Lingering Items--Controversy Edition

Here’s a case of what goes around comes around. In a recent story from ESPN.com, a NFL coach, discussing his quarterback situation and whether or not he was ready to name a starter for the regular season replied, "Who knows? Maybe we'll keep them guessing."

Sure it sounds like Cleveland Browns head coach Eric Mangini circa 2009 vacillating over whether to start Derek Anderson or Brady Quinn at quarterback, but the coach in question is Arizona Cardinal’s Ken Whisenhut. Yet Anderson remains the common denominator. Same problem, different team.

If you really want to understand the difference thus far between this year’s Browns and last year’s Browns you only need to see the havoc that Anderson’s presence is causing for Whisenhut and the Cardinals to appreciate why teams simply can’t enter the regular season indecisive about their starting quarterback as the Browns did last season.

Mangini always seemed bright enough to understand that a quarterback controversy is never healthy for a team. Yet he got sucked right into a vortex of his own creation when he announced an open competition that ultimately divided the team and left them unprepared for the regular season. Mangini never could get comfortable enough with either Quinn or Anderson to give a full-fledged vote of confidence and as a result the offense suffered greatly. (The defense didn’t have any such excuse. It’s problem then as now is that there aren’t enough good players.)

But this isn’t about revisiting past sins so much as it is to illustrate why the Browns are on a better path now than the Cardinals unless Whisenhut does what either Phil Savage or Mangini should have done—dump one of the “starters” before this cancer spreads.

When Mike Holmgren became the president of the Cleveland Browns, he understood better than most the quarterback situation. It’s his raison d’être. It wasn’t just the pros and cons of each player that he grasped. More so he understood how Mangini’s frustration with each quarterback’s various deficiencies was making him indecisive about the key position in football and ultimately impacting the team.
Holmgren quickly determined that the Browns shouldn’t make any effort to re-sign Anderson. Holmgren was less certain about Quinn, mainly because Quinn never really had a chance to develop. But he was certain at least that Mangini wasn’t a Quinn fan. Having committed to Mangini, Holmgren deemed it foolish to force feed him a quarterback he didn’t want and had new general manager Tom Heckert trade Quinn, which actually worked out pretty well.

That paved the way, of course, for a far more settled situation at quarterback for the Browns. They signed Jake Delhomme and traded for a firmly established number two quarterback in Seneca Wallace. They then drafted Colt McCoy on the if-come. It’s really a textbook example of how to populate the quarterback position and it has settled this team in ways that the preseason can only hint at.
Meanwhile, in Arizona there is a churning controversy between Anderson, who thought he was signing as a back up, and former first round pick Matt Leinart. Somewhere between Anderson’s signing and now, Whisenhut and his coaching staff fell in love with Anderson’s strong arm and the cut of his jib and their infatuation with Leinart and his potential fell accordingly.

All of this culminated with Whisenhut unexpectedly naming Anderson as the team’s starter for the third preseason game, traditionally the most important game in the preseason, thus creating the inevitable quarterback controversy. Leinart didn’t help things of course by taking his case to the media.

If rumors are true, Whisenhut is actively trying to solve his problem by trading Leinart. Good luck there, on both fronts. Anderson has one year of superior performance under his belt. The problem is that it was in 2007 and since when he hasn’t been injured he’s been awful. And it’s not “awful” in the sense of it being bad-luck awful. The guy simply has no touch on the mid-range passes that are so crucial to an offense’s success. Couple that with an inability to scramble and a deer-in-the-headlights approach to reading defenses and you end up with someone who shouldn’t start for any team except in emergencies.

But Leinart hasn’t shown much either and probably never will. He was overrated coming out of college and eventually will become some other team’s pain in the butt.
All of this is of course a cautionary lesson about quarterbacks in general. They can have the right size and the right arm and still not make it. It really comes down to what’s between the ears and is why someone like Tom Brady can make it and someone like Matt Leinhart cannot.

Having learned that lesson, the Browns are now far better off. For Cardinals fans, it’s going to be a long year.
**


The Jim Brown controversy continued nearly unabated this past week but in the most unusual way. For reasons that make little sense, Brown leaked to the media his letter to Mike Holmgren and Randy Lerner about why he won’t be part of the Browns’ Ring of Honor ceremony.

Accuse the Browns all you want of being tone deaf on this or any other matter, but Brown is at least as tone deaf, particularly if he thought this letter would somehow garner him much sympathy for his position in a dispute that is much ado about nothing.

