Lingering Items--Letting Go Edition

Since it’s rare (it’s happened once) for a NFL team to go undefeated and win it all, it’s fascinating at times to gauge fan reactions to individual losses. There are always reactions as if no game should ever have been lost. There are players to blame, certainly, but mostly fans blame the coaches.

As an overall approach, that makes sense. The plays that don’t get made are, to most thinking, the best evidence of bad coaching. We tend to think, for example, that if a player is wearing a brown and orange uniform, he’s just as competent as anyone else wearing a uniform to execute the play that’s been called so all things being equal, the coach screwed up.

Of course that can’t possibly be true as a decade or so of incompetence in Cleveland can attest. We’ve had all manner of coaches and techniques and yet the performance has remained amazingly consistently bad. No coach could have won with these players.

The problems being experienced by the Browns at the moment are in many ways the same as those being experienced by the Ohio State offense. New schemes and raw players counsel patience. There’s just no substitute for the passage of time and all the repetitions that brings. Bitch all you want about Colt McCoy but if you’ve ever listened to the Beatles live in Hamburg recordings, you can get a better sense that development just takes time.

But that’s not to suggest that coaching hasn’t played a role in what’s transpired to date. It has, in both a good and bad way.

Pat Shurmur, like Colt McCoy, is new to this gig. He’s spent plenty of time prepping for his opportunity but heavy does lay the crown once you’re given it to wear.

Evaluating McCoy to this point is all about what you want to make of it but it’s far easier to do then evaluating Shurmur. We know the record, 3-4, but how much of that is really due to coaching? That is far harder to discern.

Since Shurmur serves as his own offensive coordinator you can certainly look at that aspect of his performance and make some conclusions. The reason Shurmur needs an offensive coordinator has less to do with plays called or schemes designed and has more to do with simply having another voice to bounce ideas off. There’s nothing worse then being the only person in the office with your particular expertise. You can talk to others about unique issues but mostly they can just nod in sympathy, clueless as to what the hell you’re actually talking about.

So it is with Shurmur, particularly on game days. What’s been evident in several games is that his offensive coordinator instincts have overtaken and in some cases inhibited the development of his head coaching instincts. What a particular game may be dictating to an offensive coordinator can be wholly different then what it may be dictating to a head coach who has to balance both sides of the balls.

For example, it probably made sense to the offensive coordinator in Shurmur to have McCoy keep huddling up and slinging the ball in abject futility during several games because he felt like a spark was needed. But to the head coach Shurmur, an even more frenetic approach, such as a no huddle, two-minute drill type tempo early in the game, with the knowledge that if it’s not working your defense is mostly good enough might be more appropriate.

But without any healthy discussion during game day except between the left side and right side of Shumur’s brain, Shurmur is rendering himself less effective. Thus it wasn’t a surprise when team president Mike Holmgren indicated that there would be an offensive coordinator hired next season.

Another area to judge Shurmur is in attention to detail. Whether a new coaching staff or a shortened training camp or both are to blame, the Browns are not nearly as disciplined as they should be. There hasn’t been a game yet this season when there haven’t been multiple false start penalties on the offensive line. There hasn’t been a game this season where there haven’t been multiple personal fouls committed. The Browns haven’t turned into the Oakland Raiders but they’ve certainly regressed in this area as compared to the two seasons under Eric Mangini.

These seem like the simplest of fixes and yet it continues to be a nagging problem with this team. Given its lack of overall talent, it’s simply not good enough to consistently or even predominately overcome these mistakes. If Shumur wants to placate the fans and take some heat off his team, rapid improvement in this area would be the easiest way. 1st and 10 is challenge enough right now. 1st and 15 might as well be 1st and 50.

Another more difficult area to judge Shurmur is in his use of personnel. He talks often about getting the ball in the hands of playmakers but he still has never adequately answered why he deliberately kept the ball out of Peyton Hillis’ hands early in the season. He’s likewise devised no gimmicks to get the ball to Josh Cribbs in the open field. As a receiver, Cribbs is very limited. But that shouldn’t stop Shurmur from trying to find him other opportunities. You can tell Cribbs is frustrated but he’s too polite to take it completely off the reservation.

None of this is to suggest that Shurmur won’t make it as a head coach. But too often someone new to the role tries to do too much with it and as a result fails miserably. Even Bill Belichick needed to fail in order to eventually succeed. Yet that’s the last thing this organization can withstand.

The Browns aren’t poorly coached at the moment but neither is this coaching staff extracting more value out of the team then its talent would otherwise dictate. Patience with Shurmur is just as necessary as it is with McCoy but in truth if Holmgren is going to have any lasting impact on this team it will be to teach Shurmur exactly how to be a head coach.

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The Brian Robiskie era, such as it was, is officially over. It’s not a surprise. The writing has been on the walls for weeks and in skywriting last Sunday when Jordan Norton came in as the third receiver instead of Robiskie once Mohammed Massaquoi was injured and Greg Little and Cribbs stepped up in grade.

I’ve written about Robiskie before and mentioned how precarious his role on the team really was. A good route runner, he nonetheless had almost no ability to get himself open. His approach was too slow-footed and mechanical to be taken seriously by the defensive backs in the NFL.

My guess is that Robiskie will get a look from one or two other teams and may even stick around for a few more seasons. That will mostly be related to pedigree and draft status. But there’s also the not so small fact that if a team as deficient in receivers is nonetheless cutting one, how good could that receiver be? Not very.

Robiskie is the quintessential good guy. He was an excellent college receiver. He’s studious and well liked. He won’t struggle in a post-football career. There comes a time when, as the coaches like to say, it’s time to get on with your life’s work. For Robiskie it just came sooner then either he, or Mangini, expected.

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Of even higher visibility in the letting go department was the Indians parting ways with Grady Sizemore by not picking up his $9 million option for next season.

