Coming Back

If you’re going to come out of retirement, even briefly, it should be for a very good reason.  A year ago, almost to the day, I took a break.  The Cleveland Browns were setting themselves for historic failure, again, and the numbing sameness became too much.

 

The Cleveland Indians got themselves to the very edge of a World Series victory and that didn’t pull me back in, although the victory probably would have.  The Cleveland Cavaliers getting into the NBA Finals didn’t do it either.  And yet here we are a year later and I was pulled back in by this:  Today the Browns released beloved cornerback and all around good guy Joe Haden.  It’s not the loss of Haden so much as what it represents.  It’s the clearest signal that Browns finally are serious about improving.

 

This shouldn’t be a pitchfork moment for anyone.  Stripped of sentimentality Haden has been in decline for years. That decline accelerated most certainly because of injuries but the decline has been clear nonetheless.  It’s been a bit sad watching it because Haden was one of the few positive things about watching the Browns for many, many seasons.  But the game takes its toll on all players and Haden’s time has come. He wasn’t worth the $11 million he would have been paid for this year and he wasn’t willing to take a pay cut to a more reasonable number.

 

By releasing Haden now the Browns showed the cold heartedness best exhibited by Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots, the benchmark for the entire league.  It’s better to move on from a player just before he’s done then after.  Many consider Belichick the consummate prick because he is so willing to cast aside team and fan favorites in the pursuit of victory.  The list is long and distinguished but know this much: Belichick has rarely if ever been wrong.  The players he’s discarded have not gone on to prolonged glory anywhere else.  Either will Haden, despite all the nonguaranteed and less money showered on him by the Pittsburgh Steelers.

 

There’s little doubt that Haden would probably have contributed something to this year’s defense.  He’s a good player to have in the locker room and was a visible and positive influence in the community. There’s also little doubt that his contributions, whatever they may have been, wouldn’t have made a lick of difference in the won/loss column which, as Belichick knows, cures fans’ hurt feelings more quickly than anything else. The Browns may be improving, slowly, but having Haden simply doesn’t move the needle.  What his release does do, for once, is give the Browns an opportunity to find a replacement without the baggage and temptation to appease a complaining fan base to play a fan favorite at the expense of developing the future.

 

The other news the Browns made today was the dumping of a number one draft pick, offensive linemen Cameron Erving, to Kansas City for a 5^th round pick.  That’s good value any way you slice it.  If/when the Chiefs have to play Erving they’ll find out something every Browns quarterback who lined up behind him did.  Don’t run any plays in his direction.  Design every quarterback rollout to go in the opposite direction.

 

Dumping Erving will make far less noise than when the team parted ways with Johnny Football but it’s no less noteworthy.  When it comes to offensive linemen, first round busts are hard to find.  They exist, certainly, and there’s little doubt that the Browns would be the one team to find one.  But they are hard to find.  Indeed it’s one of the easier positions to scout.  Cleveland.com posted the press conference when a leading candidate for worst general manager in Browns’ history, Ray Farmer, touted Ervin’s incredible versatility.  That video is revealing also for the shell-shocked look on former head coach Mike Pettine’s face as he tried in vain to support that thesis. 

 

That commentary aged about as well as a Trump tweet.  The only versatility Erving showed was that he was an unworthy first round pick at any position along the offensive line.  But know this.  Erving was every bit the bust as Manziel.  He simply went about being so in a much quieter fashion.

 

None of this means the Browns will necessarily show significant improvement this season.  The team does have an incredible number of upcoming draft picks though and while virtually every regime since the Browns 2.0 were launched has blown the vast majority of picks they’ve had, there still is hope.  Success in the NFL is a slow, steady climb.  It takes the kind of thinking that understands the value of draft picks, the need to not be ruled by sentimentality and the courage to correct mistakes quickly.  Let’s hope all of this doesn’t end up being an anomaly, you know like it’s been in the past.

And Now The Other Shoe Drops...

About the only thing you can really conclude about the disaster that is the Cleveland Browns is that even when they make the right moves they still look like amateurs. 

Details spilling out from the inside pen of Monday Morning Quarterback’s Peter King aren’t particularly flattering or reassuring.  Despite all the prevarication from deposed CEO Joe Banner on the comprehensive nature of the Browns’ head coaching search, it appears as though it was that very process, ill conceived in designed and then poorly executed, that did in Banner and the apparition known as Mike Lombardi.

King writes, for example, that when Banner interviewed former Arizona Cardinals head coach Ken Whisenhut once again for the Browns’ opening, Whisenhut asked Banner at the outset why the Browns simply didn’t hire him last year, the implication of course being that had they there would be no need for another “process” this year.

Banner was his usual smug self, telling Whisenhut it was because he didn’t think Whisenhut was going to be able to put together a championship caliber coaching staff.  That’s laughable for a couple of reasons. 

First, while former head coach Rob Chudzinski apparently was able to do just that, it still wasn’t good enough to allow him to keep his job anyway.  So much for focusing on the wrong subjects.  Second, assembling a champion caliber staff wasn’t a barrier in hiring new head coach Mike Pettine.   You won’t find anyone in the league who believes that Pettine’s staff meets the criteria of being championship caliber.  Jim O’Neil, the defensive coordinator, has never held that job.  Kyle Shanahan has had a mixed career thus far but nothing about it screams “outstanding" let alone championship caliber.  Below them it doesn’t get any better, either.

King also writes that both Bill Belichick and Urban Meyer called Banner directly to strongly recommend Greg Schiano for the opening.  Belichick in fact called him twice.  Had it been up to Banner he wouldn’t have even bothered to acknowledge either call.  Owner Jimmy Haslam decided to at least follow up on the recommendations and he and Banner flew to Florida to interview Schiano.  Per King, Banner was his usual smug self (does he have any other demeanor?) but Haslam was intrigued.  Nonetheless Banner won out and Schiano wasn’t seriously considered.

I’m not sure Schiano was the right fit anyway given his problems in Tampa.  Indeed that hiring would likely have hit fans in about the same way as Randy Lerner’s hiring of Eric Mangini.  Still, Banner’s conduct speaks volumes about his vaunted “process.”  We know though it did have an impact, a pretty unfavorable one, on Haslam.

This is really the telling point because more than anything else it completely discredits Haslam’s claim that the franchise’s reputation as toxic and radioactive is a media creation.  No, sorry.  The reputation is being spread by those inside the league who know that the dysfunction was a Banner creation borne out of his need to look important.  Maybe Banner didn’t get enough love as a child.

It also speaks to exactly what happens whenever the Browns are in the mix.  Nothing, but nothing can go right.  Banner was thrust on Haslam by the league but Haslam disclaims that it was a shotgun marriage.  He told King he could have declined to hire Banner but felt Banner was the right fit, much the same way that Lerner felt Mike Holmgren was the right fit.

Then of course is the story that was circulating earlier and not in the King column regarding former offensive coordinator Norv Turner’s impassioned and noisy departure.  Turner reportedly gave Haslam and Banner who likely was listening as he played Flappy Birds on his iPhone) a blistering assessment of the team's problems including that the treatment of Chudzinski was unfair and that he and the entire coaching staff did exactly as Banner had ordered and now were being fired for doing the job they were told to do.  Haslam had to love hearing that from someone with far deeper NFL experience than Haslam or Banner will ever gain.

The larger question that King’s column and the Turner story raises is exactly why Haslam didn’t jump sooner to kill the beast that he’d allowed to live.  Taken together it was pretty clear during the interview process that Banner was out of his element, Donny.  Unquestionably Haslam had his reservations, too, but treated them like a nagging pain in his gut that he couldn’t quite identify. 

Haslam waited until Pettine, nobody’s choice for anything but a defensive coordinator’s role in Buffalo, was under contract as the Browns new head coach before coming to the conclusion that Banner had to go.  Haslam had to support Pettine at the press conference because he had no choice.  That said, and despite suggestions to the contrary from others, Pettine can’t feel comfortable about how this has all gone down given what’s now come out.  If Pettine can’t grasp the essence and import of the issue, that Haslam is now questioning ALL of Banner’s decisions, then Pettine, too, is out of his element, Donny.

So in a sense, Haslam wasn’t quite impetuous enough.  Had he really followed his instincts and dumped Banner far earlier, it’s highly doubtful that Pettine would be the coach today.  More likely the Browns would have ended up with Josh McDaniels, Adam Gase or Dan Quinn.  That doesn’t mean that Pettine won’t succeed.  He might, particularly given the changes that Haslam belatedly made.  But his resume in comparison to the others available who wouldn’t come near the job with Banner in charge suggests that once again the Browns and their fans were shortchanged.

