some of his offensive secrets. While the Patriots don't run a zone-read option offense, they have utilized his spread tendencies, the break-neck speed of offensive plays and the simple playcalling terminology to make that happen. New England has had one of the best offenses in the NFL the last several seasons.
Because "Don Belichick" seemed to give his seal of approval to Kelly's methods, many NFL teams were willing to risk their franchises for this unproven commodity. The Browns, included.
While the Browns waited for Kelly, Marrone (who was believed to be their second choice) accepted the Bills head coaching position. Also, Penn State head coach Bill O'Brien, Belichick's former offensive coordinator, interviewed with the Browns and Eagles but decided to stick around (especially after PSU gave him a nice pay raise).
Alabama coach Nick Saban, whose Crimson Tide are playing Notre Dame in tonight's BCS National Championship Game, was believed to be Haslam's first choice. However, both publicly and privately, Saban has said he's not leaving Tuscaloosa. We'll see if that's still the case 24 hours from now, but it appears he's out of the running.
So, where does that leave the Browns?
Of course, that Baltimore-shilling AFC North blogger for ESPN was trying to say that not landing Kelly made Haslam and Banner look bad. That same person couldn't stop typing sonnets dedicated to that accessory-to-murdering linebacker on the Ravens who decided he was ready to retire this week, so you see where his objectivity plays in.
Here's a few people to keep your eyes on this week:
1. Whisenhunt -- Haslam was reportedly impressed with the former Browns special teams coordinator (1999), Steelers offensive assistant (2001-06) and Cardinals head coach (2007-12). Under Whisenhunt, the Steelers reached their first Super Bowl since 1995 in 2004, where they won, 21-10, over Mike Holmgren's Seahawks. The defining play of that Super Bowl was Whisenhunt's decision to call a flea-flicker wide receiver pass from former college quarterback Antwaan Randle-El to Hines Ward that went for the game-clinching touchdown. Two seasons later, Whisenhunt was passed over by the Steelers to replace Bill Cowher for Mike Tomlin, and he took several Steeler offensive assistants with him to Arizona. Two seasons later, he took the Cardinals to their first-ever Super Bowl against (coincidentally) the Steelers. His 9-7, AFC West champion Cards led Pittsburgh, 23-20, following 16 unanswered fourth-quarter points with 35 seconds left before Santonio Holmes made the play of his life for a fantastic, six-yard touchdown reception, which gave the Steelers a 27-23 victory. The Cardinals have struggled since Kurt Warner retired following the 10-6 2009 season and haven't found a capable replacement, going through Matt Leinart, Derek Anderson, Max Hall, Kevin Kolb, John Skelton, Ryan Lindley and Brian Hoyer. All four started this past season, which the Cards squandered their first 4-0 start since 1974 and finished 5-11. His ties to the North Division, and his ability to turn around a moribund franchise, makes him appealing to the Browns.
2. Lovie Smith -- Smith is reportedly going to be interviewed by the Browns this week. Smith had been the head coach of the Chicago Bears since 2004, where he compiled an 81-63 regular season record. Like Whisenhunt, Smith took a team to the Super Bowl (the 2006 Bears), where they lost, 29-17, to the Indianapolis Colts. Prior to the Bears job, he was the defensive coordinator for the St. Louis Rams from 2001-03. The 2001 Rams reached the Super Bowl, but were stunned, 20-17, by the heavy-underdog Patriots. Smith led the Bears to the playoffs three times over his 9-year career, but was let go after the final game of this season despite a 10-6 overall record. The Bears squandered a 7-1 start and wound up missing the playoffs when the Vikings knocked off the Packers in one of the season's final regular season games. Smith has a defensive background, which may not appeal to Haslam and Banner. However, Smith's teams have won, and he does have a Super Bowl to his resume. In fact, his resume is arguably more appealing than Whisenhunt's is because of his win-loss record and more recent success.
3. Bruce Arians -- Arians guided the Colts to a 9-3 record as their interim head coach while Chuck Pagano was sidelined due to leiukemia. Arians helped rookie first-round choice Andrew Luck blossom in his first professional year while lending some stability to an otherwise rocky coaching situation. However, the 60-year-old Arians is currently hospitalized in Baltimore with an undisclosed illness. The illness prevented Arians from fulfilling his duties as the team's offensive coordinator in yesterday's 23-9 playoff loss to the Ravens, and may be a red-flag to some prospective suitors. The Chargers, Cardinals and Eagles have also sought permission to interview the long-time assistant, and it looks like he'll parlay that successful interim stint into a head-coaching gig. Arians does have links to the Browns -- he served as the offensive coordinator under Butch Davis from 2001-03 before becoming a Steelers offensive assistant from 2004-11. He was their offensive coordinator from 07-11, helping Ben Roethlisberger reach two Super Bowls during that span and winning one. He was the offensive playcaller for the the 2002 Browns team that reached the playoffs with a 9-7 record -- still the only team in the expansion era to reach the postseason -- and helped turn a non-descript backup journeyman quarterback in Kelly Holcomb into a decent starting quarterback. He was forced out by the Steeler brass before last season because they felt he was "too close" with Roethlisberger, and the offense struggled with Todd Haley calling the plays this season. Haslam was a minority owner of the Steelers while Arians was the team's offensive coordinator.
4. Marc Trestman -- Trestman's name has suddenly popped up on the NFL radar ever since the Bears sought to interview him for their vacant head coaching gig. Trestman has been the head coach of the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League since 2008, and his team reached three straight Grey Cups in his first three seasons, winning the last two in a row (2009-10). He is 59-31 in five seasons as a head CFL coach and is a respected offensive coach. In fact, he has deep ties with Browns legend Bernie Kosar. He served as Kosar's offensive coordinator at the University of Miami from 1981-84 (including that 1983 National Championship year), then joined the Browns' coaching staff in 1988 as Kosar's quarterbacks coach. He served as the offensive coordinator in 1989 under Bud Carson, which was the last year the Browns reached the AFC Championship Game, before he resigned under pressure after some up-and-down play calls. He stayed in the NFL from 1990-04 with the Vikings, 49ers, Lions, Cardinals, Raiders and Dolphins as an offensive assistant, varying from quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator. Prior to joining the CFL, Trestman was the offensive coordinator at North Carolina State from 2005-06. He is actually a licensed Florida attorney after graduating from Miami Law School in 1983. Browns fans old enough to remember yelling for Trestman's head during 1989 (like me) may not be comfortable with the idea of him being the head coach. However, the 56-year-old Trestman has become a respected offensive mind at the professional ranks. The Browns are set to interview him this week.
5. Mike McCoy -- The 40-year-old McCoy was one of the candidates reportedly interviewed by Mike Holmgren and Tom Heckert two years ago when they ultimately decided to hire Pat Shurmur. McCoy has been the Broncos' offensive coordinator since 2009, when he stayed with John Fox after Fox left the Carolina Panthers to take the Broncos' job. McCoy had been an offensive assistant with the Panthers since 2000 after a two-year quarterbacking career in the CFL and a successful collegiate career at the University of Utah. McCoy has helped three different starting quarterbacks with the Broncos have successful seasons. Kyle Orton set career-highs in virtually every passing category in 2009, and Orton finished fourth in passing yards in 2010. In 2011, McCoy adopted a new offensive scheme on the fly to accomodate new starting quarterback Tim Tebow, and the team not only led the NFL in rushing using an option scheme, but also reached the playoffs and won their first-round game with Tebow under center. This season, McCoy switching things up with Peyton Manning under center, and Manning is enjoying an MVP-esque season for the Broncos. The Bears, Cardinals and Eagles have also requested to interview McCoy, and the Browns may have to wait until after the Super Bowl if they believe he is their guy. McCoy's versatility and ability to get the very best out of his offensive personnel, along with his age, make him a very appealing head coaching candidate.
I would expect the Browns' next head coach to come from that group of five names, unless Saban suddenly has a change of heart in the next 48 hours or Haslam is able to pull Jon Gruden out of thin air.
None of those five are as "sexy" as Chip Kelly. However, they all may be more stable hires in both the short and long-term for a franchise that is desperately trying to become a perennnial winner that has a lot of young building blocks already in place.