The conventional wisdom is that the Indians’ small market status figured in the decision but I don’t think it really had all that much to do with it. Instead it was Sizemore’s agent that drove the decision.

There may have been a few teams in baseball that would have picked up Sizemore’s option, but very few. His health issues and his lack of productivity during those periods in between are hardly suggestive of a $9 million/year player and that’s true whatever size market your favorite team plays in. The only one not to realize it at the moment is his agent.

According to Chris Antonetti, the Indians’ general manager, Sizemore was disappointed because he wanted to remain an Indian. Well, Sizemore could have controlled that by getting better control of his agent who insisted that the contract would not be re-negotiated. That was a mistake because there’s usually no team that likes you more and willing to overpay you more then your current one.

Maybe Sizemore’s agent thinks a better long-term deal is in the offing from some other team and maybe he’s right, but it will be a struggle. I think several teams will make incentive-laden short term offers to Sizemore, with the Indians being one of them. But it will be a shock of major proportions if anyone is willing to give him a guarantee in any contract year of $9 million unless it vests three seasons from now following three seasons of significantly improved numbers.

Sizemore’s career has been mercurial, to say the least. It’s hard to say how much the injuries really impacted him though obviously they did. Yet his batting eye never really improved all that much. He struck out way too much and that never changed and he didn’t walk enough to be an effective leadoff hitter, his preferred spot in the order.

Ultimately, Sizemore has had plenty of time in baseball to live up to the potential he showed but his development stopped, because of injuries mostly but also perhaps because he didn’t work hard enough on the gifts he had.

The Sizemore story isn’t over yet and perhaps there’s still a chapter to be written in Cleveland, but no complaints here about the move the Indians made. We’ve all seen what a millstone contract can do to a team as Travis Hafner’s ridiculous contract continues to inhibit the financial flexibility of the Indians.

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With the NBA lockout still holding strong and actual games now being missed, no one seems to be in much of a hurry to resolve the dispute. The NBA owners are saving money as the players are being led to slaughter. All this leads to this week’s question to ponder: Did NBA players really think there’d be a groundswell of support for their cause?

The Colt Conundrum

There were two, maybe three developments this week that should give Cleveland Browns fans pause to rethink their impatience with quarterback Colt McCoy. First was the Minnesota Vikings’ decision to start Christian Ponder instead of an increasingly ineffective and indifferent Donovan McNabb. Next came the Miami Dolphins putting Sage Rosenfels on the reserved, non-football injury list and signing J.P. Losman as their new starting quarterback. Then came the Indianapolis Colts putting Kerry Collins on injured reserve list where he joins Peyton Manning.

You could also take it another step when the Oakland Raiders, out of sheer desperation, giving away high draft picks like they’re growing off the vines in the Sonoma Valley, for Carson Palmer once Jason Campbell went down with an injury. Or what about the Seattle Seahawks turning over the quarterbacking duties to Charlie Whitehurst once Tavaris Jackson went down with an injury.

That’s five teams right there that are in far worse shape then the Browns at the moment when it comes to having a credible starting quarterback. Still local fans seem to grow frustrated by the moment with McCoy as if the Browns are just teeming with all sorts of alternatives.

There are plenty of statistics, from the now traditional quarterback rating system to the goofy new ESPN quarterback rating system to any number of metrics in between to make the case that McCoy isn’t playing at a particularly high level at the moment and many have used them to further an argument not worth making.

There also are all sorts of ways to counter all of these statistics to put it into the kind of context that no one much wants to hear about as they contemplate a future of Seneca Wallace and whoever is worse than J.P. Losman.

But since that’s what should be talked about, it’s what we will talk about.

Maybe it’s easy for most people to dismiss the massive overhaul in offensive scheme that took place in an offseason that didn’t exist for McCoy, but I doubt McCoy is as dismissive. Not having access to his head coach and getting precious little offseason training in the new scheme has had an effect. Wish it away if you’d like but facts are facts.

Interestingly, that might be the least of the problems.

Why, for example, dwell on schemes when there are even more obvious reasons for McCoy’s tepid play. For instance, the Browns’ number one target for McCoy, Mohamed Massaquoi, would not be a number one receiver on any other team until someone can prove otherwise. He has decent hands, runs decent routes, but lacks the true speed and elusiveness to ever be a number one threat. Even Massaquoi seems to recognize as much. He doesn’t demand the ball because he knows he doesn’t deserve it over anyone else.

Maybe Eric Mangini had hopes against hopes that his drafting of Massaquoi in the second round was a stroke of genius that would pay great dividends, but the consensus of every other personnel guy in the NFL was to the contrary. And guess what? They were right and Mangini was wrong. Massaquoi never was and never will be any team’s legitimate number one receiver.

That alone is a strong enough case to make for the difficulties McCoy and by proxy offensive coordinator/head coach Pat Shurmur have in stretching defenses and getting the ball downfield in a hurry. But why stop there?

The number two receiver (who will sooner rather than later ascend to the number one role) is Greg Little, a rookie who didn’t even play college ball last year. Forget about missing the offseason, which he did as well. Little missed nearly two years before finally suiting up and starting a game and when last he did play it was in a far different scheme then the West Coast offense that Shurmur employs. Little has good speed, good hands and a big body but he’s still too raw to be immediately effective. His future looks bright and as he develops so will the offense and by proxy McCoy but that’s at least another season away and certainly isn’t helping McCoy much right now.

The number three receiver is Josh Cribbs, a valuable and passionate player but not a credible receiver. I think Cribbs works hard and wants to be good but he is never going to be more than a third receiver on a team with lousy receivers. If Cribbs isn’t acting as the third receiver, then that slot falls to Brian Robiskie, a far more credible and professional receiver, if in name only, with virtually no ability to get open against NFL-caliber defensive backs.

Take all the time you need to devise an appropriate offense around that mess and let’s see how well anyone short of Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady does in it.