But hey, this is what you get when your franchise is a league laughingstock.  Things don’t go the way they should precisely because it is run, if not by idiots, then incompetents.  The sad truth in all of this is that Haslam is still trying to figure out exactly how much he doesn’t know but charging fans premium prices as he goes through his own learning curve.

Meanwhile, the Browns are sitting on some truly valuable NFL assets in the form of draft picks and cash and have probably the most inexperienced staff in the NFL guarding them.  Ray Farmer comes highly recommended but he hasn’t made a draft pick in his life and his first foray will be under the white hot lights of local and national scrutiny, the likes of which he’s never faced before. 

Farmer could very well be up to the task but why is it that Cleveland fans always have to be the lab rats for every bizarre experiment?  I’m glad Haslam rid the franchise of the evil Banner and the inscrutable Lombardi but that doesn’t directly equate to having faith that the rookies now in charge will be up to the task.

Haslam’s biggest risk in all of this is not that he jettisoned two discredited bumpkins.  It’s that he turned around and he gave the keys to his Ferrari to a kid with a learner’s permit.  I guess the good in all of that is that even if Farmer chokes it doesn’t make the franchise worse.  That, friends, would be impossible.  All it really does is lengthen the timeline to achieving the very modest goal of making this franchise respectable.  But heck, fans here are used to that anyway.  They’ve waited 15 years now, what’s another 15 among friends?

The Media Made Me Do It

There's a theory floating around out there that applies equally to deposed Cleveland Browns head coach Eric Mangini and deposed Michigan Wolverines coach Rich Rodriguez. It was the media, in the back, with a word processor.

Neither Mangini nor Rodriguez were particularly successful in their most recent jobs, mind you. Both had showed some progress but in an era where the average person gets frustrated when his email goes unanswered for more than 5 minutes, progress is now measured in weeks and not years. Yet apparently there is a vocal minority out there, including several columnists, that are trying to advance the theory that the firings of each were media inflicted..

If this were 30 years ago there’s every reason to believe that both Mangini and Rodriguez would have been retained for another year. The pressure management in each case felt from a disgruntled fan base would have been far less. People got their news at 6 and 11 and read one newspaper a day. But information and speculation these days is instantaneous and it takes almost no effort to inform and incite a fan base.

That’s not to say, though, as the vocal minority still pining for the halcyon days of Mangini and Rodriguez are suggesting, that either was fired as the result of a lynch mob banging at the doors of each entity’s athletic facilities. But it is to suggest that a large part of the downfall in each case was media related, just not media inflicted.

Remember this. The local media serves as the proxy for the fans. Treat them poorly and it’s as if you’re treating the fans poorly. Treat them well, take the time to get to know them and work with them and you’ll be viewed in a far different light.

You don’t need to take that as a leap of faith. Consider Mangini’s interview published in Friday’s Cleveland Plain Dealer where he admitted that one of his major shortcomings was the fact that he didn’t take the time to explain his vision or the process he’d go about to achieve that vision.

Well, duh. If that’s Mangini’s mea culpa for treating the media with contempt, then we’ll accept the apology and hope that if he ever gets the chance again he’ll do better in that regard. But there can be no doubt that this was in fact a major shortcoming and one that significantly handicapped his ability to connect with the fan base that Mangini claims to love.

It’s puzzling, actually, why Mangini chose to be so truculent with the media instead of using it to enhance his status. If he’s really the engaging person that others claim him to be, then the task would have been rather easy. Bill Belichick was an ass (and mostly still is) to the local media in his tenure here and Mangini was on hand to witness it and the attendant fall out. Belichick’s relationship alienated the fans from the team they loved and to this day it still informs how the locals feel about Belichick despite his success elsewhere. It’s fair to suggest that this widening gulf was at least partly responsible for the Browns moving in the first place. The fans were that fed up.
In much the same way that will be Mangini’s legacy as well and for that he only has himself to blame but at least he recognizes it.

In Michigan, Rodriguez will eventually come to the same conclusion. By all accounts he wasn’t a Mangini-level jerk to the local press, but neither was he forthcoming with them about all the various issues surrounding him and the program. But where Rodriguez fell short was in failing to better manage the perceptions about him. That would have required a level of maturity he doesn’t appear to possess, but it was still something within his grasp to control.

Sure, there are those that are at least trying to put a positive spin on Rodriguez’s time in Ann Arbor. But it’s mostly being done by minimizing his missteps and focusing on barely discernible progress, much the same as it is with Mangini.

But just as with Mangini, there’s no reason to be revisionist. It’s been theorized that Rodriguez didn’t connect with Michigan fans because he wasn’t a “Michigan Man.” Well, either was Bo Schembechler, who played at Miami University and first coached at Ohio State. But a career of doing the right things in the right ways turned him into a Michigan man, even if he never did win a national championship. The same easily could have held true for Rodriguez.

The reason Rodriguez didn’t connect with Michigan fans had everything to do with the way Rodriguez came in, a carpetbagger mentality intact, and his continuing inability to appreciate that Michigan wasn’t a weigh station to the next job but the end of the rainbow.

Rodriguez didn’t just engage in missteps. He made major errors. First of all, he absolutely stiffed the administration and the players at West Virginia, his alma mater in bolting for Michigan. He had just agreed to a new contract with a hefty multi-million dollar buyout and then tried to wiggle out of paying that exit fee by claiming that it was West Virginia that actually breached its agreement with him. Talk about not managing your image.

It was a thin, lawyer-concocted argument that didn’t wash and ultimately forced Michigan to step up and pay the buyout. But of course there was more.

Next was the classless way Rodriguez left in the first place. His first words weren’t to the players he had recruited to West Virginia that he was now abandoning. It was to Terrelle Pryor, then the hottest recruit in the country and someone Rodriguez was first trying to lure to West Virginia and then, of course, to Michigan. That worked out when Pryor chose Ohio State instead.

Then, like a petulant child, Rodriguez couldn’t just say bygones and move on. Instead he destroyed all of the records of his current players at West Virginia, making it tougher on the next coach, a former assistant of Rodriguez's, who then had to create the records from scratch.

There was the shady real estate venture that Rodriguez got himself roped into that caused another distraction, but that was minor stuff compared to the first institutional violations in Michigan football history. Michigan apologists like to call these much ado about nothing but they were major violations mainly because they were committed with the intent to give Michigan a competitive advantage.

Throw in all of the defections and recruiting mishaps and Rodriguez pretty much demonstrated in virtually every step he made as Michigan’s coach that his hiring met every definition of a mistake that there is.

So before we start getting all weepy for Rodriguez or Mangini, let’s not forget that most of their mistakes were self-inflicted. The on-the-field record was certainly important, but far more detrimental to their job security was the image they conveyed to a media sitting there to record every painful second along the way.

Mangini 2.0

It turns out that the biggest obstacle Cleveland Browns head coach Eric Mangini had to overcome was himself. In a revealing portrait by Greg Bishop in Sunday’s New York Times, Mangini basically admitted that most of his trouble is self-inflicted.

If that’s the case and if the latest accounts about a changed Mangini are correct, then perhaps Mangini really is coming into his own as a NFL coach with a real future. Sunday’s career-defining win by the Browns against the New England Patriots is a significant step in that direction.

The assent of Mangini 2.0 came as such assents often do, through a humbling. Mangini had a right to be heady when he became the league’s youngest head coach at 35 years of age. The descent, as such descents often do, was precipitated when that headiness turned to cockiness.

According to the story, Mangini literally had no idea how to actually be a NFL head coach. He had never drawn up a practice schedule. He had limited experience before the media. As much as he wanted the job, it probably came much sooner than he expected.

So Mangini went about emulating the only real teacher he had, Bill Belichick. He did so when it came to preparing his team and he did so when it came to interacting with his team. He was a pain in the ass to the players and worse to the media. Just like Bill.

In the process, though, Mangini says he completely lost his sense of who he was. In the story, Mangini allows that he brought much too much of this on himself mostly by not sticking to his core principles. He didn’t favor the signing of Brett Favre for example while he was in New York and yet didn’t speak up. As suspected, he left New York thinking that he was the fall guy for the Favre signing instead of seeing a far bigger picture developing in front of him.

The story doesn’t touch too much on last season in Cleveland, but if last season had not played out exactly as it did, it’s pretty clear Mangini would be unemployed to this day. He came on like gangbusters last season, from his first interaction with Shaun Rogers to the seeming pettiness of his rules even before the first practice was held. He then bought too much into his own genius by first bringing in and then firing his close friend George Kokinis, taking over the job duties in the interim. He remained ever the reluctant communicator.

With the season spinning out of control, owner Randy Lerner stepped in and did the only sensible thing he could have done short of firing Mangini. He determined that his franchise lacked credibility, internally or externally, and sought out a voice that would change all that.