One other good thing to come out of this -- Kelly, Marrone, O'Brien and Saban were all head coaching candidates being built up by NFL "insider" Michael Lombardi, who has been linked to a Browns front office job since midseason. It appears that Lombardi was unable to deliver on any of these candidates, which I'm sure doesn't help his future job prospects here in town.
Losing out on Chip Kelly is not the worst thing ever, Browns fans. In reality, the Browns probably avoided hiring the next Steve Spurrier, Bobby Petrino, Butch Davis, Howard Schellenberger, Lou Holtz and Dennis Erickson, among other college coaches that became NFL washouts. I can only imagine how much the Ravens and Steelers would have licked their chops trying to stop that gimmicky Kelly offense in December.
Hiring Kelly would have prompted another change at quarterback. Supposedly, Kelly told Haslam and Banner that none of the Browns' current quarterbacks could run the type of offense he wanted to run. What's disturbing is that Haslam and Banner were still interested in hiring the guy. Weeden was already linked to being possibily traded to the Kansas City Chiefs (where Tom Heckert could wind up being Andy Reid's hand-picked GM) before the Browns decided the risk outweighed the reward on Kelly.
Who knows, perhaps any one of these new hires will prompt a change at quarterback again. Weeden's rookie season was certainly an up-and-down one, but perhaps a change in schemes -- away from the basic West Coast offense Shurmur was trying to install to a more vertical-based, run-oriented attack -- would help him develop more as a second-year quarterback.
Joe Cleveland, for one, was ecstatic that the rumors (by the way, nice job, media, for blowing every little rumor out of proportion and virtually assuring everyone that Kelly was the new head coach) were unfounded and Kelly will keep his gimmicky-ass in Eugene, Ore. Now, let's bring in a proven commodity and turn this Brown and Orange ship around.
Until next time, remember that Cleveland Rocks!
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
A Banner New Year?
First of all, here's wishing you and yours a very Happy New Year. Hopefully 2013 is a better year for you than 2012 was.
Joe Cleveland wants to thank all of you for taking the time to visit this blog whenever I update it. I got a lot more readers in 2012 than in 2011, so hopefully, things can keep taking off for Joe Cleveland in 2013.
The new year is only a few hours old, but I felt it was worth doing my first update of the year about what transpired just 24 hours ago and what could transpire during this week for the Cleveland Browns.
Shortly after a 24-10 loss to the hated Steelers at Heinz Field, in a game that was started by practice squad quarterback Thaddeus Lewis and where the leading rusher was a guy who was only active in one other game during his two-year stint with the Browns -- Brandon Jackson -- and where the longest run from scrimmage was by a backup safety. Despite all of that, the Browns were competitive until the bitter end and didn't back down when the Steelers tried to intimidate them with some extracurricular activities as plays ended.
It was fitting that the final offensive play of the Pat Shurmur era came when a quarterback named Josh Johnson -- who had been on his couch the entire season before the Browns placed a desperate call to him last Monday -- was leveled on a blitz by Lawrence Timmons past a rookie guard, Ryan Miller, who had never even played a single snap before that possession started, and Johnson fumbled. So ended the tumultuious two-year tenure of Pat Shurmur as the head coach of your Cleveland Browns.
The ax came swiftly and decisively on New Year's Eve morning. New owner Jimmy Haslam III and Joe Banner, as expected, fired both Shurmur and general manager Tom Heckert. Both were hired by departed president Mike Holmgren under the guise of absantee owner Randy Lerner -- Heckert a year earlier than Shurmur.
Joe Cleveland believes that both firings were the right choice. However, I've got to give Shurmur (begrudgingly) a bit of credit.
Shurmur's two seasons were held under difficult circumstances. Shurmur was a surprising choice by Holmgren in 2011 to replace Eric Mangini, and just a month after his hiring, the NFL locked out its players. That deprived Shurmur of an offseason, in which he was going to impliment a new offensive scheme (the West Coast offense). Believe it or not, the Browns had records of 2-1 and 3-3 under Shurmur before the bottom fell out in a disappointing 4-12 2011 season.
On the eve of training camp, news broke that Lerner had sold the team to Haslam. Suddenly, the "5-year plan" net and the security of having the Big Show in the building was going to be gone, with the impetus on winning if people wanted to retain their jobs. Despite that, Shurmur and Heckert trotted out a roster that was heavy on rookies and 1st-year players that were competitive in most games, but wound up a disappointing 5-11. The season ended on a 3-game losing streak, in which the Browns were outscored 96-43.
I still blame Holmgren for these last three years of 5-11, 4-12 and 5-11 ball. Holmgren was given a Brinks truck worth of money by an exasperated Lerner after the Browns stumbled to a 1-11 start under Mangini. It was expected that Holmgren would fire Mangini after the season and name himself as the head coach. However, Holmgren held on to Mangini for one more 5-11 season, despite a clash of overall philosophies, then "discorvered" the unknown Shurmur to be his hand-picked head coach one season later.
Halfway through the season, Holmgren was gone. By that point, Heckert and Shurmur were fresh out of friends, and only a miraculous finish to the regular season could save them.
It almost happened. A three-game win streak put the Browns at 5-8 and on the outer cusp of playoff contention. However, a dismal 38-21 loss to the Washington Redskins, led by fourth-round rookie backup QB Kirk Cousins, virtually sealed Shurmur's fate.
There was a mild push to retain Heckert because of some of the draft picks he had made in his three seasons. However, 14 wins in three seasons is difficult to ignore. When the teams in last year's NFL draft that picked first (Colts), second (Redskins) and fourth (Vikings) are all in the postseason while you, who picked third, are not, it's pretty indiciaitive of the job Heckert and Shurmur had done.
The trade of Julio Jones to the Falcons, the non-trade to obtain Robert Griffin III and the drafting of 28-year-old Brandon Weeden with the 22nd overall pick are the most heavily scrutinized moves, and Joe Cleveland actually supported all three of those maneuvers.
Essentially, Haslam and Banner had to do this to remake this once-proud franchise in their image. They want a "strong personality" at head coach, which is why they are hiring the coach first and the GM/personnel director second. You can say the Browns did that twice before and it failed both times when they hired Butch Davis and Mangini. However, the common denomonator in both of those hiring were the hand's-off, no-accountability Lerner family ownership.
Haslam is about as hand's on an owner as you want without him becoming meddling. Banner is a proven football executive that oversaw the rebirth of a Philadelphia Eagles organization that had fallen on hard times. I think they know what they're doing.
College coaches like Alabama's Nick Saban, Oregon's Chip Kelly, Penn State's Bill O'Brien and Syracuses's Doug Marrone are on the radar, as are NFL coordinators such as the 49ers' Greg Roman, the Falcons' Dirk Koetter, the Bengals' Jay Gruden and the Colts' Bruce Arians (who was once the Browns' offensive coordinator and may wind up winning the NFL Coach of the Year Award for the job he did helping Indy reach the playoffs in the stead of regular head coach Chuck Pagano). Ex-Bears head coach Lovie Smith is rumored to have been contacted by the Browns, and they may be interested in Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett if Jerry Jones fires him tomorrow or the next day.
All of the current assistants are under contract and can be retained by the new coach. They will be granted permission to interview for other jobs. There still is a chance that defensive coordinator Dick Jauron is retained by the new head coach.
Both the new coach and the new GM/personnel director will report directly to Banner, who will report directly to Haslam. Haslam and Banner want a coach who will command respect by the players, the media and the fanbase that will help mold this team into a winner. They will give the new coach equal say in the final roster, and he will be expected to work in concert with the new GM. Since Banner is the de-facto poobah and he and Haslam are conducting the searches, both decided it was imperitive to hire a head coach first.
If you think about, NONE of the models have worked for the Browns. Carmen Policy hired Dwight Clark as his GM, who then hired Chris Palmer as the team's first expansion head coach. Five wins and two seasons later, Palmer was out and Clark's authority was ursupped by the incoming Butch Davis.
Davis brought along his former University of Miami cronie Pete Garcia to be his Director of Player Personnel. Three-and-half seasons later, despite a 9-7 playoff season in 2002, Davis resigned and Garcia followed him out the door.