While McCoy doesn’t have much to throw to downfield, what he does have at his disposal are several tight ends that can catch the ball. What none of them can do though is get open deep, which again limits the ability to go deep. So what you get is what you’d expect. Lots of short stuff that can occasionally sustain drives that ultimately tend to result in field goals and not touchdowns.

But heck, we already knew going into the season that this receiving corps wasn’t very good. General manager Tom Heckert has steadfastly refused to upgrade it through free agency, believing there’s enough talent to develop that would otherwise be inhibited by a stop-gap free agent pickup. The logic is sound but I’m not sure the assessment is. Does anyone, including Heckert, think that there is still unrealized upside to Massaquoi, Cribbs or Robiskie?

The fact that this was the team’s most pressing offensive need going into the season and remains that way 6 games into the season should help frame the debate about McCoy, but it hasn’t. Fans see balls overthrown, underthrown, intercepted or simply off target and assume, wrongly, that it all falls on McCoy. I’m certainly not suggesting that McCoy doesn’t need to improve. He does. But it will be remarkable how much better he’ll look when he has an actual receiving corps to throw to.

Why focus though just on the receivers? It’s not as if the Browns have once established a credible running game this season that would take pressure off a clearly deficient passing game.

There’s been enough drama around Peyton Hillis to last two seasons so there’s no use rehashing that for now. But his absence is equivalent to trying to run an engine without motor oil. We know, too, that Montario Hardesty is merely a nice running back at this point, not a game breaker. I wouldn’t reach any conclusions on Hardesty just yet since he’s only 6 games into his pro career. But running backs, unlike many receivers, tend to develop quickly or not at all. Hardesty could certainly become a feature back but for now he’s far more Jerome Harrison then Jamal Lewis.

But let’s not forget in all of this the rather crappy play of a patchwork offensive line that’s missing one of its stalwarts, Eric Steinbach. Hillis for example benefit greatly by having Joe Thomas, Alex Mack and Steinbach all healthy last year. With Steinbach out, the right side of the line, from where virtually all the penetration seems to come, is below average. Holes aren’t being opened for the running game and blocks aren’t being made to give McCoy time to breath.

In other words, a bushel basket full of McCoy’s problems has nothing to do with him and everything to do with the state of the other key components of the offense.

It’s actually hard to get a good assessment of McCoy at the moment but that hasn’t stopped so many from trying to do just that. About the only thing we really do know is that McCoy can take a pounding and still come back for more.

But there will come a point, soon perhaps, when that physical abuse being thrust on him by an offense that’s deficient on every other level will take its toll and he’ll be sent to the sideline with an injury. And just as Indianapolis, Miami, Seattle, and Oakland has discovered when their starters went down, that’s when fans here may begin to appreciate McCoy just a little bit more.

Making Good Use of the Bye Week

The best thing that could happen to the Cleveland Browns did. They had a bye week when they needed it most.

In the midst of a self-inflicted controversy regarding fan favorite Peyton Hillis and some very questionable play calling in last week’s dispiriting loss to the Tennessee Titans, the last thing that head coach Pat Shurmur needed was a game this past Sunday.

What he needed more was a chance to enjoy the weather, visit with the family and clear his head because it’s a long season from here on in.

The nice thing about a bye week is that it does offer some perspective on what’s taken place to this point. The issues with Hillis and such are important, but what Shurmur needed to do most in the bye week was make a proper assessment of where this team currently stands and why, particularly on offense. Given its relatively poor performance to date, Shurmur’s ability to get that righted holds the key to what kind of season this ultimately will become.

When Monday beckoned and the Browns returned to work, a few changes were noticeable. Greg Little is now a starting receiver and Brian Robiskie is not. Tight end Evan Moore is slated for more time. Not specifically addressed but a key to making all that work is how Shurmur will go about accelerating quarterback Colt McCoy’s maturation process.

Right now McCoy’s abilities are being questioned because he had the audacity to throw a few really bad passes in the last few weeks as he was putting together some uneven performances. But the longer view is that McCoy had an offseason without access to Shurmur and his version of the West Coast offense, a truncated pre-season to learn the system and now 4 starts to run it at game speed. In that context, why should anyone expect anything more then they’ve received from McCoy to this point?

Taking still an even longer view, virtually nothing McCoy learned from last year is of value to this season. Not one aspect to the Eric Mangini/Brian Daboll offense has been retained. That includes the blocking schemes, the receiving routes and the check downs. In other words, last season McCoy was getting a crash course in Italian. This season, he’s had to be conversant in Spanish from the first game forward because the fans expect nothing less then fluency out of the gate.

That’s the reality of the situation for Shurmur but he still must push McCoy to make the offense second nature anyway. That’s a function of time in grade but it’s also a function of study. If Shurmur and McCoy didn’t use the down time to work through the nuances that have been causing McCoy trouble, then it was time well wasted and it will show in the next few weeks.

There’s also the issue of mechanics. Perhaps that’s a function of McCoy not being completely comfortable with the offense just yet, but particularly when it matters most McCoy’s mechanics tend to fail him.

When he’s comfortable and not feeling like the next play is the make or break play of the game, McCoy tends to do the little things well. His play action fakes are crisper. He moves around the pocket nicely and then sets his feet properly when he passes.

But just like a golfer who reverts to his old swing when the pressure is on the most, McCoy tends to forego what he’s been learning when he’s really feeling pressure in favor of what’s work for him in the past. That means foregoing any real effort to play fake or set his feet. He then whizzes through his progressions that much more quickly in order to justify his natural instinct to run as a means of buying time. The problem is that it’s not always clear why he’s buying time.