Lerner found it of course in Mike Holmgren. If the public criticism Mangini was receiving last year was tough for him to take, imagine how difficult it had to be for him to hear from Lerner that the Browns were bringing in Holmgren to essentially repudiate damn near everything Mangini was trying to build, at least in the front office. Mangini certainly acted last year like he was that credible voice and then comes Lerner, seeing the franchise about to burn again, deciding that whatever virtues Mangini had personally, he wasn’t resonating as the voice of the Browns.

That decision by Lerner to bring in Holmgren may have been borne out of frustration but it provided a whole new lease on life to Mangini. Unburdened by all of the responsibilities he took on himself and for which he was ill suited, at least at the time, Mangini suddenly found himself as the head coach and only the head coach of a NFL franchise.

That could have gone either way for Mangini. The fact that it seems to have worked out as well as it did for him is a tribute to the fact that Mangini didn’t become a diva. Instead he engaged in the kind of self-examination that kind of public rebuke tends to force and came out on the other side realizing that he indeed was his own worst enemy.

It was easy to feel a bit sorry for Mangini when reading the Times story. Mangini talked about how difficult last season really was on him, the toll it took on him physically and emotionally. He couldn’t sleep, he was overeating and he was chewing too much tobacco. The self-doubt and self-examination, fueled by an incredibly stressful two years, had literally turned Mangini into a bloated mess.

According to the assistants and colleagues interviewed, Mangini is slowly, surely altering course demonstrating that he is a personality and not just Belichick-not so light.

The first thing Mangini has done is to alter his eating habits and with it his physical appearance. It’s been a success. Mangini is a shadow of his former self. That’s a good sign. I’ve never understood, actually, how coaches can allow themselves to balloon up while presiding over athletes for whom the most common message they send to them is one of discipline. He also allows himself to crack the occasional joke. The players certainly have noticed.

It was evident from preseason that Mangini was more relaxed. But the best evidence of that came after Sunday’s game. Walking to the locker room, Mangini allowed for himself a huge smile, knowing that he had given himself, his team and this city a transformative victory. The old Mangini might have mumbled almost imperceptibly about it being just another game. The new Mangini, the one better in touch with himself, allowed the smile he actually was feeling.

It turns out that Lerner saved Mangini’s job not by simply recommitting to him but by getting Mangini the help that even Mangini might not have realized he needed. Sometimes it’s tough for any of us to admit when we need help because we feel so sane. Even tougher yet is to embrace that help and maybe that will serve as Mangini’s best accomplishment to date.

The Browns are only 3-5 halfway through the season but it is the most optimistic 3-5 record in the league. It is a team clearly on the upswing. More than that, though, it is the kind of team that fits perfectly into the psyche of the average Cleveland fan.

It’s neither a team of superstars nor misfits but of a bunch of guys that seem committed to working hard and getting the best out of themselves for the pure satisfaction of what it feels like to overachieve. If it feels like the team Mangini always envisioned then it’s probably because that’s exactly what it is.

It’s just that it was a vision Mangini wasn’t ever going to see clearly until he exorcised some of his own demons that were standing in his path. It’s a work in progress, just like the team he coaches but the signs for once are mostly good. If yesterday really was the culmination of a necessary reinvention, then the Browns really are on the right path because the much wished for stability may finally be at hand.

A Dominating Day

If this had been Las Vegas, the Cleveland Browns would have been the player at the craps table with the hot dice. If it had been a prize fight, the Browns would have been the boxer pummeling a club pro as a tune up to a bigger match. But it was a football game and the Browns were simply the team that looked like it had the best record in the NFL instead of playing the team that did in dominating the New England Patriots 34-14 on Sunday.

Playing like they had red bull in their water bottles while the Patriots looked as if they hadn't yet had their morning coffee, the Browns literally overwhelmed the Patriots in every aspect of the game, offense, defense, special teams and coaching. At 3-5, the Browns aren't yet a playoff team yet, but you can at least say this: they are a credible NFL team once again. Welcome back.

The Browns were led mostly by a one two punch of running back Peyton Hillis and rookie quarterback Colt McCoy. Hillis shredded the Patriots defense for 181 yards and two touchdowns. McCoy established himself as a legitimate NFL starter and perhaps the franchise quarterback this team has craved with a bevy of signature plays of his own. The defense played solid throughout and was aided greatly by a Patriots' receiving corps that dropped enough passes to embarrass even Braylon Edwards. The special teams got a big fumble recovery early and rendered the Patriots return teams ineffective. And Eric Mangini, yes Eric Mangini, as beleaguered as any coach in the league, simply out coached his mentor turned tormentor, Bill Belichick, to get the best win in his short Browns' tenure.

From an opening drive that yielded a 38-yard Phil Dawson field goal to a gimmicky end around that Chansi Stuckey turned into a 11-yard touchdown run to a signature drive engineered by McCoy in the third quarter that effectively put the game away early, the Browns demonstrated that they are no longer the probable “W” on opposing team's schedule that they have been for the last few season.

The Patriots may eventually chalk this loss up as just one of those days but they certainly head back home knowing that they had their butts kicked by a team that was a four point home underdog. Quarterback Tom Brady didn't necessarily look as shell shocked as Drew Brees and the Saints two weeks ago, but it didn't necessarily matter much. He spent a good portion of the game exactly where the Browns had scripted it in their wildest mind's eye: on the bench with a ball cap on, waiting.

The opening drive was truly a harbinger of things to come. Josh Cribbs, fielding a bounding kickoff just inside the two yard line, returned the ball to the Cleveland 37-yard line. Recognizing that the Patriots were keying on Hillis, offensive coordinator Brian Daboll had McCoy use play action to great effect on the first play and hit receiver Mohamed Massaquoi for a 21-yard pass. Hillis then signaled that the bye week was good for his health as he blasted up the middle for 18 yards, leaping the New England safety in the process. But it looked like Hillis came down a bit tenderly on his ankle and sat out the rest of the drive.

With Mike Bell providing a poor substitute at running back, the Browns weren't able to get it much closer and settled for the Dawson field goal. Then it got weird, Eric Metcalf weird.

On the ensuing kickoff, New England tight end Rob Gronkowski signaled for a fair catch and then walked away from it as if it were a punt, leaving fullback Sammy Morris to try and field the catch. Morris, confused, muffed it and Ray Ventrone recovered giving the Browns the ball at the New England 19-yard line.

McCoy then hit tight end Evan Moore on a 17-yard pass that put the ball at the New England 2. From there Hillis powered his way into the end zone and the Browns had a 10-0 lead before Brady and the Patriots even took a snap on offense.

The Browns' defense, similarly inspired, sent a message early as it held New England to 3-and-out on its first drive.

The Browns offense seemed to be right back in business with Hillis hitting holes like he was Mike Pruitt in his prime. But on a 16-yard run, Hillis had the ball stripped and safety Brandon Merriweather recovered. It was the only mistake Hillis would make all day. As it was, the New England offense looked frustrated and couldn't capitalize. It left Brady barking at his offense near the Patriots' bench as Zolton Mesko punted.

The Brady pep talk had its intended effect, but an effect that lasted exactly one series. With a renewed sense of purpose and passes that seemed to have more zip, Brady took the Patriots on a 11-play 79-yard drive that ended with a Brady to Aaron Hernandez two-yard touchdown pass. The ball appeared to be headed for Gronkowski but it was tipped and Hernandez made an excellent grab in the back of the end zone.

But just as it seemed like the Patriots were re-asserting themselves, McCoy and the Browns struck again. Starting at their own 40-yard line, the Browns marched down the field and scored when Stuckey took a handoff that no one expected and went around left end for and 11-yard touchdown. What made the play unusual was the way that the offense sold it. With the offensive line standing around looking confused, Cribbs positioned himself behind center Alex Mack, took the snap and while acting like he was going to run around the right end, put the ball in Stuckey's gut. Stuckey, in a crouch and barely visible behind the offensive line, then had a mostly free path to the end zone as he stretched for the pylon.

The Patriots tried to tighten the game late in the first half and were on the verge of pulling within 3. But on first and goal from the 9-yard line, Brady hit Gronkowski on a short pass. Gronkowski, already having the kind of day that can result in the coach asking to see you in his office on Monday, bring your playbook, then fumbled at the 2-yard line. It was recovered by Abe Elam and that effectively ended the half with the Browns holding a 17-7 lead.

Perhaps the best measure of progress of this team came in the second half. The Patriots, getting the ball first, had an opportunity to curb the Browns' enthusiasm. Instead it was Brady and the offense collectively doing their best Larry David impression as they couldn't quite do anything right and were forced to punt.