Next, Lerner hired Phil Savage to be his new GM, and Savage tapped Romeo Crennel, the Patriots' DC during their three Super Bowl wins in a four-year span, to be his new head coach. Savage barely lasted the first season due to a power struggle with then-team President John Collins. Four seasons later, Savage and Crennel were fired in one-fell swoop by Lerner.
Lerner was heavily rumored to hire former Patriots GM Scott Pioli as his GM. However, his love affair with fired Jets' coach Eric Mangini changed all that. Lerner quickly hired Mangini without hiring a GM, and most of the experienced GM candidates that were available (such as Pioli and Tom Dimitroff) passed on the job. Mangini reccommended George Kokinis to be his new GM, and one failed draft later, Kokins was fired and Lerner was willing to give ANYONE a boatload of cash to help save him from the mess his franchise was becoming.
I believe that if Nick Saban wants to leave Alabama, the job is his. I don't think he'd leave Alabama, but there are some sources that say that Saban could leave if his Crimson Tide win the national championship later this week. The only job on his radar is the Browns job, where he once served as the defensive coordinator with great success.
Chip Kelly has become the darling coach prospect. However, he runs a gimmicky offense with Oregon that I don't think can succeed in the NFL. Let the Eagles and Chargers fall over themselves to try to hire him. I'd rather have Bill O'Brien if you're going the college-coach route.
Josh McDaniels, the former Patriots offensive coordinator, already took himself out of the equation for any head coach openings (not many Browns fans were unhappy to hear that), and it looks like Jon Gruden and Bill Cowher aren't in any hurry to resume their coaching careers. If either them got hired by the Browns, I'd be surprised.
I'm anxious to see what happens these next few days. I'm willing to show Haslam and Banner my confidence as a Browns fan on what they can do. I really have no other choice.
Until next time, Happy New Year to you all, and remember that Cleveland Rocks!
Joe Cleveland wants to thank all of you for taking the time to visit this blog whenever I update it. I got a lot more readers in 2012 than in 2011, so hopefully, things can keep taking off for Joe Cleveland in 2013.
The new year is only a few hours old, but I felt it was worth doing my first update of the year about what transpired just 24 hours ago and what could transpire during this week for the Cleveland Browns.
Shortly after a 24-10 loss to the hated Steelers at Heinz Field, in a game that was started by practice squad quarterback Thaddeus Lewis and where the leading rusher was a guy who was only active in one other game during his two-year stint with the Browns -- Brandon Jackson -- and where the longest run from scrimmage was by a backup safety. Despite all of that, the Browns were competitive until the bitter end and didn't back down when the Steelers tried to intimidate them with some extracurricular activities as plays ended.
It was fitting that the final offensive play of the Pat Shurmur era came when a quarterback named Josh Johnson -- who had been on his couch the entire season before the Browns placed a desperate call to him last Monday -- was leveled on a blitz by Lawrence Timmons past a rookie guard, Ryan Miller, who had never even played a single snap before that possession started, and Johnson fumbled. So ended the tumultuious two-year tenure of Pat Shurmur as the head coach of your Cleveland Browns.
The ax came swiftly and decisively on New Year's Eve morning. New owner Jimmy Haslam III and Joe Banner, as expected, fired both Shurmur and general manager Tom Heckert. Both were hired by departed president Mike Holmgren under the guise of absantee owner Randy Lerner -- Heckert a year earlier than Shurmur.
Joe Cleveland believes that both firings were the right choice. However, I've got to give Shurmur (begrudgingly) a bit of credit.
Shurmur's two seasons were held under difficult circumstances. Shurmur was a surprising choice by Holmgren in 2011 to replace Eric Mangini, and just a month after his hiring, the NFL locked out its players. That deprived Shurmur of an offseason, in which he was going to impliment a new offensive scheme (the West Coast offense). Believe it or not, the Browns had records of 2-1 and 3-3 under Shurmur before the bottom fell out in a disappointing 4-12 2011 season.
On the eve of training camp, news broke that Lerner had sold the team to Haslam. Suddenly, the "5-year plan" net and the security of having the Big Show in the building was going to be gone, with the impetus on winning if people wanted to retain their jobs. Despite that, Shurmur and Heckert trotted out a roster that was heavy on rookies and 1st-year players that were competitive in most games, but wound up a disappointing 5-11. The season ended on a 3-game losing streak, in which the Browns were outscored 96-43.
I still blame Holmgren for these last three years of 5-11, 4-12 and 5-11 ball. Holmgren was given a Brinks truck worth of money by an exasperated Lerner after the Browns stumbled to a 1-11 start under Mangini. It was expected that Holmgren would fire Mangini after the season and name himself as the head coach. However, Holmgren held on to Mangini for one more 5-11 season, despite a clash of overall philosophies, then "discorvered" the unknown Shurmur to be his hand-picked head coach one season later.
Halfway through the season, Holmgren was gone. By that point, Heckert and Shurmur were fresh out of friends, and only a miraculous finish to the regular season could save them.
It almost happened. A three-game win streak put the Browns at 5-8 and on the outer cusp of playoff contention. However, a dismal 38-21 loss to the Washington Redskins, led by fourth-round rookie backup QB Kirk Cousins, virtually sealed Shurmur's fate.
There was a mild push to retain Heckert because of some of the draft picks he had made in his three seasons. However, 14 wins in three seasons is difficult to ignore. When the teams in last year's NFL draft that picked first (Colts), second (Redskins) and fourth (Vikings) are all in the postseason while you, who picked third, are not, it's pretty indiciaitive of the job Heckert and Shurmur had done.
The trade of Julio Jones to the Falcons, the non-trade to obtain Robert Griffin III and the drafting of 28-year-old Brandon Weeden with the 22nd overall pick are the most heavily scrutinized moves, and Joe Cleveland actually supported all three of those maneuvers.
Essentially, Haslam and Banner had to do this to remake this once-proud franchise in their image. They want a "strong personality" at head coach, which is why they are hiring the coach first and the GM/personnel director second. You can say the Browns did that twice before and it failed both times when they hired Butch Davis and Mangini. However, the common denomonator in both of those hiring were the hand's-off, no-accountability Lerner family ownership.
Haslam is about as hand's on an owner as you want without him becoming meddling. Banner is a proven football executive that oversaw the rebirth of a Philadelphia Eagles organization that had fallen on hard times. I think they know what they're doing.
College coaches like Alabama's Nick Saban, Oregon's Chip Kelly, Penn State's Bill O'Brien and Syracuses's Doug Marrone are on the radar, as are NFL coordinators such as the 49ers' Greg Roman, the Falcons' Dirk Koetter, the Bengals' Jay Gruden and the Colts' Bruce Arians (who was once the Browns' offensive coordinator and may wind up winning the NFL Coach of the Year Award for the job he did helping Indy reach the playoffs in the stead of regular head coach Chuck Pagano). Ex-Bears head coach Lovie Smith is rumored to have been contacted by the Browns, and they may be interested in Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett if Jerry Jones fires him tomorrow or the next day.
All of the current assistants are under contract and can be retained by the new coach. They will be granted permission to interview for other jobs. There still is a chance that defensive coordinator Dick Jauron is retained by the new head coach.
Both the new coach and the new GM/personnel director will report directly to Banner, who will report directly to Haslam. Haslam and Banner want a coach who will command respect by the players, the media and the fanbase that will help mold this team into a winner. They will give the new coach equal say in the final roster, and he will be expected to work in concert with the new GM. Since Banner is the de-facto poobah and he and Haslam are conducting the searches, both decided it was imperitive to hire a head coach first.
If you think about, NONE of the models have worked for the Browns. Carmen Policy hired Dwight Clark as his GM, who then hired Chris Palmer as the team's first expansion head coach. Five wins and two seasons later, Palmer was out and Clark's authority was ursupped by the incoming Butch Davis.
Davis brought along his former University of Miami cronie Pete Garcia to be his Director of Player Personnel. Three-and-half seasons later, despite a 9-7 playoff season in 2002, Davis resigned and Garcia followed him out the door.
Next, Lerner hired Phil Savage to be his new GM, and Savage tapped Romeo Crennel, the Patriots' DC during their three Super Bowl wins in a four-year span, to be his new head coach. Savage barely lasted the first season due to a power struggle with then-team President John Collins. Four seasons later, Savage and Crennel were fired in one-fell swoop by Lerner.