The end zone interception against Tennessee is a perfect example. McCoy labeled it a dumb play on his part but it didn’t seem to occur to anyone covering the Browns on a regular basis to ask McCoy exactly why it was such a dumb play. Had they not treated it merely as a bit of self-deprecation, they likely would have found out exactly what McCoy meant, which is that the play represented the breakdown of the mechanics he needs to be successful.

He rolled to his right to buy time from a pocket that really hadn’t completely collapsed. As he ran, his options grew more limited. Instead of going out of bounds or throwing it out of bounds, either of which is standard NFL moves, McCoy let his college instincts take over and threw across his body into the end zone while getting hit. The pass was at least 10 yards short of his intended target.

So, yea, it was a dumb play but probably not in the way most people think about it. It was a play of inexperience in a league where every defensive back has good speed. It was also outside any of the usual protocol of the offense he was charged with running. McCoy beat himself up not because he’s dumb but because he understood that so much about the NFL game is merging his best instincts with the best of what the coaches have given you to succeed. McCoy fell short and knew it.

It’s Shurmur’s job to ensure that McCoy grows into his role because right now and on the near horizon, there aren’t any other options. Some of this will come as McCoy gains experience. But more of it will come when Shurmur gets better at putting McCoy in situations in which he has a better chance to succeed. It is a hand-in-glove existence.

Beyond the issues with McCoy, Shurmur also needed the bye week to assess the rest of his offense because McCoy is hardly that unit’s biggest problem. The running game has likewise suffered for the lack of an off season and it too is showing. The schemes seem haphazard at the moment with no real clear path in what Shurmur’s trying to get accomplished. Players say that the smash mouth running style of last season is over but that doesn’t always seem to be the case.

Hopefully Shurmur used the time to better clarify his own thoughts and then commit to a style and a running back and let it play itself out. That question gets answered Sunday at Oakland.

But at least Shurmur did address the ongoing saga of the receiving corps. Right now it’s very tight end-centric, which is not a surprise given the style. But it wasn’t clear why a playmaker like Moore wasn’t seeing more action. Shurmur offered explanations on Monday but did acknowledge that Moore needs to be on the field.

As for the wide receivers, the elevation of Little to a starter is one of the most encouraging signs of Shurmur’s deep thinking during the bye week.

Shurmur has come to the conclusion that Robiskie is not a viable option at this point. While good route running is the gold standard for receivers, Robiskie proves on a weekly basis that it isn’t the Holy Grail. By all accounts, Robiskie’s main strength is his ability to run routes. It’s also his main weakness.

There’s no jazz to Robiskie’s game. If the pattern calls for 6 yards and out, Robiskie will run 6 yards and out. If that doesn’t result in him being open, so be it. This is where the weakness comes in. The inability to go off script in the slightest in order to free himself makes it almost impossible for any quarterback to get Robiskie the ball consistently.

Defensive backs study receivers because that’s their full time job. The book on Robiskie is simple. It’s like following the bouncing ball on a one-note melody. The defensive backs know that there’s no chance Robiskie will improvise and thus they understand his every move on the field. Sticking with him is never much of a problem.

Little on the other hand is more artist then technician. You can see that he’s more comfortable than Robiskie in occasionally going off script by rounding off a route when the situation calls for it. Do too much of it and the coaches will nail your butt to the bench. But there are split second decisions to make in a game and sometimes it’s better to vary from the plan as long as your quarterback is on that same page. You can see a rapport growing between Little and McCoy. Robiskie hasn’t been able to build report with any quarterback at the pro level.

The fact that Shurmur is admittedly doing some tweaking is a positive sign for growth. The one thing that he has going for him is that that tweaking is not being dictated by an 0-4 start. What the fans want now is not necessarily playoffs this season but real progress. As the fans well know by now, Shurmur’s future depends on it.

A Stirring Testimonial Indeed

If this is how the Cleveland Browns' players show their support for an embattled head coach, then it's scary to think of how they might have played if they didn't like Eric Mangini. Needing a win or at least a really good effort to show club president Mike Holmgren that they have made great progress under Mangini, the players instead delivered a stirring testimonial to incompetence as they all but laid down to absorb a merciless beating at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers 41-9.

It was the Browns' fourth straight loss and it's now absolutely fair to suggest that if four straight wins to close out last season saved Mangini's job for another year then four straight and particularly ugly losses to close out this season should put the nail in his coffin as a NFL head coach. The Browns finished a season that at times looked promising exactly where they ended the last, 5-11 and left their fans again wondering whether the black cloud hanging over this franchise will ever leave. The answer, Virginia, is not any time soon.

The nightmare started quickly and then the avalanche came as the Steelers scored on each of their possessions in the first half, four touchdowns and a field goal, that gave them a 31-3 halftime lead. It marked the first time the Browns' defense had given up more than 30 points all season and also marked the first time this season that the Browns didn't hold a lead at some point in a game.

Consider it a sign. On the game's second play, McCoy's pass to tight end Ben Watson was knocked up in the air by Watson and intercepted by the Pittsburgh Steelers' version of Ed Reed, Troy Polamalu. (Maybe Reed is Baltimore's Polamalu. It makes little difference. They both destroy Cleveland offenses) On the next play, which means the Steelers' first play from scrimmage in the game, Steelers' quarterback Ben Roethlisberger hit Mike Wallace, who had sprinted past cornerback Joe Haden, for a 56-yard touchdown. The extra point gave the Steelers a quick 7-0 lead and they never looked back.

Wallace figured prominently in the Steelers' next touchdown, which came on their next possession. On 3rd and 3 from the Pittsburgh 47 yard line, Roethlisberger hit Wallace on a short crossing route that he turned into a 41 yard gain. Rashard Mendenhall finished off the drive with a 1-yard touchdown run putting the Steelers up 14-0.

Give McCoy credit, though. With an offensive line that struggled from the outset with Pittsburgh's pass rush and absolutely no running game to speak of, McCoy hung in and kept several plays alive with his scrambling ability, at least early. By the time the game was out of reach, even a scrambling McCoy was of no use.