That opened it up for the series that should ensure McCoy's on-going status as starter and quell any talk that any other quarterback on this roster gives the Browns a better chance to win. It was one of those moments really where reputations are either made or loss. It wasn't like the Browns were exactly nursing their 10-point lead, but another score here would send the Patriots a message that the first half was anything but a mirage.

Given the opportunity, McCoy didn't just walk through the door, he kicked it off its hinges in the process. Leading a 10-play 72-yard drive that consumed nearly 7 minutes, McCoy first extended the drive with a scramble that avoided the blitz while throwing a pinpoint pass on the run to receiver Brian Robiskie that took the ball to the New England 11-yard line and then finished off the drive with a scrambling 16-yard touchdown run. On that run, McCoy stepped up in the pocket, couldn't find an open receiver and saw enough daylight down the left sideline that allowed him to stretch the last two or so yards for the touchdown. It was the kind of run that surely raised his respect level in the huddle and with the coaches as Daboll could be seen on the sidelines fired up as he congratuled McCoy. It was the defining moment for McCoy that a player like Brady Quinn could never quite find.

The Browns' defense, again similarly inspired, once again kept the Patriots out of the end zone. The Browns' offense then kept things rolling adding a 37-yard Dawson field goal as the game grew increasingly out of New England's reach.

Brady was able to engineer another touchdown that kept the score respectable, hitting on two key 4th down plays in the process. But the Browns' offense would answer once again as Hillis capped off a career day on the next drive with a 35-yard touchdown run that was the final margin of victory.

On the day, McCoy was a very efficient 14-19 for 174 yards. He had the 16-yard touchdown run and as importantly, didn't turn the ball over. Brady, meanwhile, was 19-36 for 224 yards, two touchdowns. Back up Brian Hoyer got into the game late and threw an interception to Eric Wright.

For Mangini, one thing is clear. The bye week was well utilized. He had every member of his team ready to play. He had well-scripted, aggressive game plans on both sides of the ball and the special teams were once again special. It was the kind of coaching performance that could be as meaningful for Mangini's future with the Browns as the third quarter drive was for McCoy's.

At this juncture, the Browns are no longer a league doormat. Heck, they aren't even the doormat in their division. That would be the Cincinnati Bengals. The Browns pulled off one trick already, demonstrating they could follow up one dominating performance with another. It's the hardest trick in pro football. All they need now is to do it again, against the team that put Mangini in Cleveland in the first place, the New York Jets.

Lingering Items--Vikings Edition

When a team is as devoid of playmakers as the Cleveland Browns, it’s no wonder that attention tends to tilt toward the few that fit that description. Browns’ wide receiver Braylon Edwards, arguably one of the team’s few playmakers, has been an interesting study in the last several days and it’s only going to get more interesting as time marches on.

Edwards, you see, is in a contract year. Fans in Cleveland have experienced the full range of Edwards since his arrival. He’s mercurial, to an extreme. Thoughtful sometimes, complicated always, Edwards almost goes out of his way to be a lightning rod, particularly now, a year in which he should want nothing more than to just have tons of passes thrown his way in order to increase his chances of an exit from the purgatory that this franchise has become.

To that I say, here’s hoping he achieves that goal. But for Edwards, nothing ever comes easy. He so wants to be seen as the complete package—good teammate, good professional, good receiver. In almost everything he says these days you can nearly read the thought balloons above his head. “Must show composure.” “Embrace the media. Be a ‘good’ interview.” “Show future teams you’re not a distraction.” “Act like a ‘team’ player.” “Look good to potential sponsors.”

In truth, there’s nothing wrong with any of that. The NFL and every professional league for that matter is full of its self-promoters, guys who are looking to leverage their athletic prowess into additional income off-the-field and set up their non-playing futures now. Think Corbin Bernsen in “Major League.”

The first Edwards clip-and-save comments came shortly after Sunday’s game. Edwards not only took the blame for Brady Quinn’s interception, but he expanded on what it will take for him and Quinn to get on the same page, saying “we’re professionals. This isn’t college; this isn’t high school. We don’t make excuses as it relates to a quarterback controversy or a competition.” Maybe not, but something, ok Edwards’ history, suggests that if a few more balls don’t start coming his way and soon, excuses will start to get made and fingers will start to point, just not inward.

Actually, it didn’t even take another game. In just that subtle way Edwards has of deflecting responsibility, he let it be known to reporters on Wednesday, as reported by The Plain Dealer, that perhaps offensive coordinator Brian Daboll’s offense isn’t really designed to make the best use of his pass-dropping skills by suggesting that it’s more methodical approach to scoring will only serve to limit his own usefulness to the team.

Meanwhile Edwards also grew testy when asked repeatedly about his lack of chemistry with Quinn, snapping at reporters trying to cover every angle of a question that’s been asked and answer, as they say in the legal business.

It’s understandable that Edwards would get irritated with the media, especially those that cover the Browns on a regular basis. As a group they aren’t exactly the hardest working people in the newspaper business. If it occurs to one reporter to ask a question, the others will eventually ask it again in order to try and elicit the same quote.

But that isn’t going to win him the kind of friends in the media he’ll need if he ever has any great hope of burnishing a reputation as a prima donna. Everyone has a job to do and if Edwards is in the reputation-leveraging business, then he’s going to have to get better at it. Right now, he’s a mess. Ask yourself this: would you buy a used car from the guy?

**

Edwards biggest problem from a reputation and perception standpoint stems from a faulty filter between his brain and his mouth. He can tell himself, as he essentially did Wednesday in talking to reporters, according to the Beacon Journal, that “the biggest thing for me is the mental mindset…being selfless. The thing for me is to be calm, let the game come to me and have the mental capacity to be in control at all times.”

Edwards’ goals are too outsized. For now, he should settle for being in control half the time and progress to most. At all times is years off, if ever.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that what Edwards says is always wrong. He may be absolutely correct in his assessment of Daboll’s offense. At this point, it’s hard to tell. Daboll is a first-time offensive coordinator and that is something that shouldn’t be discounted in trying to ascertain the near-term future of this team. Teams don’t usually fare to well out of the gate with new systems to begin with Throw in the fact that some of these systems are being run by coaches in over their heads and you have a mini-disaster in the making. The Browns are serving as Daboll’s on-the-job training.

When former head coach Romeo Crennel tried to pound one of the game’s biggest square pegs, Maurice Carthon, into the round hole of offensive coordinator, it turned into a disaster. Carthon, a former fullback, figured that a fullback should be the focus of the offense and went about actually demonstrating exactly why that was a bad idea.

Rob Chudzinski, on the other hand, brought a more vertical approach to offense that ended up fitting quarterback Derek Anderson well, at least for a season. The problems with his system were exposed when the personnel being utilized to execute it couldn’t in fact execute it. When Joe Jurevicius went down before last season the Browns lost the sure-handed receiver needed to move the sticks when the running game isn’t working and teams have taken away the deep route. It was highly dependent on personnel and brutal to watch when the personnel wasn’t there to support it.

Chudzinski never did adjust his offense to account for the change in personnel last season and as a result the team suffered greatly. He also lost his job, setting himself back in the process.

From what we’ve seen thus far from Daboll, his system may be less personnel dependent than Chudzinski’s. It seems far more plodding in its approach, reliant more on smaller gains and longer drives than it does on big plays. In some sense it was successful last Sunday. The Browns had only two three-and-outs, not counting either the series where the Browns took over just before the end of the first half or the one where Quinn through the interception. They held on to the ball for 26:38, which isn’t dramatically different than the Viking’s 33:22 time of possession.

The major difference between the two teams boiled down with what they were able to do with the time they had. The Vikings have a punishing running game with Adrian Peterson and enough weapons on the edges to keep it at a healthy mix. The Browns, on the other hand, lacked the talent to sustain a drive. Sustaining long drives in the NFL is difficult for any team and will be particularly difficult for a team like the Browns which features both a suspect running game and suspect receivers. Given their approach, it’s going to be a long year.

About the only thing left is for the Browns to occasionally mix in a no-huddle offense and not just confine it to the few minutes before each half. It’s a high risk strategy because it tends to get your defense back on the field more quickly and if there is something the Browns don’t need at the moment it’s their defense spending too much time on the field. Still, as a way of keeping the opposing team off balance, it’s something they’ll have to try or else they’ll continue to struggle putting points on the board, particularly in chunks of 7.

**

The news that Mangini was fined by the NFL for not properly reporting Brett Favre’s injury last season is hardly a surprise. Mangini kept Shaun Rogers and Jerome Harrison out of the entire preseason and never bothered to tell anyone why. But the fine also contains a number of subplots.

First, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if Favre deliberately threw Mangini under the bus, even as he was doing so with that “aw shucks” country boy persona he’s perfected over the years. As coach of the N.Y. Jets last season Mangini was hardly pushing for the Favre acquisition. Given Mangini’s offensive tendencies (see previous paragraphs) it’s not hard to see why he wouldn’t have wanted a reckless gunslinger like Favre.