Lerner was heavily rumored to hire former Patriots GM Scott Pioli as his GM. However, his love affair with fired Jets' coach Eric Mangini changed all that. Lerner quickly hired Mangini without hiring a GM, and most of the experienced GM candidates that were available (such as Pioli and Tom Dimitroff) passed on the job. Mangini reccommended George Kokinis to be his new GM, and one failed draft later, Kokins was fired and Lerner was willing to give ANYONE a boatload of cash to help save him from the mess his franchise was becoming.
I believe that if Nick Saban wants to leave Alabama, the job is his. I don't think he'd leave Alabama, but there are some sources that say that Saban could leave if his Crimson Tide win the national championship later this week. The only job on his radar is the Browns job, where he once served as the defensive coordinator with great success.
Chip Kelly has become the darling coach prospect. However, he runs a gimmicky offense with Oregon that I don't think can succeed in the NFL. Let the Eagles and Chargers fall over themselves to try to hire him. I'd rather have Bill O'Brien if you're going the college-coach route.
Josh McDaniels, the former Patriots offensive coordinator, already took himself out of the equation for any head coach openings (not many Browns fans were unhappy to hear that), and it looks like Jon Gruden and Bill Cowher aren't in any hurry to resume their coaching careers. If either them got hired by the Browns, I'd be surprised.
I'm anxious to see what happens these next few days. I'm willing to show Haslam and Banner my confidence as a Browns fan on what they can do. I really have no other choice.
Until next time, Happy New Year to you all, and remember that Cleveland Rocks!
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Change is a comin'
The 38-21 loss to a Washington Redskins team led by a fourth-round, second-string rookie quarterback named Kirk Cousins all assured it, and last week's lackluster 34-12 drubbing by Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos all but cemented it.
By this time next week, Pat Shurmur will be gone, and Tom Heckert may as well be gone, too.
That's even if the Browns can somehow knock off the Pittsburgh Steelers on the road this Sunday, clinching the first season-sweep of our hated rivals since 1988 and first since the team returned in 1999. In fact, it would only be the four season-sweep of the Steelers since 1970 (the Browns went 0-16 in their first 16 years playing at Three Rivers Stadium and wound up only winning there five times before it was mercifully imploded following the 2000 season).
The Browns will go into that game potentially with their third-string quarterback under center -- Thaddeus Lewis, who has never taken a regular season snap and was on the practice squad for most of this season. Josh Johnson, a former Tampa Bay quarterback who had been out of the league since the 49ers cut him in training camp, was brought in as the emergency quarterback in case starter Brandon Weeden or backup Colt McCoy (both shoulder injuries) can't go.
It's eerily reminisent of the last act of the Romeo Crennel/Phil Savage era. The Browns couldn't keep a healthy quarterback as the 2008 season wore down, losing Brady Quinn, Derek Anderson and third-stringer Ken Dorsey to injuries heading into the season finale at Pittsburgh. Bruce Gradkowski, who had just been signed two weeks earlier, was thrust into action and went a dismal 5-of-18 in a 31-0 drubbing by the Steelers.
That Steelers team wound up winning the Super Bowl, even though Ben Roethlisberger was carted off the field during that loss. This Steeler team is lugging a three-game losing streak into this season finale and have only won one game since the Browns beat them, 20-14, at home. All three losses have come with Roethlisberger at the helm, and the last two have directly been his fault with late interceptions directly leading to the game-winning points.
Oh, and did I mention the Steelers will miss the playoffs? Beauty.
Joe Banner has promised to make speedy decisions on both Shurmur and Heckert, which means that, by 10 a.m. New Years Eve, you can expect to get a press release saying both parties have been fired, followed by a press conference held by both Banner and owner Jimmy Haslam III defending their decision to make the change and talking about potential candidates.
Those candidates include Alabama head coach Nick Saban, Oregon head coach Chip Kelly, Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, soon-to-be fired Eagles head coach Andy Reid, ESPN football commentator Jon Gruden, Redskins offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, Broncos offensive coordinator Mike McCoy and the possibly fired Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett.
The Browns will have competition as they look for a new head coach. There could be at least 11 teams making a change at head coach this season. Along with the Browns, the Chiefs, the Chargers, the Eagles and (if they miss the playoffs) the Cowboys are assured of seeking a new head coach. The axe could be falling in Buffalo, New York (Jets), Jacksonville, Carolina, Arizona and Tennessee this offseason as well. So, they'll need to act fast if they want to hire the best person for the job.
Reportedly, if Saban wants the Browns job, it's his. Haslam is prepared to offer him a 10-year contract to come to Cleveland, reportedly, and that's regardless of who they hire at GM. Kelly has also been linked to taking Romeo Crennel's job in Kansas City, while Reid has been linked to Norv Turner's job in San Diego.
The new coach and GM's first major decision will be made at quarterback, with 30-year-old Weeden entering his second-year in the NFL. If he doesn't take another snap, Weeden will finish with 14 touchdown passes and 17 interceptions and 3,385 yards. Those are the most yards in a single-season since Derek Anderson threw for 3,787 yards, 29 touchdowns and 19 interceptions for the Browns in 2007. That year, the team went 10-6, but missed the playoffs by tiebreakers.
Tim Couch, the last Browns quarterback to start all 16 games in a regular season, threw for 3,040 yards with 17 touchdowns and 21 interceptions in 2001 for a Browns team that went 7-9.
Weeden's yardage total is the second-highest for the Browns since they've returned in 1999. In fact, it's the third-highest single-season total by a Browns quarterback since Bernie Kosar threw for 3,487 yards, 18 touchdowns and 9 interceptions for a 6-10 Browns team in 1991. That was also the last time a Browns quarterback started all 16 games until Couch did it in 2001.
It's pretty apparent that Weeden is a ill-fit for the West Coast offense operated by Pat Shurmur. Weeden has had a ton of passes batted down at the line of scrimmage because of the slant and short crossing routes -- defensive linemen who are blocked just follow his eyes and reach up as Weeden tries to thread the needle. That offense will be history next season.
Weeden has the arm strength to succeed in the NFL, especially in a cold-weather climate like Cleveland. He has displayed poise and has a bit of a gunslinger's attitude. That has led to some interceptions. However, Shurmur and Brad Childress have tried to rein him in, and that has only hindered Weeden's progress.
Unlike last season, there is not a deep quarterback draft to find an heir apparent. Matt Barkley and Geno Smith are the two best options, and both have fallen off the radar after dismal seasons.
In trades or free agency, the choices aren't all that great, either. The 49ers' Alex Smith, the Jets' Mark Sanchez and Tim Tebow, the Jaguars' Blaine Gabbert, the Seahawks' Matt Flynn, the Patriots' Ryan Mallett and the Eagles' Michael Vick are the most intriguing options that could be obtained, and all of them don't necessarily ooze "franchise-changer" at QB.
Joe Cleveland is inclined to give Weeden another season with an offense more tailored to his strengths and the strengths of running back Trent Richardson. Joe Cleveland does not want to see Colt McCoy return as the starter -- we've seen enough. Also, Bears backup QB Jason Campbell, Chiefs' deposed starting QB Matt Cassel or Raiders starting QB Carson Palmer aren't attractive options, either.
Let the speculation go in full force a week from now. But for now, this edition of the Browns have one more game to play and it's against the hated Steelers.
***
Before Joe Cleveland goes, congrats to Browns' left tackle Joe Thomas on his sixth Pro Bowl berth of his six-year NFL career. Thomas was Phil Savage's lone great choice (yeah, he passed on Adrian Peterson for him, but I think Thomas will have a longer career) and is well on the way to a Hall of Fame career.
Also, a hearty congratulations to long-time kicker Phil Dawson on his long-awaited, well-overdue first Pro Bowl berth. Dawson certainly deserves it after a long and successful career as the Browns' primary kicker since they returned in 1999, and his 2012 season has been fantastic. He's only missed one field goal, and that kick was blocked. Hopefully, Haslam and Banner ensure that Dawson ends his career in the Brown and Orange, because he certainly deserves to.