With the first quarter winding down, the Browns mounted a credible threat that caught life when McCoy hit Mohamed Massaquoi for a 31-yard pass, much of which was the result of Massaquoi slipping tackles, and got the ball to the Pittsburgh 5-yard line. But as has been their problem of late, the Browns' offense couldn't finish the task and because there was absolutely nothing to play for, including apparently his job, Mangini bravely settled for the 19-yard field goal to close the gap just a bit at 14-3.

It may have sounded as if a chorus of boos rained down on Mangini when he sent Phil Dawson onto the field for the chip shot field goal at the end of the 14 play drive that consumed 77 yards and over 7 minutes. But it was more like a light mist mainly because off all the fans disguised as orange seats that sat silently.

The Steelers' offense made Mangini's oddly conservative decision look even more ridiculous when they came right back on their next drive, moving with an ease that made it pretty clear that this was a game this day of men vs. boys. A screen pass to Mendenhall that he turned into a 24-yard gain may have been the drive's signature play. The drive eventually ended where the Steelers though it would, with one of their players in the end zone with the ball. Indeed it did. It was Mendenhall with a 1-yard run that helped extend the Steelers' lead to 21-3.

Maybe the onslaught was the result of bad karma created by Browns' defensive coordinator Rob Ryan after he took great pains last week in his press conference to talk about the wonderful season his defense has had except for all those late game collapses. There would be no late game collapse this day. It wouldn't be needed.

It's not that things got any worse for the Browns on their next drive because they were about as bad as it could be already. But for the record, things didn't get any better either as McCoy then threw his second interception, a ball overthrown in the direction of Massaquoi that was caught by a diving Ryan Clark instead. Mangini challenged the catch but as the kids might say, this was so not his day. The challenge was denied.

Three plays later the Steelers had their fourth touchdown in four possessions as Roethlisberger hit tight end Heath Miller with a 4-yard touchdown pass. The extra point made it 28-3 and had pretty much anyone still watching wondering whether the NFL has a little known codicil in its bylaws that called for a mercy rule in effect for the season's last game.

The Steelers got the ball back once again on McCoy's third interception of the day. The defense this time held the Steelers to a 41-yard Shaun Suisman field goal. It gave the Browns one last chance before the half, a chance they could do little with. On the plus side, there were no interceptions.

Like a Ginsu knife through a ripe tomato, the Steelers' offense went right through the Browns' offense to start the second half, extending their lead to 38 -3 with a 14-play 77-yard drive that was like sand in the eyes to the entire Browns' organization when receiver Antwan Randel El took the pitch from Roethlisberger on 3rd and goal from the Browns' 3-yard line and hit Hines Ward in the end zone. The trick play was unnecessary, certainly, but for all the times the Browns have used similar methods to score this season it was almost poetic in its irony. It was also the Steelers' sixth straight scoring possession and it cemented the fact that only two things could stop them from the perfunctory resistance being offered: the clock or themselves.

The Steelers opted for themselves as they pulled their starters. At least it let the Browns and Holmgren know that they are competitive with the Steelers' second string, which is as depressing as it sounds. Using that battle as the barometer, the Browns “won” 6-3. Suisham had a 24-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter and McCoy hit Robiskie for a 20-yard touchdown pass late in the quarter. The two-point conversion attempt failed, naturally.

A word, though, about the touchdown. It wasn't a particularly pretty drive, certainly, but at least McCoy was doing his level best to retain some self-respect after the abuse he had been taking all day from the Pittsburgh defense. The key play on the drive was a 31-yard pass to Josh Cribbs with a face mask penalty tacked on that got the ball to the Pittsburgh 22-yard line. Another first down and then a delay of game penalty put the ball at the Pittsburgh 17. On second down McCoy looked like he had hit tight end Robert Royal for a touchdown but Royal was ruled to not have secured the ball in bounds. A Mangini challenge predicatably failed. Then McCoy hit Robiskie for the touchdown on the next play but it originally was ruled incomplete. Out of challenges, Mangini could only look on helplessly. But a particularly benevolent official came to help out the back judge who initially ruled it incomplete, pointing out that Robiskie indeed had possession in bounds. The original call was overruled and Robiskie given the touchdown.

Other than these mild diversions, the second half was mostly about playing out the string. For the Browns, they just wanted the beating to end. For the Steelers, they just wanted the playoffs to begin.

That the Browns lost wasn't a surprise and, frankly, it wasn't much of a surprise that they were blown out. There was nothing to play for, including a coach the players figured wouldn't be back to hassle them anyway about their lack of effort. But if this particular loss emphasized anything it's that for whatever progress may have been made this season statistically, it was mostly meaningless. The team is neither talented nor well coached and it ultimately showed up where those things always do show up, in the standings. Only a more pathetic Cincinnati Bengals team, a team that beat the Browns a few weeks ago, by the way, kept the Browns from finishing at the bottom of their division.

The Steelers' victory on the other hand gave them 14 of their last 15 and 20 of 22 overall since the Browns returned. It provides the best evidence really of the vast difference between the two teams, their respective coaching staffs and, for that matter, the two franchises.

From here the Browns' franchise will likely start over once again, perhaps as soon as Monday. If that's the course, and it sure looks like it should be, it won't be a hard transition since the Browns haves done this with annoying frequency. If it does happen, at least we know that the difference this time is that the decision on who will coach this team finally will come from someone far better equipped than someone with the last name Lerner to make it. The only real question at the moment is whether Holmgren will try to find his leader in someone that represents a disciple of his or whether Holmgren will take a long deep breath as he looks in the mirror and decides that the best candidate to raise this franchise out of its generation-long malaise is the man staring back at him.