Favre probably felt a little betrayed by the Jets organization not only because of the way he was utilized but also because he was, you know, injured and shouldn’t have been playing and/or putting himself further in harm’s way. A little payback is right in the Favre wheelhouse.

Second, the fine, although not particularly large, should be enough to at least wake Mangini up about how he goes about communicating injuries in the future. Indeed, the way he filled out this week’s injury report, adding virtually anyone with a hangnail, is evidence of that. The last thing Mangini believes in is transparency in his operations.

If you think that Mangini is just acting like every other coach, he’s not. Consider, for example, how quickly Andy Reid of the Philadelphia Eagles communicated about Donovan McNabb’s cracked rib. Had it been Mangini, the first notification of any problem would have come on Wednesday via the injury report and all it would have said was “upper body soreness.” Mangini operates on a level of paranoia befitting of Belichick.

Third, and this is all related, it is somewhat ironic to see Mangini caught up in a rules violation given how he ratted out Belichick a few seasons ago for supposedly taping opposing team’s defensive signals. Mangini allowed himself to be portrayed as some sort of angel-on-high exposing the evil anti-Christ Belichick as a cheat. Like so many others who are so quick to call out violations of principles they themselves don’t uphold, Mangini is now exposed as a hypocrite most already knew he was.

Argue all you want about the difference in the violations between Belichick and Mangini, but the core issue is the same. Mangini was skirting a well-established rule for a competitive advantage, just like Belichick. Mangini knew he was violating the rule, just like Belichick. He didn’t care, just like Belichick. Mangini now has his little comeuppance and somewhere Belichick is probably having a good laugh.

**

Given the rather tepid reaction to the Browns’ loss last week, due mostly to extremely low expectations for the locals, this week’s question to ponder: When is the next time the Browns will be favored to win?

When to Say When

The melancholy drama playing out in Green Bay between Brett Favre and Packers management is a painful reminder that at its core, professional sports is far more about the business than the game. One doesn’t survive without the other, but never forget, as Favre certainly won’t now, that when business imperatives crash head on with personal issues, the business will win every time.

Each day may bring a new wrinkle or two in the on-going Favre saga, but its essential elements are as old as the business, indeed any business: an aging, once productive player who still feels he can contribute vs. a business that must constantly replenish its talent to survive in the long-term.

You can compile a list where this same scenario has played out in any city. Because it’s Favre and because he’s a quarterback, football fans can quickly tick off Joe Montana’s two-year run of sorts with the Kansas City Chiefs, the year Johnny Unitas spent in San Diego and even Joe Namath’s lost year with the Los Angeles Rams as the most obvious examples.

There have been plenty of examples right here in Cleveland. Bill Belichick’s mid-season banishment of Bernie Kosar comes immediately to mind, although fans on both sides of that debate are still arguing whether it was truly a case of diminished skills or the clash of two head-strong personalities. It’s far from the only example. On the other side of it, the Browns seem intent on wringing out whatever might be left in Willie McGinest’s reservoir. In baseball, the Indians tried the same thing with both Steve Carlton and Phil Niekro, two distinguished pitchers who desperately tried to hang on longer than was probably advisable. Arguably, even the Indians’ refusal to resign Omar Vizquel falls into this category.

As much as every situation is different, each also is very much the same: a high profile, Hall of Fame-type player unable to know when to say when and a front office wrestling with a potential public relations disaster. The Baltimore Colts could no more relish the though of turning their back on Johnny U as could the Packers turning away Favre. Each also involves a heavy dose of emotion emanating from every corner.

And, as usual, fans are caught in the middle. Almost universally, they’ll support the player. Fans are far more interested in watching their favorites long past their primes than in retiring too soon. Jim Brown and Barry Sanders may set the standard for retiring on top, but they are as much criticized by parochial interests for retiring too soon.

Packer fans are predictably distraught. The thought of Favre not playing again is as distasteful to them as the thought that he could end up with one of their rivals. That’s why you hear the argument that the Packers are making a colossal mistake in seemingly not allowing Favre to return because by any measure, Favre is a better quarterback than Aaron Rogers. It’s an emotional argument, but it’s also incomplete because Rogers really hasn’t had any opportunity to establish himself and Favre is a Hall of Famer. It’s also an argument that looks back without any appreciation of what is to come.

The better question, but not necessarily the best question, is one that asks which quarterback gives the team the best chance to win the next game on the schedule. Even then, this doesn’t entirely resolve the matter because so much depends on the time frame. In other words, Favre may give the Packers the best chance to win the first game of the season, but is that true for the eighth game of the season? What about the 12th?

Favre may have proven to be the football equivalent of Bruce Willis’ character in “Unbreakable” thus far, but sooner or later the statistics will catch up with him. He will get hurt. If the Packers miss the opportunity in the interim to develop Rogers, a quarterback in whom they also have much invested their chance of winning later drops measurably.

That’s really the right question, isn’t it? What’s best overall for the franchise? Even fans complaining about the perceived unfair treatment of a multi-millionaire would concede that their loyalties ultimately run to the franchise first, the players second. If Favre ends up with the Minnesota Vikings, some fans may buy a purple Favre jersey out of spite, but I can pretty much guarantee you that in two years the Goodwill bins in and around Milwaukee would be filled with those same jerseys.

Unfortunately, defining “overall” is a nearly impossible task, one that makes you appreciate how difficult the job of general manager really can be at times. It’s like the economy; everyone has an opinion on it. Making it even more difficult is the fact that with Favre, just as in most cases like it, the professionals can’t even agree. Certainly if the Packers ultimately release Favre, someone will pick him up, which is at least some validation that Favre can still play in the league. Just as Kosar played some meaningful games for the Cowboys immediately after Belichick booted him from Cleveland, Favre will certainly do something heroic for another team.

That seems to be the real fear of Packers management and it shouldn’t be. Favre may contribute for awhile with another team, but it won’t be for too long. Packers management should take great comfort in the lessons of Montana, Namath and Unitas. Even Belichick wasn’t too far off base when it came to Kosar. Each of these situations should provide as much proof as Packers management really needs that their long-term assessment on Favre isn’t wrong. There may be some gas left in Favre’s tank, but that tank is hardly full.

The Favre case really is a pretty easy one from a distance. Packers management may be exhausted by the yearly ritual of his indecision and are using it against him now to extract a bit of revenge but they should just let it go. If Favre’s a distraction it’s because Packers management has let it become a distraction. What they know in their hearts should guide their actions: Far worse than letting Favre go too soon is hanging on to him too long.

Lingering Items--Super Bowl Edition

The euphoria Cleveland fans are probably feeling at watching the Bill Belichick-coached New England Patriots get their comeuppance in Sunday’s Super Bowl will probably be replaced by frustration as soon as it occurs to them that the New York Giants had a record of 10-6, the same as the Browns, entering into the playoffs.

The big difference, of course, is that the Giants got a chance to parlay its 10-6 record into a Super Bowl ring while the Browns were left once again watching from the sidelines.

This isn’t to suggest that the Browns could have made it to the Super Bowl. Hardly. The Browns, even at 10-6, were a seriously flawed defensive team that would never have survived the AFC playoff meat grinder. But on the other hand, the Giants win, coming off an 8-8 season the year before and a bad start that almost got its head coach, Tom Coughlin, fired three weeks into this season, demonstrates that indeed anything can happen come playoff time. This year, anything did happen.

The Giants playoff march was instructive for the Browns and their fans. Playing as underdogs on the road for three straight weeks, the Giants disposed of three supposedly superior teams in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Dallas Cowboys and the Green Bay Packers. The Packers win was particularly impressive coming as it did in such frigid weather and adverse conditions.

What’s interesting about the Giants 10-6 record is that they lost only one game on the road and five at home. Having become road warriors during the regular season it served them well for the playoffs. Compare that with the Browns. This past season, the Browns failed to reach the playoffs as much as for their inability to win a few very winnable games on the road as anything else. A victory in Oakland, Arizona or Cincinnati would have put them in the playoffs. Two or more victories would have given them a home playoff game. Having finally figured out how to win at home, the next step for the Browns is to win on the road. It’s hard to get to the Super Bowl otherwise, let alone win it.

The other point about the Giants playoff success is that it demonstrated exactly why the worst thing a franchise can do is listen to the insane demands of fans when their ill-conceived and outsized need for instant gratification is not met. If the Giants fans had their way earlier in the season, Coughlin would have been canned during week three and Manning would have been benched. In fact, when it comes to Manning, it’s charitable to say that this year’s Super Bowl MVP had an uneven season, at least until the regular season’s final game. Manning was no better, and in some ways worse, than his previous seasons.