With Josh Cribbs (kick returner and special teamer), D'Qwell Jackson (inside linebacker) and Alex Mack (center) as first alternates, there could very well be five Browns playing in Hawaii the week before the Super Bowl. Joe Cleveland may have to actually watch the game now.
Until next time, remember that Cleveland Rocks!
By this time next week, Pat Shurmur will be gone, and Tom Heckert may as well be gone, too.
That's even if the Browns can somehow knock off the Pittsburgh Steelers on the road this Sunday, clinching the first season-sweep of our hated rivals since 1988 and first since the team returned in 1999. In fact, it would only be the four season-sweep of the Steelers since 1970 (the Browns went 0-16 in their first 16 years playing at Three Rivers Stadium and wound up only winning there five times before it was mercifully imploded following the 2000 season).
The Browns will go into that game potentially with their third-string quarterback under center -- Thaddeus Lewis, who has never taken a regular season snap and was on the practice squad for most of this season. Josh Johnson, a former Tampa Bay quarterback who had been out of the league since the 49ers cut him in training camp, was brought in as the emergency quarterback in case starter Brandon Weeden or backup Colt McCoy (both shoulder injuries) can't go.
It's eerily reminisent of the last act of the Romeo Crennel/Phil Savage era. The Browns couldn't keep a healthy quarterback as the 2008 season wore down, losing Brady Quinn, Derek Anderson and third-stringer Ken Dorsey to injuries heading into the season finale at Pittsburgh. Bruce Gradkowski, who had just been signed two weeks earlier, was thrust into action and went a dismal 5-of-18 in a 31-0 drubbing by the Steelers.
That Steelers team wound up winning the Super Bowl, even though Ben Roethlisberger was carted off the field during that loss. This Steeler team is lugging a three-game losing streak into this season finale and have only won one game since the Browns beat them, 20-14, at home. All three losses have come with Roethlisberger at the helm, and the last two have directly been his fault with late interceptions directly leading to the game-winning points.
Oh, and did I mention the Steelers will miss the playoffs? Beauty.
Joe Banner has promised to make speedy decisions on both Shurmur and Heckert, which means that, by 10 a.m. New Years Eve, you can expect to get a press release saying both parties have been fired, followed by a press conference held by both Banner and owner Jimmy Haslam III defending their decision to make the change and talking about potential candidates.
Those candidates include Alabama head coach Nick Saban, Oregon head coach Chip Kelly, Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, soon-to-be fired Eagles head coach Andy Reid, ESPN football commentator Jon Gruden, Redskins offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, Broncos offensive coordinator Mike McCoy and the possibly fired Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett.
The Browns will have competition as they look for a new head coach. There could be at least 11 teams making a change at head coach this season. Along with the Browns, the Chiefs, the Chargers, the Eagles and (if they miss the playoffs) the Cowboys are assured of seeking a new head coach. The axe could be falling in Buffalo, New York (Jets), Jacksonville, Carolina, Arizona and Tennessee this offseason as well. So, they'll need to act fast if they want to hire the best person for the job.
Reportedly, if Saban wants the Browns job, it's his. Haslam is prepared to offer him a 10-year contract to come to Cleveland, reportedly, and that's regardless of who they hire at GM. Kelly has also been linked to taking Romeo Crennel's job in Kansas City, while Reid has been linked to Norv Turner's job in San Diego.
The new coach and GM's first major decision will be made at quarterback, with 30-year-old Weeden entering his second-year in the NFL. If he doesn't take another snap, Weeden will finish with 14 touchdown passes and 17 interceptions and 3,385 yards. Those are the most yards in a single-season since Derek Anderson threw for 3,787 yards, 29 touchdowns and 19 interceptions for the Browns in 2007. That year, the team went 10-6, but missed the playoffs by tiebreakers.
Tim Couch, the last Browns quarterback to start all 16 games in a regular season, threw for 3,040 yards with 17 touchdowns and 21 interceptions in 2001 for a Browns team that went 7-9.
Weeden's yardage total is the second-highest for the Browns since they've returned in 1999. In fact, it's the third-highest single-season total by a Browns quarterback since Bernie Kosar threw for 3,487 yards, 18 touchdowns and 9 interceptions for a 6-10 Browns team in 1991. That was also the last time a Browns quarterback started all 16 games until Couch did it in 2001.
It's pretty apparent that Weeden is a ill-fit for the West Coast offense operated by Pat Shurmur. Weeden has had a ton of passes batted down at the line of scrimmage because of the slant and short crossing routes -- defensive linemen who are blocked just follow his eyes and reach up as Weeden tries to thread the needle. That offense will be history next season.
Weeden has the arm strength to succeed in the NFL, especially in a cold-weather climate like Cleveland. He has displayed poise and has a bit of a gunslinger's attitude. That has led to some interceptions. However, Shurmur and Brad Childress have tried to rein him in, and that has only hindered Weeden's progress.
Unlike last season, there is not a deep quarterback draft to find an heir apparent. Matt Barkley and Geno Smith are the two best options, and both have fallen off the radar after dismal seasons.
In trades or free agency, the choices aren't all that great, either. The 49ers' Alex Smith, the Jets' Mark Sanchez and Tim Tebow, the Jaguars' Blaine Gabbert, the Seahawks' Matt Flynn, the Patriots' Ryan Mallett and the Eagles' Michael Vick are the most intriguing options that could be obtained, and all of them don't necessarily ooze "franchise-changer" at QB.
Joe Cleveland is inclined to give Weeden another season with an offense more tailored to his strengths and the strengths of running back Trent Richardson. Joe Cleveland does not want to see Colt McCoy return as the starter -- we've seen enough. Also, Bears backup QB Jason Campbell, Chiefs' deposed starting QB Matt Cassel or Raiders starting QB Carson Palmer aren't attractive options, either.
Let the speculation go in full force a week from now. But for now, this edition of the Browns have one more game to play and it's against the hated Steelers.
***
Before Joe Cleveland goes, congrats to Browns' left tackle Joe Thomas on his sixth Pro Bowl berth of his six-year NFL career. Thomas was Phil Savage's lone great choice (yeah, he passed on Adrian Peterson for him, but I think Thomas will have a longer career) and is well on the way to a Hall of Fame career.
Also, a hearty congratulations to long-time kicker Phil Dawson on his long-awaited, well-overdue first Pro Bowl berth. Dawson certainly deserves it after a long and successful career as the Browns' primary kicker since they returned in 1999, and his 2012 season has been fantastic. He's only missed one field goal, and that kick was blocked. Hopefully, Haslam and Banner ensure that Dawson ends his career in the Brown and Orange, because he certainly deserves to.
With Josh Cribbs (kick returner and special teamer), D'Qwell Jackson (inside linebacker) and Alex Mack (center) as first alternates, there could very well be five Browns playing in Hawaii the week before the Super Bowl. Joe Cleveland may have to actually watch the game now.
Until next time, remember that Cleveland Rocks!
Monday, December 10, 2012
No trophy for this Lombardi
Lombardi
A certain magic still lingers in the very name.
It speaks of duels in the snow and November mud...
He remains for many the heart of pro football, pumping hard right now.
-- Steve Sabol
Steve Sabol's poem, read famously by the "Voice of God" John Facenda as a narration on an NFL Films special, is not about the guy who's being rumored to become the new general manager of the Cleveland Browns, Michael Lombardi.
No, this poem was about the late, great Vince Lombardi -- one of Fordman's legendary "Five Blocks of Granite" offensive line, the defensive coordinator of the New York Giants in the 1950s (while Tom Landry served as the offensive coordinator) and the head coach of the Green Bay Packers during that teams' ascension to glory during the 1960s.
Lombardi's teams won the first two Super Bowls, and the winner of the Super Bowl is annually awarded the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
The only link to Vince Lombardi and Mike Lombardi is that they just so happen to share a remarkable last name. The fact that I just linked these two in the same sentence will probably make Vince roll over in his grave and have his ghost haunt me.
Mike Lombardi was here in Cleveland, from 1987 to 1996. He was the team's Pro Personnel Director in 1987 after serving as a scout for Bill Walsh's 49ers teams from 1984-87. He was promoted to Director of Player Personnel in 1992 when Bill Belichick was hired as the head coach and Ernie Accorsi took that as his cue to depart.