Watching the Paint Dry

It wasn't so much the effort or even the turnovers that did in the Cleveland Browns on Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens. It was the simple fact that the Ravens were a better team playing with motivation against a team whose season can't end soon enough. In a result that need not have been predicted by Nostradamus, the Ravens beat the Browns 20-10 and clinched a playoff spot in the process.

The turnovers didn't help, certainly. Quarterback Colt McCoy threw three interceptions and Mohamed Massaquoi had a fumble after a reception. But the turnovers merely ended fairly promising drives that were serving mostly to keep the score closer than the game actually was. The effort, too, seemed better than it had been the previous two weeks, but it too served merely to mask the differential in talent between the two teams.

In truth, it was a snooze-inducing borefest where the final result was never really in doubt as the Browns now are ending the season exactly the opposite of how they ended the last season — on their way to possibly losing four straight as their run game has all but abandoned them at exactly the time it tends to kick in for good teams.

How snooze-inducing you ask? Well, technically, the game was close at the half. But within mere seconds after the second half started, the game's final score took place. From there it was a lazy Sunday afternoon with both teams holding the ball long enough to keep the game moving with little if anything to disrupt the clock's inevitable march to 00:00.

I'm not going to accuse the players on each side of going through the motions, but let's just say that Baltimore wasn't worried about winning, Cleveland wasn't worried about losing and they all just looked like they'd rather be somewhere warm, even if that happened to be a smelly locker room.

If you missed the second half (and the first half wasn't exactly action packed either), here's the summary and I'll do my best to stretch it out to make it look like more happened than it did.

First, with the Browns only down 13-10 to start the second half they looked to catch the Ravens napping on the opening kick of the second half by having Dawson attempt an on-side kick. Like a joke cigar in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, it blew up in Cleveland's face when the ball didn't travel 10 yards before going out of bounds, giving the Ravens the ball at the Cleveland 36-yard line.

On the first play of scrimmage afterward, Flacco escaped a sack and ran for 15 yards down to the Cleveland 21-yard line. Flacco then found Derrick Mason in the back of the end zone on the next play as Sheldon Brown did everything but actually apply handcuffs to Mason to prevent the catch. The touchdown pass and Cundiff extra point gave the Ravens a quick 20-10 lead.

From there the second half resembled a game of shuffleboard on a Tuesday afternoon at Del Boca Vista retirement home, except less exciting.

The Browns did “threaten” to do something positive in the second half in a drive that started at the 9:36 mark of the fourth quarter. Alas it ended when McCoy, at the Baltimore 27 yard line, overthrew Mohamed Massaquoi at the goal line and it was intercepted by, who else, Ed Reed. Reed returned it to the Baltimore 29 yard line with 4:35 remaining in the game. It was Reed's second interception of the game. That now gives Reed, I think, an interception against every Cleveland quarterback he's faced since the Browns returned in 1999. (Note to editor: Don't bother to fact check that stat. It doesn't matter. Even if it's not true, it seems like it should be.)

After that the players on both sidelines donned coats to block out the wind and some plays were run. Then the game ended, the coaches shook hands. A few players said “hi” to someone on the other team and headed for the locker room. Ravens head coach John Harbaugh could now prepare in earnest for the playoffs. Browns head coach Eric Mangini could now prepare for what likely will be his last game as a member of the Browns.

But let's not wallow. Maybe it was a game that was mostly negative for the Browns but there were a few positives to chew on. First, though the Ravens were keyed on stopping running back Peyton Hillis (they succeeded) the Browns' defense was equally keyed on stopping Anquan Boldin after the display he put on in the first match up between these teams earlier in the season. The Browns' defense succeeded. Boldin had 2 catches for 15 yards.

Second, intimidation. The Ravens figured on intimidating McCoy just because they are, well, the Ravens and have one of the league's All Pro Mouths in the form of linebacker Ray Lewis. It didn't work. McCoy once again didn't look over-matched. He didn't look great, either, but it wasn't because he was intimidated.

Third, the lead. For the 15th straight game this season and 19th straight overall, the Browns had a lead at some point in the game.

Finally, rookie cornerback Joe Haden had another interception, his 6th of the season. Oh yea, one more thing. Brian Robiskie had another touchdown catch. Heartfelt story about a coaching father and his semi-blossoming son to follow.

Admittedly those are the kinds of positives a fan has to take when he knows, just knows, that his team doesn't have enough talent to compete week in and week out with the league's better teams. And as painful as it is to acknowledge for many, the Ravens are one of the league's better teams. They didn't do anything particularly fancy or well against the Browns on Sunday but did most things well enough, including forcing three turnovers in the first half and another in the second half. It wasn't necessarily a dominating performance but it wasn't as if the Browns were ever really threatening to win, either.

The Browns' opened the game well enough, moving it effectively by having McCoy throw quickly. But McCoy threw an ill-advised pass to the inside of Massaquoi near the goal line and it was picked off at the 4-yard line by cornerback Lardarius Webb. If nothing else, it was an effective punt.

The Browns' defense then held the Ravens offense and after a nice punt return by Josh Cribbs, took over at the Baltimore 40-yard line. After McCoy hit tight end Ben Watson on a nice out pattern for a first down, offensive coordinator Brian Daboll pulled out the bag of tricks he'd been ignoring for weeks. It was about time because without what I'm about to describe, there actually were no Browns highlights the entire game.

With Seneca Wallace at quarterback and a troika of receivers to the left, Wallace handed off to Hillis who then handed it to Massaquoi who then found Brian Robiskie in the end zone for a 29-yard touchdown pass. The thrown ball wasn't a beauty, more Jake Delhomme than Peyton Manning, but it hung up long enough for Robiskie to make a nice adjustment and cradle the ball just before it hit the ground. Harbaugh challenged the call but it was upheld. The Phil Dawson extra point made it an early 7-0 lead.