As usual, and as he’s done with almost everything else in his life, Brown has decided to take the road less traveled and for no particularly good reason.
That Brown sees himself as the oppressed in every situation is a given and unless you’ve walked in his shoes as a youngster or even as an adult and were exposed to the kind of racism that formed the core of his belief system, it will always be hard to relate to his thought pattern, let alone make sense of it.

And yet, why is it that when all of this is stripped away it seems like Brown’s complaints really boil down to money? Owner Randy Lerner, of his own volition and probably just to show everyone that he really is a Browns fan at heart, kept Brown coming around. Sure Brown carried an “advisor” title, but really he was basically a well-paid greeter. Brown saw his role much differently, if you believe the letter he wrote to Holmgren. He claims he was paid to offer his intelligence and logic to advise Lerner on football matters, reporting only to Lerner.

It doesn’t seem like Lerner saw it quite that way since he went out and hired Holmgren to play that same role in a much more formal sense. For good measure, Lerner then foisted Brown on him.

But just taking Brown at his word on his role (which, by the way, explains plenty about why Lerner made such a mess of things), it still begs the question as to why Brown’s so offended in the first place. That’s where the money part comes in. Something tells me that if Holmgren would have kept Brown’s reportedly half million dollar salary in place, Brown would still be coming around offering his sometimes bizarre insights, even if it was to someone who knows better. But Holmgren wanted to formalize Brown’s role into what he essentially already was and cut the salary accordingly. Brown balked and hence the standoff.

Brown didn’t help his cause by intentionally misquoting Holmgren to make it appear as if Holmgren was a racist or that Holmgren’s invitation to Brown to attend the ring ceremony had any underlying racial implications. All Brown really did was make himself look like a fool and a whiner. The ceremony will go on, with or without Brown, and Brown’s name will be in the Ring of Honor, whether or not he’s there and whether or not he likes it.

Brown has always been a compelling but difficult personality and he’s proven that once again. With Brown both the good and bad about him is that you can’t change the past.
***

There was an interesting segment on ESPN recently in which the talking heads debated the number of games the Browns would win. The over/under was 6. I can’t recall how that debate came out, as if it actually matters, but I appreciated the attempt by ESPN to build enthusiasm. Which leads to this week’s question to ponder: Are you more excited about the Browns or the Buckeyes?

Evil Rewarded

The biggest kick in the teeth that Cleveland Browns’ fans took this weekend didn’t come from the Pittsburgh Steelers or even the Baltimore Ravens. It came directly from the feet of the Arizona Cardinals.

That the Steelers are in their 7th Super Bowl doesn’t come as much of a surprise. They are a very good team. Besides, at this point, the hatred Browns’ fans have for the Steelers is mostly historical. With each beating suffered at the hands of the Steelers, a once great rivalry becomes just a distant memory to Browns fans. What is a surprise is that the Cardinals, long the benchmark for woefulness in the NFL, somehow managed to turn one mildly successful season into a Super Bowl run.

If you’re a glass half full kind of person, you may take some comfort in the “every dog has its day” story of the Cardinals. If you’re glass half full person, which is to say a Browns fan, then you see it for what it is, confirmation that the local franchise is cursed.

If there is any franchise in any sport less deserving of success than the Cardinals, feel free to drop me an email. Right now I can’t think of one and I’m likely to disagree with any one you might come up with anyway.. And let’s not misconstrue this as a knock on the Phoenix/Scottsdale area. I happen to be very fond of the place and their people. This is solely about the evil and incompetent Bidwell family which has owned the Cardinals since 1932.

As much as the local fans like to complain about the Browns and as easy as that has become in recent years, there is one thing that the Browns have never been and that’s the Cardinals. In nearly 8 decades of ownership, the Bidwells have guided the franchise to exactly 21 winning season. By comparison, the Browns are relative newbies, having entered the league in 1950. But in those 54 years (excluding the 4 years when the franchise was dormant, although arguably that’s been its state for the better part of 20 years, but I digress), the Browns have had 34 winning seasons.

On just that basis, it’s hard to call Browns fans long-suffering when compared to the pathetic wretches that actually invest their energy in following the Cardinals. The reason Browns’ fans feel so put out has something to do with the fact that 13 of those losing seasons have come just since 1990. But in roughly that same time period, the Cardinals have had 15 losing seasons. In other words, as the kids might say “get over yourselves, Browns fans.”

As much as I like to complain about Randy Lerner and his erratic ownership of the Browns, he’s Bill Gates when compared to the Bidwell family. For that matter, so was Ted Stepien. (Ok, maybe not Ted Stepien) In the first place, Lerner and his father never moved the franchise, although if you’re into conspiracy theories then you’re still harboring closeted beliefs that Al Lerner helped orchestrate the Browns’ move to Baltimore just to get ownership of the team here. The Bidwells have moved the Cardinals twice, 1959 and 1987. Even Art Modell wasn’t that evil. If you’re into patterns, the next scheduled move for the Cardinals should be sometime around 2024, which will be about the time that current owner, Bill, will start complaining about the creaky fixture of a facility that the University of Phoenix Stadium will eventually become.