Lombardi was essentially the general manager during Belichick's final four years as the head coach of the Browns before the Dead Judas decided to move the franchise to Baltimore in a selfish act of greed. During that time, the Browns went 7-9 (1992), 7-9 (1993), 12-6 (1994) and 5-11 (1995). The ''94 team went 11-5 in the regular season and reached the playoffs as a Wild Card team. The 20-13 home victory over the Patriots on New Year's Day 1995 is still the last playoff victory for the Cleveland Browns -- home or overall.
In that time period, the Browns drafted such "luminaries" as Tommy Vardell, Patrick Rowe, Gerald Dixon, Dan Footman, Mike Caldwell, Romeo Bandison, Issac Booth, Craig Powell, Eric Zeier, Mike Frederick and Tau Pupua. To be fair, he also drafted Steve Everitt, Derrick Alexander and Antonio Langham, but overall, this guy was a freaking disaster. Even then, I may be generous about Alexander and Langham -- Alexander was a bust in his two seasons with the Browns, while Langham had an injury prone career and didn't play beyond 1999 after being drafted in the first round in 1994. I can remember seeing Langham getting torched repeatedly when he came back to the Browns during the expansion season.
Remember the 1995 draft, the last Belichick/Lombardi draft? Lombardi had Belichick convinced that a big tight end named Kyle Brady was the answer to his prayers. When the Jets selected Brady ninth, both guys blew their stacks and made a trade with the 49ers. San Francisco moved up to the 10th spot and selected receiver J.J. Stokes, who had a decent career. The Browns moved all the way to the bottom of the first round and took Powell, an Ohio State linebacker who couldn't get off special teams duties.
The Dead Judas gave the ax to both Lombardi and Belichick when the move was officially approved. He then served as an advisor for the St. Louis Rams in 1996, a consultant to the Philadelphia Eagles in 1997, the Director of Pro Personnel in Philly in 1998, and the Senior Football Executive for the Oakland Raiders from 1999-2007.
In his last draft with the Raiders, Lombardi selected one of the biggest draft busts of all-time, LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell, with the first overall pick. Russell only played three years in the NFL and hasn't even gotten a tryout since the Raiders washed their hands of him in 2009.
In 1996-97, Lombardi got a TV gig as the "insider" on CBS's pregame show, The NFL Today. He had his own segment and eventually became a regular on the desk toward the end of his tenure. That was just a small taste of what he's done since 2007.
In 2008, both the NFL Network and HBO hired him to be an on-air "insider." He worked on the Emmy-award winning Inside the NFL show while also serving as a studio analyst on NFL Network's Total Access show. From 2008-10, he started writing columns for Sports Illustrated's Web site, NationalFootballPost.com (which he helped found) and NFL.com.
He's also been a very outspoken critic of all things related to the Browns since the team returned in 1999. He gave Tom Heckert's 2012 draft a 'C,' and was critical of the trade to move up to select Trent Richardson and the selections of Brandon Weeden, Mitchell Schwartz and John Hughes.
And, THIS is the guy Joe Banner wants to turn the keys to the castle over to? REALLY?!?!?
I can remember Lombardi being a swarmy asshole during his tenure in Cleveland. He was supposedly the main imputus behind Bernie Kosar's outright release during the 1993 season, to the point where he had a tape made of nothing but Kosar lowlights and showed it to the Dead Judas as the reason why they had to get rid of him, even though Vinny Testaverde was injured and they were let with a non-descript third-stringer named Todd Philcox.
I also find it interesting that, of all the people associated with Belichick during his Browns years, Lombardi was the only one who never was re-hired by Belichick when the latter got back into head coaching five years later with New England and was never publicly vouched for by Belichick.
Nick Saban, Jim Schwartz, Eric Mangini, Scott Pioli, Kirk Ferentz, Tom Dimitroff, Ozzie Newsome, Phil Savage ... all got the Belichick seal of approval. All (except Ozzie and Saban) have failed without being around Belichick, but you get the picture.
According to a recent story in the Boston Globe that claims that Lombardi is a "serious candidate" to be Banner's hand-picked GM to replace Tom Heckert, Lombardi is serving as an unofficial consultant to Belichick this season and helping him by providing scouting reports on their opponents. Whether that's true or not remains to be seen -- Belichick still hasn't acknowledged Lombardi publicly.
The story in the Globe, and that has been reported on other "insider" NFL Web sites, says that, if Lombardi gets hired in Cleveland, he will likely hire Saban, Chip Kelly or Patriots offensive coordinator and former Broncos head coach Josh McDaniels as the new head coach. That's an awful big promise list there. Funny that, at one point, three different reports linked Lombardi to the three different candidates before it's been merged to being one of the three.
Lombardi has not publically commented on the possibility of coming back to Cleveland, or as to how (and if) he can deliver on his head coaching wish list. However, these news outlets are getting their info from somewhere.
Banner gave a veiled denial a few weeks back, and some Cleveland sources are saying that reports chasing Heckert out of town are very premature. One thing, though, is that Heckert's job description has changed -- Banner now has the final say over everything football related, including over the roster, whereas Heckert had that say when he left Philly to become the Browns' new GM in 2010 under Mike Holmgren.
Perhaps the source of all of this Lombardi talk is Lombardi himself.
Being a so-called "NFL insider" and working as a bit of a rumor monger himself for different Web sites, I'm sure he's met a lot of reporters and sided up to them over the years. Perhaps he's been promoting himself as this candidate with these visions of grandeur of hiring a new head coach while doing so "anonymously" and "off the record."
Does Lombardi have a tie to Saban still? Who knows? Saban, who is preparing his Alabama team to take on Notre Dame for the BCS National Championship in a few weeks, hasn't commented on anything not related to the game and his quest for his second-straight national championshp, his third since taking over Alabama, and his fourth overall as a college football head coach.
Saban had one forgettable stretch as the head coach of the Miami Dolphins, where he went 15-17 from 2005-06. That was right after he won the national championship at LSU and before he took the Alabama job. His only other NFL job was when Belichick plucked him from being the head coach at Toledo to becoming his defensive coordinator for the Browns from 1991-94.
That 1994 team had one of the best defenses Cleveland had ever seen. I believe they finished ranked second overall when that season was concluded. But, after that season, Saban accepted the head coaching gig at Michigan State, and just one season later, the Browns were no more.
Saban was already a candidate to replace Pat Shurmur (if Jimmy Haslam III decides to make a coaching change) because of those Cleveland ties, along with his being from West Virginia and a former player, graduate and assistant coach at Kent State. Many people believe that if he wins his second-straight national title and third in the last four years at Alabama, he would be inclined to test the waters in the NFL again.
The reporter for the Boston Globe, in that story, blamed Saban's coaching shortcomings in Miami to working with Randy Mueller as the GM. The two had never worked with each other before and didn't seem to grasp each other's systems. As for the real reason, who knows.
Of the three on Lombardi's so-called "wish list," McDaniels seems the least desirable, even though he grew up in Canton and played football for John Carroll. McDaniels got off to a 6-0 start with the Denver Broncos in his first season, even though he ran off Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall and Peyton Hillis, among others, before he even got started. But, that team slumped to 8-8, and he didn't even last his full second season before being shown the door by new team president John Elway.
While this talk continues to swirl about, the Browns have suddenly become one of the hottest teams in the NFL. Since Haslam officially took over as the team's owner, the Browns have gone 4-3, with close road losses to Indianapolis and Dallas and a close home loss to Baltimore staining that record. The Browns have won their last three games in a row and have looked better and better with each win.
The defense has emerged as one of the best defenses in the league under Dick Jauron. They've improved on their run defense and have forced a lot of turnovers. The eight turnover game against the Steelers has kick-started this win streak, which has kept the Browns alive for the postseason with three games left in the regular season.
PLAYOFFS!! PLAYOFFS??
In order for that to happen, the Browns would have to turn that three-game win streak into a six-game win streak -- a tall order, indeed. But, they'll be facing a Redskins team with a gimpy Robert Griffin III at home this Sunday, a Broncos team that, despite having Peyton Manning, has already clinched their division just before Christmas, and a suddenly very-beatable Steelers team at the big ketchup bottle in the season finale on Dec. 30.