The Ravens responded with a 16-play 80-yard drive but stalled at the Cleveland 9-yard line when quarterback Joe Flacco threw high to Boldin, forcing the Ravens to settle for a Billy Cundiff 27-yard field goal. The Ravens got right back in business when Massaquoi fumbled after a short pass from McCoy on the Browns' next offensive play and it was recovered by linebacker Jameel McClain who returned it to the Cleveland 20 yard line. Flacco then hit T.J. Houshmandzadeh on a 3rd and 5 for a 15-yard touchdown that helped give the Ravens a 10-7 lead.

On the Browns next drive, McCoy was again intercepted, by Reed, naturally, who returned it to midfield. The Ravens tried some trickery of their own on their next play when Flacco attempted a flea-flicker but saw it nearly intercepted at the goal line by safety T.J. Ward. The Ravens were able to get one first down on a Flacco scramble but couldn't get another and again settled for a field goal, this time a 40-yarder from Cundiff that extended the Ravens lead to 13-7.

The Browns drew to within 13-10 just before the half with a 30-yard Phil Dawson field goal that followed a 10-play 50-yard drive. It looked for a moment like McCoy might get the Browns lead at the half but he threw high and late to Robiskie who had a step on the coverage down the right sideline.

From there, the Ravens added 7 more points seconds in the first half and it was smooth, if cold, sailing from there.

Statistically it wasn't as if any particular player on either team had a great day. Flacco, for example, was only 12-19 for 102 yards. But he had the two touchdown passes and was intercepted once. McCoy was 15-29 for 143 yards and the three interceptions. Perhaps the best pass of the entire day was the Massaquoi to Robiskie touchdown. Ravens running back Ray Rice led all rushers with 92 yards on 25 carries. Hillis had 35 yards on 12 carries but in fairness it appeared as though he injured his back on the game's second play. Mike Bell (you know, the guy the Browns got for Jerome Harrison) had 27 yards on 7 carries.

With one game remaining, the Browns can at least grab a final measure of pride, not to mention a better record than a year ago, against a Pittsburgh Steelers team that is already playoff bound and thus slightly less motivated. It's probably a game the Browns won't win. They certainly won't be favored. But it is perhaps one last chance to at least show club president Mike Holmgren that they do want Mangini to remain the head coach. Based on the last 3 performances however, I'm not so sure they care.

Mood Swings

Cleveland Browns fans have always been prone to mood swings based upon the latest evidence on the field. But this season more than most, those mood swings have been more dramatic, as if the entire fan base is on anti-depressants and occasionally forgets to take its meds.

Just a week ago the fans were essentially celebrating a loss to the New York Jets. They were buoyed by the play of rookie quarterback Colt McCoy. They were enthralled that the team seemed to be able to not just take a punch but deliver a few as well. There was also the context of a particularly 4 tough weeks against arguably the league’s 4 best teams and the Browns emerging from it 2-2.

Sure there was the usual grousing about cornerback Eric Wright who is in the midst of the worst free agent season on record. But that was tempered by the overwhelming positives, the usual comment being that this team is fun to watch again.

Fast forward a week and the pendulum has certainly swung in the other direction. The fans still like McCoy (what’s not to like?) but for the love of God how do you get 6 turnovers and lose the game? The grousing about Wright and the rest of the defense grew more vocal as it let Jacksonville’s Maurice Jones-Drew turn an almost meaningless screen pass into a 75-yard run. The run game sucks again and Brian Daboll is also, again, an idiot.

Time for some perspective:

This team is neither nearly as good as the fans thought a week ago nor is it as bad as it appeared to be on Sunday. This is a team that simply doesn’t have enough talent to win more games than it will lose.

The criticism of Daboll and his play-calling on Sunday is actually a good jumping off spot for this larger point. Terry Pluto and Tony Grossi gave voice to the frustration that many later expressed when they both wondered in print why Daboll kept running Peyton Hillis despite the fact that it wasn’t really working. Hillis had 21 carries for 48 yards on Sunday so there is some support for the premise.

The answer is simple. Let’s start with the micro view.

The Jacksonville defensive line hadn’t played like that at any other point in the season. They are mediocre at best and have the statistics to back that up. Moreover, a running game doesn’t develop in just one play or one series. It often doesn’t develop in just one quarter. Often times those 3 and 4 yard gains early in the game turn into 6 and 7 yard gains later in the game. To get to that point you have to demonstrate a level of commitment.

Hillis has run well all season. His style is such that at any moment he’s likely to break through the usual arm tackles and take off chunks of yardage with each carry. Moreover, Hillis did have 6 receptions for 95 yards, so that demonstrates in some fashion that he was causing problems for the Jacksonville defense. That kind of running would make any offensive coordinator continue to stick with running Hillis into the line and around the edges.

Now for the macro view.

The real story is that the game plan looked like it did because what options did Daboll really have? Sure there are guys on the roster that have certain titles, like running back and receiver. But that doesn’t mean they actually perform those functions. You could put a helmet on Fatty Arbuckle and call him a running back but that doesn’t mean he’s going to gain you any yards.

Daboll really had no one to rely on other than McCoy and Hillis in the first place. Hillis’ replacement, Mike Bell, may be the worst running back I’ve ever seen play in the NFL. The Browns got him when they traded Jerome Harrison to Philadelphia in a deal in which it was suggested that all either player needed was a change of scenery.

I don’t know about Harrison, but Bell doesn’t just need a change of scenery, he needs a change of vocations. The Browns would be no worse off running Shaun Rogers into the line occasionally to spell Hillis.

And Bell is the second best back on the active roster! Behind him is Thomas Clayton, a practice squad pickup from New England, and someone named Clifton Smith, a player whose status is so tentative that the team hasn’t even assigned him a permanent jersey number. The injury to Montario Hardesty was a bit of a blessing for the development of Hillis but it absolutely ruined the running back depth on this roster and hence the options that come with that.