Maybe it was because there were no immediately available viable alternatives or maybe it was because Giants owners tend to be old school, meaning they prefer to make such dramatic changes in the off season. Whichever it was, or even if there was another reason, patience ultimately prevailed and the team and its fans were richly rewarded.

As much as many Browns fans dislike it, that’s the exact message that Browns general manager Phil Savage has been preaching since he arrived and at every opportunity since. The recent extension he gave to head coach Romeo Crennel was done to drive home that point to the team and its fans. Argue all you want about whether or not Crennel deserved the confidence, but from Savage’s perspective he did and he now has the example of the Giants to point to when fans continue to call for Crennel’s ouster and not his coronation. There is something to be said for stability, even mediocre stability.

The faith that Coughlin continued to show in Manning even as he struggled is also helpful context to understanding the Brown’s current quarterback conundrum. Coughlin really didn’t have a viable Plan B at quarterback so in some ways he had no choice but to stick with Manning. But Manning also had a decent pedigree so it made sense that the team would wait as long as possible for him to develop. And when the light finally went on for Manning in the regular season’s final game against New England and then stayed on throughout the playoffs, that patience was richly rewarded as well. Now Eli Manning is as solid in New York as his brother is in Indianapolis. That is something that no one would have imagined even halfway through this season. Again, there is something to be said for stability.

The Browns have two reasonable candidates in Derek Anderson and Brady Quinn but it is simply unrealistic to expect that there won’t be struggles, irrespective of who, ultimately, is anointed the quarterback for the future. But if those kinks are to get worked out eventually, and if stability is to be achieved at that position, it will take an unwavering commitment to allowing the process to take its natural course. Keeping that commitment with young quarterbacks is difficult under the best of circumstances and can be nearly impossible for the coach to keep and the fans to understand when there is another viable quarterback just licking his chops in the background. It introduces a dynamic that Manning, for example, didn’t have to contend with.

Despite what Savage says publicly, it is difficult for any NFL team to tolerate having two starting quarterbacks. It’s true that a team needs depth, but what it really needs is a situation where it has a starter and an established back-up. There is simply no way that either Anderson or Quinn at this point in their careers will be happy carrying a clipboard and waiting for an injury much longer. The Browns may be able to maintain peace, love and harmony with this situation for another season, but not beyond. Given that, it makes more sense now to commit to one, move the other, and find an established back-up who is more than happy to collect a paycheck for taking a few snaps during the week and running the scout team. It’s also the example from the Giants that Savage has to internalize to move this team forward.

***

One of the keys to the Browns success this season was the rebuilt offensive line, anchored by Joe Thomas and Eric Steinbach. Savage is to be commended for the improvements made and the results were dramatic. That being said, the Giants victory underscored the importance of the defensive line and highlighted one of the biggest differences between the Browns and the Giants, despite the teams having the same regular season record.

In the regular season, Tom Brady, like Anderson, was one of the least sacked quarterbacks in the league. The Giants, on the other hand, led the league in sacking the quarterback. When the irresistible force met the seemingly immovable object in the Super Bowl, the object moved. The pressure that Brady felt from the first play forward disrupted the Patriots rhythm and was the main reason history’s most prolific offense could manage only two touchdowns instead of the five they had averaged throughout the season.

Having a top offensive line will continue to serve the Browns well. But watching the performance of the Giants defensive line, Savage now knows beyond any doubt where he must concentrate his efforts this off season for the Browns to really take the next step.

***
Complain all you want about Belichick, but give the man his due when it comes to the rules. Until yesterday, you’d be hard press to find anyone, in or out of football, who knew that you could challenge a non-call.

Facing a fourth and two with 11 minutes left in the third quarter, the Patriots were in punt formation. As the ball was snapped, the Giants Chase Blackburn still was in the field of play, but just barely. Belichick threw the challenge flag, the replay confirmed, and a retroactive penalty was called. The five-yard penalty gave the Patriots a first down and allowed them to continue a drive. It didn’t result in any points, but had it made the difference you can bet that this move would be hailed near and far as the call of the game. You can bet just as much that the NFL’s competition committee would have worked to change the rule for next season. For now, it will probably just remain an interesting footnote.

***

The Browns’ Anderson and tight end Kellen Winslow II ought to send the Patriots Brady and Randy Moss postcards from Hawaii. It’s easy to see how the loss on Sunday soured Brady and Moss on playing in the Pro Bowl next Sunday, allowing Anderson and Winslow to make the trip instead. Sounds like a nice vacation for the two, but it also emphasizes how absolutely meaningless the Pro Bowl is and always will be. The players don’t care and the fans don’t watch. With nothing on the line and only injuries to be avoided, one wonders why the league even bothers with this charade. But on the plus side, at least the few fans that care won’t have to put up with Paula Abdul lip-syncing her way through another dreadful song in order to watch the game.

***
And finally, since this is the last “lingering items” for the season, a question to ponder this off season: If Danny Ferry was the GM of the Browns, would that mean the Browns would have to stand pat going into next season?

An Abuse of Power

There are any number of ways one might choose to conclude that the Super Bowl and all that comes with it has grown beyond surreal to out of control.

For some, the woman showing up at media day wearing a wedding dress and asking New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady to marry her may have been the crowning moment. For others, it might have been the Britney Spears-like treatment that the media gave to Brady’s allegedly injured ankle over several days last week. But for me, it was when Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania decided to use the power of his senate office to avenge a grudge he still holds over the Philadelphia Eagles losing to the Patriots in the 2005 game.

The New York Times broke the story on Friday that Specter wants NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Specter chairs, to explain the so-called “spygate” incident. What Specter really wants to know is whether or not the reason his beloved Eagles lost the 2005 Super Bowl to the Patriots was because of any spying during the game. A more obvious explanation for the loss might be the Eagles four turnovers in the game, but some relationship to “spygate” makes for better grandstanding by a disgruntled public official.

Specter wrote Goodell back in November merely asking that he be advised if anything in his investigation of the Patriots showed that they were stealing the Eagles signals during the Super Bowl. It was a fair question that any fan might ask, but coming as it did on officialSenate letterhead was intended to make it appear as though “spygate” was now a federal matter.

But by asking the question as he did, Specter displayed his overall ignorance of the underlying scandal. Putting aside for the moment whether or not stealing signals in a football game is an issue that should ever show up on the radar screen of a U.S. Senator, the Patriots weren’t accused of stealing the New York Jets signals during the game for use in that game. Instead, what they were doing was taping the signals the defensive coach made and then the play that immediately followed for possible use in future games. To the extent it’s even useful to do this, which is highly questionable, it is more so against a division rival that you play twice a season.

Even more to the point, the signals that the Eagles defensive coaches may have been making in the Super Bowl were on public display for everyone in Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville to see. Thus, even if the Patriots were gleaning something useful from the gyrations of an Eagles defensive coach on that day, it would hardly be stealing; more like observing.

Specter seemed a little annoyed that Goodell didn’t respond immediately to his annoying little missive and followed it up with another far more insidious misuse of his public office. In his second letter, Specter introduced the notion that Goodell’s destruction of the case file following the investigation was “suspicious” and that his punishment of Patriots head coach Bill Belichick was “insufficient.” Just guessing here, but Specter probably never makes that claim had the Patriots been forced to forfeit the 2005 Super Bowl and the rings instead given to a team that didn’t earn them, such as the Eagles.

If this all seems a little goofy, hold on, it gets better. In the Times story, Specter actually upped the stakes even further when he said that Goodell’s destruction of the tapes was “analogous to the C.I.A. destruction of tapes. Or any time you have records destroyed.” If Specter actually said that with a straight face, then it’s clear he’s lost any perspective or credibility he may have once had, not to mention engaging in a wasteful use of taxpayer money.

Oh where to start? In the first place, the so-called records that were destroyed were not part of an on-going investigation but instead were the work product of a completed investigation. It would be different, I suppose, if the Patriots had destroyed the evidence instead of giving it to Goodell, but by all accounts that didn’t happen. Consequently, all Goodell did, basically, was close a case file upon completion of the task undertaken. In that context, Goodell’s actions are hardly unusual, let alone suspicious.

Further, there is no reason to not give Goodell the benefit of the doubt on why he decided to destroy the case file and all that went with it. As he noted in his response to Specter, he destroyed the tapes and other information that the Patriots had gathered and also had the Patriots certify that no other copies existed, in order to ensure that no competitive advantage could be obtained by the Patriots. In other words, the investigation was complete and no rational reason remained to hold on to the material. Destruction, as opposed to locking the material in a cabinet where it could later come up “missing,” seemed like a reasonable approach to concluding the matter.