Could that Steeler game suddenly have playoff implications for BOTH teams?
Could the Browns go into that game with a five-game winning streak?
Could the Browns pull off the rare season sweep of the Steelers -- something that hasn't happened since 1988? In fact, the last time the Browns won consecutive games against the Steelers was back in 1999-2000.
And, when it's all said and done, could Shurmur and Heckert retain their jobs?
Of the two, Heckert should be the safest. However, you hear more rumors about replacing Heckert than you do about Shurmur (I still believe it's because of Lombardi's behind-the-scenes self-promotion). Many people believe that a change at coach would lean to a change at GM as well.
The Browns have many people in this town finally believing that something is there. The offense has improved under Weeden and Richardson, and Josh Gordon (who Lombardi ripped the Browns for picking in the second round of the supplemental draft, by the way) has emerged to become a legitimate deep threat. Greg Little, who many fans (Joe Cleveland included) were ready to run out of town earlier this year with his bout of dropped passes and self-promotions, has become a fantastic receiver over the second half of the season.
Tight ends Ben Watson and Jordan Cameron have become reliable receivers, and Montario Hardesty -- who came into this season as the one glaring blemish on Heckert's resume -- has emerged to become a legimate change-of-pace back to the pounding Richardson and has looked very good. Even fourth-rounder Travis Benjamin showed glimpes of being a playmaker this past Sunday with that 93-yard punt return touchdown.
Could a proven head coach, like a Saban or an Andy Reid or a Jon Gruden, come in and take what this team has done and get them to the next level? Or, does it make sense to stick with Shurmur one more season and see if he can continue to build off of what he's accomplished.
The 4-3 defense should be here to stay. The Browns are playing the best defense we've seen, arguably since Saban's 1994 unit. That defense was also a 4-3 defense. Or, Bud Carson's attacking 1989 unit, which was also a 4-3. Most of the current Belichick disciples are rooted to the 3-4 (just ask Mangini and Romeo Crennel how well that worked out for them). Like the Steelers did with Dick LeBeau when they replaced Bill Cowher with Mike Tomlin, the Browns should insist the new coach retains Jauron and his philosophies or else take a hike.
The West Coast offense could use some tweaking. Perhaps trying to go to more of a spread-style would work with the weapons the Browns have. Weeden excelled in a spread at Oklahoma State, and his receivers played in it at the college level. While Richardson did not play in a spread at Alabama, I'm sure he'd do just fine in it. Perhaps a guy like Chip Kelly, whose innovative offensive schemes at Oregon have gotten some kudos, could make the spread work at the NFL level. Or, perhaps a hybrid WC scheme, like the ones used by the Eagles, the Packers or the Saints, would work better.
As a Browns fan, it's good to be excited about games in late December -- it's been a while since that happened. And, it's good to be legitimately excited about what the future holds for this franchise.
Joe Banner and Jimmy Haslam, don't drink the Lombardi Kool-Aid. Don't let him destroy the process that has taken place. Don't let his promises of Saban and Kelly persuade you to bring him in. He's a bullshitting blowhard -- always has, always will.
You've done nothing but ooze goodwill since you've taken over this franchise from Absantee Randy. Hiring a clown like Lombardi would deflate that balloon really quickly.
Instead of his Lombardi's name reminding of "duels in the snow" and "November mud," it speaks of wasted draft picks and bad PR.
This will be an intriguing offseason, indeed, in many, many ways. Hopefully, it's for all the right reasons.
Until next time, remember that Cleveland Rocks!
A certain magic still lingers in the very name.
It speaks of duels in the snow and November mud...
He remains for many the heart of pro football, pumping hard right now.
-- Steve Sabol
Steve Sabol's poem, read famously by the "Voice of God" John Facenda as a narration on an NFL Films special, is not about the guy who's being rumored to become the new general manager of the Cleveland Browns, Michael Lombardi.
No, this poem was about the late, great Vince Lombardi -- one of Fordman's legendary "Five Blocks of Granite" offensive line, the defensive coordinator of the New York Giants in the 1950s (while Tom Landry served as the offensive coordinator) and the head coach of the Green Bay Packers during that teams' ascension to glory during the 1960s.
Lombardi's teams won the first two Super Bowls, and the winner of the Super Bowl is annually awarded the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
The only link to Vince Lombardi and Mike Lombardi is that they just so happen to share a remarkable last name. The fact that I just linked these two in the same sentence will probably make Vince roll over in his grave and have his ghost haunt me.
Mike Lombardi was here in Cleveland, from 1987 to 1996. He was the team's Pro Personnel Director in 1987 after serving as a scout for Bill Walsh's 49ers teams from 1984-87. He was promoted to Director of Player Personnel in 1992 when Bill Belichick was hired as the head coach and Ernie Accorsi took that as his cue to depart.
Lombardi was essentially the general manager during Belichick's final four years as the head coach of the Browns before the Dead Judas decided to move the franchise to Baltimore in a selfish act of greed. During that time, the Browns went 7-9 (1992), 7-9 (1993), 12-6 (1994) and 5-11 (1995). The ''94 team went 11-5 in the regular season and reached the playoffs as a Wild Card team. The 20-13 home victory over the Patriots on New Year's Day 1995 is still the last playoff victory for the Cleveland Browns -- home or overall.
In that time period, the Browns drafted such "luminaries" as Tommy Vardell, Patrick Rowe, Gerald Dixon, Dan Footman, Mike Caldwell, Romeo Bandison, Issac Booth, Craig Powell, Eric Zeier, Mike Frederick and Tau Pupua. To be fair, he also drafted Steve Everitt, Derrick Alexander and Antonio Langham, but overall, this guy was a freaking disaster. Even then, I may be generous about Alexander and Langham -- Alexander was a bust in his two seasons with the Browns, while Langham had an injury prone career and didn't play beyond 1999 after being drafted in the first round in 1994. I can remember seeing Langham getting torched repeatedly when he came back to the Browns during the expansion season.
Remember the 1995 draft, the last Belichick/Lombardi draft? Lombardi had Belichick convinced that a big tight end named Kyle Brady was the answer to his prayers. When the Jets selected Brady ninth, both guys blew their stacks and made a trade with the 49ers. San Francisco moved up to the 10th spot and selected receiver J.J. Stokes, who had a decent career. The Browns moved all the way to the bottom of the first round and took Powell, an Ohio State linebacker who couldn't get off special teams duties.
The Dead Judas gave the ax to both Lombardi and Belichick when the move was officially approved. He then served as an advisor for the St. Louis Rams in 1996, a consultant to the Philadelphia Eagles in 1997, the Director of Pro Personnel in Philly in 1998, and the Senior Football Executive for the Oakland Raiders from 1999-2007.
In his last draft with the Raiders, Lombardi selected one of the biggest draft busts of all-time, LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell, with the first overall pick. Russell only played three years in the NFL and hasn't even gotten a tryout since the Raiders washed their hands of him in 2009.
In 1996-97, Lombardi got a TV gig as the "insider" on CBS's pregame show, The NFL Today. He had his own segment and eventually became a regular on the desk toward the end of his tenure. That was just a small taste of what he's done since 2007.
In 2008, both the NFL Network and HBO hired him to be an on-air "insider." He worked on the Emmy-award winning Inside the NFL show while also serving as a studio analyst on NFL Network's Total Access show. From 2008-10, he started writing columns for Sports Illustrated's Web site, NationalFootballPost.com (which he helped found) and NFL.com.
He's also been a very outspoken critic of all things related to the Browns since the team returned in 1999. He gave Tom Heckert's 2012 draft a 'C,' and was critical of the trade to move up to select Trent Richardson and the selections of Brandon Weeden, Mitchell Schwartz and John Hughes.
And, THIS is the guy Joe Banner wants to turn the keys to the castle over to? REALLY?!?!?
I can remember Lombardi being a swarmy asshole during his tenure in Cleveland. He was supposedly the main imputus behind Bernie Kosar's outright release during the 1993 season, to the point where he had a tape made of nothing but Kosar lowlights and showed it to the Dead Judas as the reason why they had to get rid of him, even though Vinny Testaverde was injured and they were let with a non-descript third-stringer named Todd Philcox.