Perhaps one might give a pass to the Bidwells for the first move out of Chicago in 1959, but I won’t. At the time, Chicago had two franchises, the Bears and the Cardinals. One was a model of professionalism and success, the other was the Cardinals. In 27 seasons in Chicago under the Bidwells, the Cardinals had 21 losing seasons. They did have one highlight, 1947. That year the Cardinals actually were NFL champs with the help of running back Charley Trippi. (Interesting side note: I’ve met Trippi on a number of occasions. Still active and as vibrant as ever, Trippi is a class act. If you get a chance to get to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, make sure to see some of the highlights featuring Trippi. Thus, while the Cardinals are the epitome of ineptitude, mismanagement, avarice and greed, Trippi gets a pass. Fate and a then unheard of $100,000 over 4 years is the reason he was with the Cardinals, nothing more.) It was also the year that Violet Bidwell, the wife of the William Bidwell, Sr., took over the team after her husband died.

As an owner, Violet treated the franchise like she was a Bidwell from birth. Except for 1947, the Cardinals remained generally inept and mostly broke for the remainder of their tenure in Chicago and eventually they had to move, out of fan indifference if nothing else. But being the NFL, where just about everything is back to the future, the city of St. Louis beckoned to bail out the Bidwells. The story is that the NFL voted to relocate the Cardinals to St. Louis to take advantage of an emerging market that was also being courted by the rival AFL. It also helped that the St. Louis community guaranteed the Bidwells a certain level of ticket revenue. See, nothing changes.

And nothing changed for the Bidwells, either. All they did for the next 28 years in St. Louis was bleed the franchise and the rest of the league dry until the city finally had had enough. It may have taken 28 years, but the city of St. Louis eventually got wise to the false promises if not outright lies of the Bidwells. While fielding a team with a losing record in 14 of their 28 seasons, and that’s not counting two years in which they went .500 but giving them credit for a 5-4 record in a strike-shortened year, the Bidwells never personally suffered. A lucrative revenue sharing arrangement in a league that saw nothing but increases in revenues all but assured that would be the case. Indeed, the Bidwells became what many fans and players alike feared—owners in a sport with no incentive to win because financial rewards was no longer tied to on-the-field success.

Having then had his fill of St. Louis, Bill, Jr. followed in the footsteps of his mother and moved the franchise again, this time to Phoenix. While this may not seem like much to Cleveland fans who saw Modell uproot their team, be well assured that it was Bidwell who played a key role in the Browns’ move to Baltimore.

To understand the context, you first have to remember how the Irsay family uprooted the beloved Colts from Baltimore and moved them to Indianapolis in December, 1983. Robert Irsay played the city of Phoenix off of Indianapolis. Eventually Phoenix dropped out of the bidding leaving Indianapolis to Irsay, who snuck out of Baltimore in the middle of the night.

Where most fans saw a traitor, Bidwell saw an opportunity. Thus empowered, Bidwell started pushing around the St. Louis populace, complaining about an outdated stadium while ignoring the managerial bungling of his family. Phoenix and Jacksonville, two cities desperate for a NFL team were in the mix, but Bidwell also played on the emotions of the Baltimore fans, dangling the Cardinals as a potential prize for a city desperate for football.

Phoenix eventually won what amounted to a bidding war, under the theory, apparently, that any NFL team is better than no NFL team. But Baltimore took copious notes. Eventually that led them to basically mortgage the city’s future in order to bail out another incompetent owner, Art Modell. Sure, the Browns don’t move if the Irsays never move from Baltimore. But the Browns don’t move without Bidwell basically schooling Baltimore in how to steal a franchise.

If you happened to watch the end of the Cardinals/Philadelphia Eagles game on Sunday, you saw the doddering old fool Bill Bidwell, son of William and Violet, shuffle on to the field to enjoy a moment some 61 years in the making. It would be easy to view Bill as the sort of endearing older gentleman finally seeing his life’s work come to fruition. The truth is that Bill, more than most, got to see his life’s work come to fruition years ago with each and every loss suffered by the franchise that he and his family have owned for nearly 80 years. Winning the NFC championship this season was an aberration on the level of Romeo Crennel going 10-6 with the Browns. Sooner rather than later, the Cardinals will return to their norm.