Second, rather than tossing out wild accusations against Goodall, Specter is the one that should be challenged on why he thinks it’s even appropriate to compare an insignificant football issue with a serious issue like an on-going investigation into the CIA’s alleged destruction of tapes it made of potentially unlawful interrogation techniques it used on suspected terrorists. If Specter actually believes the two issues are at all on par, then the good folks of Pennsylvania ought to consider recalling Specter now. He’s obviously lost his mind.

To Goodell’s credit Goodell offered a response to Specter that was far more dignified than he deserved. In it he noted that nothing in the investigation revealed that the Patriots stole the Eagles signals during the Super Bowl. As Goodell worte, the only other time the two teams even played during this decade was a preseason game in 2003. Probably to Specter’s chagrin, Goodell stated the obvious when he said that there is no reason to believe that the outcome of the Super Bowl was at all affected by improper taping of the Eagles defensive signals.

This gets us back to the underlying seriousness of the offense. Belichick and the Patriots were rightly punished for violating a league rule against videotaping the opposing team’s sideline during a game. They had been warned previously, continued in the conduct and paid a pretty heavy fine.

But simply because the NFL has the rule doesn’t mean that the rule itself makes any sense. It is more than fair to suggest that the NFL’s rule about taping borders on the idiotic. Even though Belichick obviously felt it would give his team some sort of competitive advantage when playing the Jets down the road, it’s hard to imagine how and I’ve yet to hear a cogent explanation from anyone, including either Belichick or the NFL, on that point. Moreover, it’s not as if a team couldn’t accomplish the same thing anyway by having a member of its staff watch the opponent from across the field, jot down each and every arm gesture or hand movement of a coach and then write down the resulting play. Notably, there is no rule against that nor could there be since, again, all of it is taking place in very public view on every sideline of every stadium every week.

But the NFL is well within its right to establish even goofy rules and enforce them, which it did in this case. But all that doesn’t give someone like Specter the right to overstate the seriousness of the situation in order to assuage his hurt feelings, or that of his constituents, over the failure of their favorite team to win the Super Bowl.

The other salient point that Specter glosses over is that neither Goodell nor the NFL were hiding the material they collected from anyone or trying to stifle any other investigation. Though government agents torturing suspects raises significant legal issues, a paranoid coach taping the public display of an opposing team’s defensive signals raises no legal issues whatsoever.

“Spygate” was and always will be solely a league investigation of a league matter and wasn’t conducted, directly or indirectly, under any sort of Senate or Congressional oversight or mandate. More to the point, the league wasn’t under any legal obligation to even announce that it was undertaking the investigation, let alone under a legal obligation to keep copies of its investigation on the off chance that an equally paranoid senator still holding a grudge might be interested in it several months later. Thus, despite the haughty language used by Specter, there was no destruction of records of an active investigation but the destruction of evidence gathered to ensure it wouldn’t be further misused. It’s akin, actually, to destroying drugs confiscated during an arrest following the trial and conviction of the perpetrator. As a former prosecutor, surely Specter understands this difference.

There is a place, certainly, for governmental oversight of major business enterprises like the NFL or Major League Baseball, particularly where the integrity of the game is threatened. But there is a huge difference between players or officials who gamble and thus might be tempted to fix games, or players who use illegal performance enhancing drugs that can unfairly alter the outcome of the game, than stealing otherwise visible coaching signals on the sideline. If that threatened the integrity of any sport, then baseball is exhibit A where a team trying to steal another team’s hitting or pitching signals is not only not frowned upon, but an acceptable form of conduct.

It’s nice that Specter could find the time in his busy schedule to use the power of his office and the taxpayer-funded resources of the federal government to weigh in on “spygate” and bring Goodall before the Senate Judiciary Committee. After all, it’s not as if a tanking economy or a foreign war with no end in sight that is bankrupting the economy and killing thousands of Americans demands much of his attention.

A Desert Disaster

The scene is eerily familiar, only this time the local fans don’t have the same rooting interest.

It was a little over a year ago when an undefeated team with but a few close calls during the regular season found its way playing for a championship in the Arizona desert. That team featured the top quarterback, indeed the top player in the game at least that season, and enough skill players surrounding him to make opposing coaches drool. To the extent that the media can ever reach a consensus on anything, it did this time. No doubt this team would finish what they had started and would be anointed one of the great teams of all time.

Making matters seem all that much more inevitable, its opponent was not highly regarded and was thought, at best, to be maybe a year or two away from being a serious contender for a championship. The opponent featured some intriguing players, to be sure, but had barely won its conference. There was also a double digit point spread to contend with. In short, but for a few contrarians dotting the landscape, mainly in the team’s hometown, no one else gave them much of a chance.

But the Florida Gators turned into the little team that could and handily wiped the carpet with the Ohio State Buckeyes at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, capping an improbable year for the Gators and its coach, Urban Meyer.

In many, many ways, this Sunday’s Super Bowl featuring the New England Patriots against the New York Giants is playing to all these same themes. New England is the consensus number one team in the league with the consensus superior talent. The Giants seem lucky to be there.

The parallels, of course, don’t all work. For example, in most ways, Buckeyes head coach Jim Tressel is the anti-Bill Belichick. Tressel isn’t exactly a quote machine himself, but he is very accessible to the media and hardly treats reporters’ questions as if they are an intrusion. As passionately as he wants to win, Tressel hardly seems motivated by the kind of hate and rage that tends to fuel Belichick’s engine. Probably because he’s coaching college kids, Tressel maintains a much healthier perspective on not only what a game means, but what it doesn’t.

Meyer, too, is hardly Tom Coughlin, the Giants head coach. Where Meyer is cool and collected in every situation, Coughlin wears his emotions on his sleeve. Meyer has been nothing but successful at each stop along the coaching trail with no one ever threatening to run him off. Coughlin’s career has had at least as many downs as ups. When the Giants lost their first two games this season, the New York media and Giants fans were already calling for Coughlin to be fired, particularly coming off an 8-8 season that should have been much better but wasn’t because so often the coach and his players seemed to be at each other’s throats all the time.

Improbably, though, the Giants turned it around enough to finish at 10-6, the same record as the Browns, and now find themselves in the Super Bowl mainly because they got hot at the right time. The remaining question, of course, is whether the Giants are laying in wait, like the Gators, to deliver another disaster in the desert to what many consider to be an incredible mismatch.

This is where it gets tricky. In the first place, the differences between college and pro football are so vast that at times the only thing the two games seem to have in common is that the scoring plays in each count the same. For example, barring injury you’re never going to see either Belichick or Coughlin use a two-quarterback system just to give the other team a different look.

But the big difference is that it is much easier to make apples to apples comparisons in pro football than it ever will be in college. When the Buckeyes and Gators finally met in the national championship game, what they knew about each other is what they could see on film alone. Not only didn’t they play each other during the regular season, they didn’t have any common opponents. Thus, despite all the talk about the difference in speed in the SEC vs. the Big Ten, it was nearly impossible to tell if that really was the case with respect to these two teams.

Moreover, the talent level from team to team in college football, even when played at its highest levels, is wildly inconsistent. Even really good teams in college aren’t good top to bottom. Thus, what a coach observes on tape about his opponent is difficult, at best, to translate. That stud defensive lineman who seems to dominate may just be a case of facing relatively weak offensive linemen from week to week. That quarterback who never seems to get sacked may just have been playing against relatively poor pass rushing teams most weeks.

In the NFL, the talent level is far more consistent. In a sense, every NFL team is a college all star team. There are differences in talent levels from team to team, but they aren’t substantial. Using this year’s Browns team as Exhibit A, the difference between a team with a losing record and one who went 10-6 is usually one or two players, not 10-12.

But perhaps the biggest difference is that it is not all that unusual for the Super Bowl participants to have played already played each other in the regular season, and if not the current season, then the previous one. One of the most memorable games of this year was the Patriots/Giants game during the final week of the regular season. It not only had historic overtures, but it also essentially sparked a resurgence of the Giants, even in defeat.

But the larger point for this discussion is that each team is well aware of what the other can do, having just played each other a few weeks ago. Each team knows the other’s strengths and weaknesses not just based on what they see on film but what they personally experienced. For each team, their game plan for the Super Bowl will be based far more on actual knowledge than mere guess work than either Tressel’s or Meyer’s game plan for the national championship game.

In a way, Sunday’s Super Bowl is but a continuation of that final regular season game, with the two week run-up to it serving as an extended halftime. Given what each team already knows about the other, the difference maker is less likely going to be pure emotion, as it was when the Gators faced the Buckeyes, and more so on which coach can make the right adjustments.