I also find it interesting that, of all the people associated with Belichick during his Browns years, Lombardi was the only one who never was re-hired by Belichick when the latter got back into head coaching five years later with New England and was never publicly vouched for by Belichick.
Nick Saban, Jim Schwartz, Eric Mangini, Scott Pioli, Kirk Ferentz, Tom Dimitroff, Ozzie Newsome, Phil Savage ... all got the Belichick seal of approval. All (except Ozzie and Saban) have failed without being around Belichick, but you get the picture.
According to a recent story in the Boston Globe that claims that Lombardi is a "serious candidate" to be Banner's hand-picked GM to replace Tom Heckert, Lombardi is serving as an unofficial consultant to Belichick this season and helping him by providing scouting reports on their opponents. Whether that's true or not remains to be seen -- Belichick still hasn't acknowledged Lombardi publicly.
The story in the Globe, and that has been reported on other "insider" NFL Web sites, says that, if Lombardi gets hired in Cleveland, he will likely hire Saban, Chip Kelly or Patriots offensive coordinator and former Broncos head coach Josh McDaniels as the new head coach. That's an awful big promise list there. Funny that, at one point, three different reports linked Lombardi to the three different candidates before it's been merged to being one of the three.
Lombardi has not publically commented on the possibility of coming back to Cleveland, or as to how (and if) he can deliver on his head coaching wish list. However, these news outlets are getting their info from somewhere.
Banner gave a veiled denial a few weeks back, and some Cleveland sources are saying that reports chasing Heckert out of town are very premature. One thing, though, is that Heckert's job description has changed -- Banner now has the final say over everything football related, including over the roster, whereas Heckert had that say when he left Philly to become the Browns' new GM in 2010 under Mike Holmgren.
Perhaps the source of all of this Lombardi talk is Lombardi himself.
Being a so-called "NFL insider" and working as a bit of a rumor monger himself for different Web sites, I'm sure he's met a lot of reporters and sided up to them over the years. Perhaps he's been promoting himself as this candidate with these visions of grandeur of hiring a new head coach while doing so "anonymously" and "off the record."
Does Lombardi have a tie to Saban still? Who knows? Saban, who is preparing his Alabama team to take on Notre Dame for the BCS National Championship in a few weeks, hasn't commented on anything not related to the game and his quest for his second-straight national championshp, his third since taking over Alabama, and his fourth overall as a college football head coach.
Saban had one forgettable stretch as the head coach of the Miami Dolphins, where he went 15-17 from 2005-06. That was right after he won the national championship at LSU and before he took the Alabama job. His only other NFL job was when Belichick plucked him from being the head coach at Toledo to becoming his defensive coordinator for the Browns from 1991-94.
That 1994 team had one of the best defenses Cleveland had ever seen. I believe they finished ranked second overall when that season was concluded. But, after that season, Saban accepted the head coaching gig at Michigan State, and just one season later, the Browns were no more.
Saban was already a candidate to replace Pat Shurmur (if Jimmy Haslam III decides to make a coaching change) because of those Cleveland ties, along with his being from West Virginia and a former player, graduate and assistant coach at Kent State. Many people believe that if he wins his second-straight national title and third in the last four years at Alabama, he would be inclined to test the waters in the NFL again.
The reporter for the Boston Globe, in that story, blamed Saban's coaching shortcomings in Miami to working with Randy Mueller as the GM. The two had never worked with each other before and didn't seem to grasp each other's systems. As for the real reason, who knows.
Of the three on Lombardi's so-called "wish list," McDaniels seems the least desirable, even though he grew up in Canton and played football for John Carroll. McDaniels got off to a 6-0 start with the Denver Broncos in his first season, even though he ran off Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall and Peyton Hillis, among others, before he even got started. But, that team slumped to 8-8, and he didn't even last his full second season before being shown the door by new team president John Elway.
While this talk continues to swirl about, the Browns have suddenly become one of the hottest teams in the NFL. Since Haslam officially took over as the team's owner, the Browns have gone 4-3, with close road losses to Indianapolis and Dallas and a close home loss to Baltimore staining that record. The Browns have won their last three games in a row and have looked better and better with each win.
The defense has emerged as one of the best defenses in the league under Dick Jauron. They've improved on their run defense and have forced a lot of turnovers. The eight turnover game against the Steelers has kick-started this win streak, which has kept the Browns alive for the postseason with three games left in the regular season.
PLAYOFFS!! PLAYOFFS??
In order for that to happen, the Browns would have to turn that three-game win streak into a six-game win streak -- a tall order, indeed. But, they'll be facing a Redskins team with a gimpy Robert Griffin III at home this Sunday, a Broncos team that, despite having Peyton Manning, has already clinched their division just before Christmas, and a suddenly very-beatable Steelers team at the big ketchup bottle in the season finale on Dec. 30.
Could that Steeler game suddenly have playoff implications for BOTH teams?
Could the Browns go into that game with a five-game winning streak?
Could the Browns pull off the rare season sweep of the Steelers -- something that hasn't happened since 1988? In fact, the last time the Browns won consecutive games against the Steelers was back in 1999-2000.
And, when it's all said and done, could Shurmur and Heckert retain their jobs?
Of the two, Heckert should be the safest. However, you hear more rumors about replacing Heckert than you do about Shurmur (I still believe it's because of Lombardi's behind-the-scenes self-promotion). Many people believe that a change at coach would lean to a change at GM as well.
The Browns have many people in this town finally believing that something is there. The offense has improved under Weeden and Richardson, and Josh Gordon (who Lombardi ripped the Browns for picking in the second round of the supplemental draft, by the way) has emerged to become a legitimate deep threat. Greg Little, who many fans (Joe Cleveland included) were ready to run out of town earlier this year with his bout of dropped passes and self-promotions, has become a fantastic receiver over the second half of the season.
Tight ends Ben Watson and Jordan Cameron have become reliable receivers, and Montario Hardesty -- who came into this season as the one glaring blemish on Heckert's resume -- has emerged to become a legimate change-of-pace back to the pounding Richardson and has looked very good. Even fourth-rounder Travis Benjamin showed glimpes of being a playmaker this past Sunday with that 93-yard punt return touchdown.
Could a proven head coach, like a Saban or an Andy Reid or a Jon Gruden, come in and take what this team has done and get them to the next level? Or, does it make sense to stick with Shurmur one more season and see if he can continue to build off of what he's accomplished.
The 4-3 defense should be here to stay. The Browns are playing the best defense we've seen, arguably since Saban's 1994 unit. That defense was also a 4-3 defense. Or, Bud Carson's attacking 1989 unit, which was also a 4-3. Most of the current Belichick disciples are rooted to the 3-4 (just ask Mangini and Romeo Crennel how well that worked out for them). Like the Steelers did with Dick LeBeau when they replaced Bill Cowher with Mike Tomlin, the Browns should insist the new coach retains Jauron and his philosophies or else take a hike.
The West Coast offense could use some tweaking. Perhaps trying to go to more of a spread-style would work with the weapons the Browns have. Weeden excelled in a spread at Oklahoma State, and his receivers played in it at the college level. While Richardson did not play in a spread at Alabama, I'm sure he'd do just fine in it. Perhaps a guy like Chip Kelly, whose innovative offensive schemes at Oregon have gotten some kudos, could make the spread work at the NFL level. Or, perhaps a hybrid WC scheme, like the ones used by the Eagles, the Packers or the Saints, would work better.
As a Browns fan, it's good to be excited about games in late December -- it's been a while since that happened. And, it's good to be legitimately excited about what the future holds for this franchise.
Joe Banner and Jimmy Haslam, don't drink the Lombardi Kool-Aid. Don't let him destroy the process that has taken place. Don't let his promises of Saban and Kelly persuade you to bring him in. He's a bullshitting blowhard -- always has, always will.
You've done nothing but ooze goodwill since you've taken over this franchise from Absantee Randy. Hiring a clown like Lombardi would deflate that balloon really quickly.
Instead of his Lombardi's name reminding of "duels in the snow" and "November mud," it speaks of wasted draft picks and bad PR.
This will be an intriguing offseason, indeed, in many, many ways. Hopefully, it's for all the right reasons.
Until next time, remember that Cleveland Rocks!
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