For the cities of Phoenix and Scottsdale and all of the suburbs surrounding them, getting to the Super Bowl must feel a little like winning a raffle you forgot you entered. They have about as much emotional investment in the Cardinals and the Bidwells as Paris Hilton will have in her next boyfriend. But they’ll celebrate anyway because, hey, it’s a party.

The problem, though, is that for the Cardinals (and not the Phoenix area) to get what they really deserve, which is a humiliating loss on the biggest stage possible, it must come at the hands of the Steelers. It’s a bit of a Hobson’s choice for Cleveland fans but at least the Rooneys have never moved their franchise. Besides, they know to treat their fans.

You’ll never catch me actually rooting for the Steelers under any circumstances. But if the Cardinals should end up on the wrong end of a 28-0 score in a few weeks, you won’t see me shed any tears either. Besides, if there’s any sight worse than seeing Hine Wards’ smug grins it is that of Bill Bidwell dancing a celebratory jig.

Mistakes Were Made

Literally from Sunday’s first play, the question facing the Cleveland Browns in their game against Arizona was not just whether they could overcome the Cardinals, but whether they could also overcome themselves. In the end, they couldn’t do both and lost a game that did not feel nearly as close as the 27-21 final score might otherwise appear, even after considering tight end Kellen Winslow II’s near miraculous touchdown grab on the game’s final play.

Looking every bit like a developing team suddenly thrust into the middle of a playoff race, the Browns stumbled and bumbled out of the gate and found themselves spending much of the rest of the game trying to first overcome and then get out of the way of themselves. And each time it seemed like they were about to do just that, they made still another mistake and now instead of putting some distance between themselves and the rest of the AFC wild card wannabes, they are barely clinging to a playoff spot at 7-5.

If it were simply a case of listing all of the various missteps that led to the loss, it wouldn’t do justice to the context. Just noting, for example, the several personal fouls the Browns committed might cause one to gloss over Simon Fraser’s head butt that cost the Browns 15 important yards at the end of the game. That penalty, a final fitting gesture on a day littered with them, put the Browns in a bigger hole than they already were in after following Neil Rackers 19-yard field goal that stretched the Cardinals lead to 27-21 with 1:52 left in the game.

In the end, the Browns got the result they deserved.

If you spend your life reading tea leaves or deciphering signs, how this game would ultimately unfold was evident early. On the first play from scrimmage, quarterback Derek Anderson was flagged for intentionally grounding, though not because he was under pressure so much but because he inexplicably threw into the left flat with no Browns receiver anywhere close. You may go the rest of your life and never see intentional grounding on the first play of a game again. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Anderson’s only mistake.

On a third and eight from the Cardinals 41 yard-line, Anderson threw low and inside to receiver Tim Carter on a play that required Anderson to pretty much do the opposite. Roderick Hood was there to accept Anderson’s gift, returning the tailor-made interception 71 yards for a touchdown. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Anderson’s only mistake.

On the very next series, he fumbled the snap from center Hank Fraley, which defensive lineman Antonio Smith recovered at the Cleveland 44. For the moment, Anderson was through and now it was the defense’s turn.

After Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner missed receiver Bryant Johnson on third and four, the ball fell harmlessly to the ground. Inexplicably, cornerback Leigh Bodden immediately kicked the football downfield, leading to a delay of game flag, a five yard penalty, and a Cardinals first down. Four plays later, with a Robaire Smith offsides penalty thrown in for good measure, Warner hit tight end Leonard Pope for a five-yard touchdown pass and with less than half the first quarter gone, the Browns were already down 14-0.

It should be noted that on that play, linebacker Leon Williams had Pope covered initially. But Williams couldn’t hold coverage for even one Mississippi and a second later found himself two steps behind Pope, a pass Warner couldn’t miss no matter how injured he might have been. It was the first of two consecutive mistakes by Williams, which, unfortunately for this game wasn’t any kind of record. On the ensuing kickoff, the first that the Cardinals had actually kicked to returner Josh Cribbs, Williams was caught holding, nullifying an otherwise nice return to the Cardinals 35-yard line.

A few additional mistakes for good measure, including another Anderson interception, and thus did the Browns find themselves as their own worst enemy and the game was still in its formative stage.

But as they’ve done for most of the season, the Browns offense, fueled by Anderson and running back Jamal Lewis, heated up. Late in the first quarter, Anderson led the Browns on a drive that should have yielded more than the Phil Dawson 37-yard field goal. Still, it was a start. Then, in the middle of the second quarter following a Mitch Berger punt, Anderson and the Browns consumed the next six minutes, moving 80 yards in 10 plays to put the game back within reach at 14-10 as the half ended.