Indeed, if that is the criteria, the Patriots have a decided advantage. Using just this season as an example, the Patriots have outscored their opponents by a large margin in every quarter. They were +93 in the first quarter, +103 in the second, +46 in the third, and +73 in the fourth. The Giants, on the other hand, were a remarkable -24 in the first quarter, +28 in the second, +1 in the third and +21 in the fourth.

Some simple conclusions that can be drawn from this are that the Patriots were a far more dominant team than the Giants, within each game and from game to game. It also tells you that the Patriots were not often challenged whereas the Giants often played from behind and that their 10 victories were highly dependent on their ability to eke out close games.

It’s also fair to suggest that these figures also underscore that Belichick’s teams were far better prepared for their opponents going into each game than the Giants given the point differentials in the first quarter. Coughlin and his staff eventually made adjustments throughout that helped them ultimately be successful, but Belichick and his staff got off to great starts each week and kept the pressure on throughout. By doing so, the Patriots were able to dictate the tempo of the game and force teams to adjust to them, not the other way around as was the case with the Giants.

It also says something about the game-day coaching abilities of Belichick and Coughlin. An interesting article posted last summer on the web site NFL Stats sought to quantify the impact of game-day coaching by taking the number of wins that a team could expect in a season based on its on-field statistical performance and comparing it to actual wins. When actual wins exceeded expected wins on a consistent basis, the author surmised, one differentiating factor was the head coach and his ability to squeeze more out of the talent at hand.

In that analysis, which did not even include the 2007 season, Belichick in New England (as compared to Belichick in both Cleveland and New England) led the pack. In New England, his teams consistently win over two games more per season than on-the-field performance otherwise bears out. Indeed, anyone watching the Patriots this season had to marvel at the team’s ability to win when not playing its best. Coughlin’s teams, in both Jacksonville and New York, tended to win slightly less games than expected. Neither of these results is much of a surprise.

None of this means that Coughlin is a lousy head coach and thus the Giants have no chance. But it does point to an X factor to consider when placing your Super Bowl wagers. And while all this may be just another elaborate set up for the ultimate downfall of the seemingly superior team, this isn’t Ohio State vs. Florida either. There very well could be a disaster in the desert. Just don’t look for it from the underdog this time.

Belichick Reconsidered

Another Super Bowl and another year with the Cleveland Browns watching from the cheap seats.

The frustration of not making the playoffs may still be fresh in the minds of many Browns fans, but just as frustrating, maybe even more so, is the gnawing realization that the New England Patriots and Bill Belichick in particular are headed once again for the Promised Land.

There may not be a statute of limitations on animosity for Browns fans, particularly when it comes to those who so richly deserve it, like Art Modell. But at the same time, it’s worth reconsidering the underlying premise, particularly when it comes to Belichick. Is it really a grudge worth holding?

Belichick is still a reviled figure in Cleveland. Not quite on the same level of Modell, certainly, but perhaps on par with the likes of Michael Jordan and John Elway. But unlike Jordan and Elway, whose ultimate success often came at the expense of good but not great Cleveland teams, Belichick’s sin, it seems in retrospect, is that he wasn’t then the coach he is now. True, certainly, but in the end it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

When Modell hired Belichick, he claimed it would be his last hire ever. Modell could never keep his word, of course, but in this instance he was technically correct. It would be Modell’s last head coach hire in Cleveland because Modell then ripped the team from his adopted home town and moved it to Baltimore in exchange for the wad of cash he needed to avoid bankruptcy.

It was hard then to place much stock in just another in a series of Modell’s hires over the years. All came with incredibly high praise that eventually soured when Modell’s own incompetence as a business man, coupled with some lousy luck in key games, prevented him from winning a Super Bowl with the Browns.

To be fair to Modell in just this one instance, he wasn’t wrong about Belichick but, like always with Modell, his timing was off. The attributes Modell saw then, refined over the years, are the reasons Belichick has created a coaching resume of historic and unprecedented proportions.

Ultimately, though, the biggest favor Modell did for Belichick was firing him before he got to Baltimore. It forced Belichick to reassess his life and his goals. Remember, leading up to that termination, Belichick’s reputation couldn’t have been worse, even if it was mostly self-inflicted. Whatever his merits as a coach at that time, he carried with him an arrogance that belied his modest accomplishments to that point. He was excoriated, not unfairly, by the Cleveland media for being uncommunicative, for being petty, for you name it. In short, the media all but called him a “rat bastard” in print though that was the common thought that came to most people’s minds. In fact, it’s relatively easy to find folks who believe that Belichick so poisoned the atmosphere in Cleveland that he, as much as Modell, is responsible for the Browns leaving.

That’s always been a hard theory to sell, but it’s a popular notion nonetheless. Belichick may have spent Modell’s money like a drunk in a liquor store, but Modell facilitated the indulgences. Moreover, Modell’s empire, such as it was, was always pretty flimsy anyway. Ultimately, it was a long-term series of bad business moves, Modell’s legacy in fact, which cost this town the Browns, not Belichick. In other words, it didn’t matter who the coach was or his talents, Modell, as he was fond of saying, had no choice.

That’s why it’s always been hard to understand the grudge the team’s fans continue to harbor against Belichick. After all, this town has seen at least its share of bad coaches in virtually every sport. He’s one of the many, not one of the few. But, ah, yes, the Bernie Kosar incident. That’s really the nub of the matter isn’t it?

In that regard, Belichick’s sin was always one of timing not candor. He cut Kosar mid-season in 1993 supposedly because of his “diminishing skills,” a phrase that is part of the vernacular of this town, like “the Drive,” “the Fumble,” and “Mad dog in a meat market.” As it turned out, that was a pretty accurate assessment and something Belichick obviously felt going into the season when he signed Vinny Testaverde and benched Kosar well before he finally cut him. The problem, though, is that Belichick’s assessment came while Testaverde was injured and seemed more in response to an unstated power struggle between Belichick and Kosar over control for the hearts and minds of the team than any immediate skill issue that had to be addressed.

Wherever one comes out on the whole fiasco, it pretty much cemented Belichick’s reputation in Cleveland, something from which he still hasn’t recovered. But Cleveland fans have forgiven much more from far less. What’s interesting, though, is that this is hardly a grudge that goes both ways. When you can get Belichick to say anything at all about his time in Cleveland, he eventually finds the right words and never trashes the fans, Modell or much else. In other words, Cleveland fans seem to be in some sort of unrequited hate relationship with Belichick.

This is all unfortunate because those fans holding a grudge are missing an opportunity to really appreciate what a head coach performing at the highest level possible really looks like. It’s akin to failing to appreciate the virtuosity of someone like Tiger Woods because he ticked you off when he didn’t sign an autograph for your kid at the Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone. Like it or not Cleveland fans, Belichick and Woods are share the same rarified air.

When you take the time to analyze Belichick and his success, it’s actually more remarkable what you don’t find rather than what you do find. You won’t find a smooth talking, aw shucks hale fellow well met. You won’t find a guy who runs up and down the sideline high-fiving his players as if he were one. You won’t find a coach who has invented some new offensive scheme, like Bill Walsh, nor someone who invented a new approach to defense. Mostly what you don’t find is someone who fits the popular, but often inaccurate notion of what it takes to succeed as a head coach.

Instead, his success has come from the attributes that have been taught ever since the first pig was sacrificed for the sake of a ball: Hard work; blocking; tackling; attention to detail and technique; an emphasis on minimizing mistakes; avoiding penalties; not focusing on the last play, but focusing on the next, that sort of mundane thing. Belichick appreciates talent but you can see from his teams that he wins games with a combination of great talents and niche players, all sharing the exact same goal. In his world, desire is every bit as important as talent, maybe more.

Belichick doesn’t ask anything more of his players than he’s willing to do himself and it shows. He has mastered the intricacies of the salary cap in a way teams can only admire but never seem to be able to duplicate. Other teams may load up on high-priced free agents in order to make a playoff run but usually find themselves in salary cap hell a few years later. Belichick’s teams never suffer that same fate. He has an uncanny ability to find talented but undervalued players and isn’t afraid to cast aside higher priced players when their cap value exceeds their contributions. It doesn’t always make him popular, especially when he cuts ties with a fan favorite, but it helps sustain the success. The ends in this case do justify the means.

All this is not particularly sexy, it just works. It’s why Belichick can sustain turnover in the front office, on his coaching staff and on his roster. Ultimately, his players know that he will put them in the best position to be successful, which is all, really, anyone can ask.

Belichick’s amazing run may frustrate Cleveland fans, but this is so much more than giving the devil his due. Cleveland fans may never celebrate his success, but they should know they were instrumental in it. What’s made Belichick who he is has at least as much to do with the failures he experienced here, many of which were of his own making, some of which were not, as anything else. The truth is, when he was in Cleveland it just wasn’t yet his time.