On the one hand, the fact that the Browns were only down four at the half was an indication of the state of the Cardinals offense. On the other hand, so dominant were the Browns statistically in that half that it’s hard to believe they weren’t up by 20. Cleveland had 14 first downs, Arizona had six. Cleveland was 3-5 on third down while Arizona was 0-3. Cleveland had 205 total yards, Arizona had 90. You get the picture.

But if the Browns thought that this domination would serve them well going into the second half, it wasn’t the only mistake they’d make from that point on. After a mostly lethargic third quarter by both teams, things turned suddenly for the worse when Cribbs, bumping into Devon Holly, muffed a Berger punt late in the quarter and deep in the Browns’ territory. It wasn’t their only mistake.

On first and goal, following another obligatory Browns penalty (roughing on Sean Jones for a horsecollar tackle), Warner hit a wide open Pope in the end zone. This was an even easier touchdown opportunity than Pope’s first grab, apparently too easy, and he dropped it. But in the process Pope practically handed the ball to Chaun Thompson, who, not surprisingly, proceeded to drop it as well. Warner then hit a wide-open Johnson two plays later for the touchdown that put the Cardinals up 21-10.

Apparently, though, the Browns need to work from behind and just as apparently aren’t above putting themselves in a position to ensure that’s the case. After Cribbs nearly fumbled the ensuing kickoff, Anderson hit receiver Braylon Edwards on the second play from scrimmage for what appeared to be a 67-yard touchdown pass. The Browns though had to sweat out a replay challenge by the Cardinals after it appeared as though Edwards may have been down by contact. Fortunately, the Browns were on the right side of the ol’ “inconclusive evidence” dodge by the officials and the Browns were now within five. That’s when the fun began.

Wanting to get the game to within a field goal, the Browns decided to go for the two-point conversion. With Anderson behind center and Cribbs in the backfield, Anderson backed away and starting walking toward Edwards as if to call an audible. The ball was then snapped directly to Cribbs who appeared to want to run, only to then find a wide open Winslow in the end zone.

But the Cardinals came right back, pushing the lead to six on a Neil Rackers 33-yard field goal with 12:10 left in the fourth quarter. Consecutive three and outs by both teams led to a Berger punt to Cribbs who did what he does, taking the ball from the Cleveland 16 down to the 47. But a promising drive came up short just when the Browns had the ball inside the 10. Dawson’s second field goal closed the gap again to three, 24-21, but this time with only six minutes remaining.

This was the point where it would be nice to write that the much maligned defense again found a way to make the key plays late. Instead, the mistakes continued. With the Cardinals needing to run the clock, virtually everyone in University of Phoenix Stadium knew that the ball would be going to Edgerrin James. But knowing what’s coming next and being able to stop in are sometimes mutually exclusive and the Cardinals moved the ball all the way down to the Cleveland one on the heels of eight runs by James.

But as hard as James ran during that final series, the Cardinals were aided by, what else, a couple more key mistakes, the biggest of which was defensive back Brodney Pool’s personal foul. After the Browns put the Cardinals in a passing situation, one of the few the Cardinals would need, Warner connected on a 15-yard pass to Steve Breaston, which was immediately and effectively turned into a 30-yard play when Pool pushed Breaston to the ground after he was already out of bounds. Even when the Browns defense finally tightened at the goal line and the Cardinals were forced to kick a field goal, too much time had slipped through the Browns fingers, undone were they ultimately by the mound of mistakes they had piled up the previous 58 minutes.

The final drive was courageous and semi-effective, even after Fraser’s aforementioned penalty turned what would have been a 67-yard field into an 82-yard field. But with no timeouts remaining and Anderson and his receivers unable to complete a sideline pass to stop the clock, Anderson was forced to throw deep on the remaining two plays. The final throw, to Winslow, was a remarkable grab, unfortunately out of bounds. It was the last mistake of the game.

Statistically, the Browns mostly handled the Cardinals all day. Anderson was 21-41 for 304 yards, his two early interceptions offset by two more touchdown passes. Edwards, after being mostly silent for the last few games, had 7 catches for 149 yards, aided by the 67-yard touchdown grab. But statistics don’t always translate to results, particularly when a crush of mistakes is interspersed.

Though the loss was hardly critical to the Browns playoff chances, it gave the Steelers unneeded breathing room in the AFC North. It also gave the Browns all the reminder that they need that the playoffs aren’t given, they’re earned. And the best way for the Browns to earn their keep at this point is to not to just acknowledge that mistakes were made but to actually do the hard work of first correcting and then learning from them. Next week’s game against the New York Jets would be a good place to start.