Then there was the fact that the best receiver on the roster is Josh Cribbs, a converted kick returner still learning the job. He carries the moniker of someone who is dangerous when he gets the ball, but he can’t get it often enough to be considered a consistent weapon, someone other teams have to worry about every play. Besides, he was out Sunday further limiting Daboll’s options.

In his place were Chansi Stuckey, Mohamed Massaquoi and Brian Robiskie. Stuckey and Massaquoi are essentially the same receiver, just different names. Neither has the top end speed to ever be a number one receiver in the league. Indeed neither has the speed to be the number two receiver on most teams. That relegates them to what on other teams would be the third option. But on this team they are the first option which means that each week the other teams’ best cornerbacks are essentially doing the work of a typical nickel back instead. No wonder they can’t get open.

As for Brian Robiskie, I like him for what he did at Ohio State. But it doesn’t look like he’ll be anything other than a decent college player. As a professional opposing teams don’t take him seriously because he doesn’t appear to have the requisite quickness off the line to gain an advantage on whatever linebacker or defensive back is put on him. Indeed, our own quarterbacks don’t take him seriously. It’s almost as if he’s an avatar, existing in theory but not reality.

That leaves the tight ends and there the Browns have a decent complement. But the reason they stand out this season has everything to do with the fact that the Browns don’t have a decent complement of receivers. Ben Watson is a nice option as is Evan Moore. Robert Royal has mostly been a disappointment. Still, in terms of offensive options, this group ranks second behind Hillis.

What you have then is a quarterback who can throw and the only ones open tend to be tight ends in the middle of the field and Hillis out of the backfield. In that scenario it almost doesn’t matter who is calling the plays. The options are painfully limited.

The real lesson here is that you can let the moods swing all you want but in context the fact that this offense has scored as many points as it has demonstrates that Daboll is hardly the problem. Arguably he’s gotten more out of this offense then fans have a right to otherwise expect. It’s just that the fans are too angry at the moment to realize it.

Owning their Sins

It may be darkest just before dawn but in Cleveland it’s always darkest just before the Pittsburgh Steelers’ game.

With the Browns licking a bunch of sore wounds after a physical beating at the hands of the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday all they get for their trouble is a divisional game against their most hated rival at exactly the wrong time.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are coming off a bye week. They have one of the top defenses in the league and their star-crossed quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is coming back off suspension to a team that played just fine in his absence.

Meanwhile the Browns are down to their third string quarterback already and just re-signed the guy that couldn’t beat out that third string quarterback during the preseason. Their best running back is hurting and probably won’t play, their receivers are about as visible as Barack Obama at a Tea Party rally and their offensive coordinator has less imagination than the comedian Gallagher.

At least Cleveland Browns’ president Mike Holmgren can’t say he wasn’t warned. I’d say that the wheels have fallen off the Browns’ wagon again, but they weren’t all that secure in the first place.

Much of what’s being foisted on the Browns at the moment is the culmination of a whole bunch of little sins over a whole bunch of years.

In the Bruce Springsteen song Long Time Comin’, a father, talking with the kids tugging at his shirttails, tells them if he had one wish in this God forsaken world, it would be that their sins would be their own. At least the Browns can say they own their sins.

So much of the story about why the Browns both lost to the Falcons and go into this weekend’s Steelers game such a mess traces directly to the sins of neglect and abuse that the caretakers of this franchise have committed for over the last decade.

The Browns haven’t drafted and developed a credible quarterback since their return despite all the advantages that one poor season after another has given them. That’s why the Browns entered the season with a nearly over-the-hill quarterback like Jake Delhomme and a never-going-to-scale-the-hill quarterback like Seneca Wallace.

Delhomme is a serviceable transition quarterback, or at least he would be if he wasn’t injured in the same way that Wallace is a serviceable back-up if he wasn’t injured. But the fact that both are now injured just highlights how dire the long-term quarterback prospects for this team really are.

What’s fascinating is that despite all of this is that by all accounts the Browns’ quarterback situation is still better than it was last year, and that’s the larger point, isn’t it? This franchise’s inability to draft and develop a credible starting quarterback, despite its many draft advantages borne of so many terrible seasons, has left it and its fan base clinging to news about whether or not Wallace will be able to give it a go on Sunday. Good God!

It’s gotten so bad that the Akron Beacon Journal’s Marla Ridenour felt it necessary to resurrect her rather naïve view that perhaps now is the time to give Josh Cribbs the opportunity to play quarterback.

Cribbs is a great athlete and has contributed to this team in several ways over the years. But simply because he played quarterback for Kent State years ago doesn’t make him a viable quarterback option in the NFL. In the context of Kent State football, Cribbs had a nice career as a quarterback. But it wasn’t the kind of career that had pro teams salivating for his services. Indeed, he was signed by the Browns as an undrafted free agent because of his running ability and not because there was ever any thought that he could be a quarterback.

The fact that Cribbs played quarterback in college does give the Browns the opportunity to use him in gimmick situations, like they did on Sunday when he completed a pass to fullback Lawrence Vickers. But to expect Cribbs to suddenly come in, read defenses and run an offense is as ridiculous of a concept as the fact that Ridenour is still writing about football. Fans would yearn for Derek Anderson

Maybe Colt McCoy will surprise everyone and transition right into the NFL game. But he walks into a situation where his own head coach is so unsure about his prospects that he decided to make an injured Delhomme Sunday’s back up instead of a completely healthy McCoy.

Maybe Eric Mangini’s trepidation about McCoy isn’t about McCoy at all but about the two wide receivers Mangini drafted in the second round last season.

On Sunday Mohamed Massaquoi caught 5 passes, which doubled his total for the year. That puts him on a pace to catch 32 balls all season. His fellow second rounder, the guy actually picked just before him, Brian Robiskie, or at least someone wearing his jersey, caught one pass. He has exactly 3 catches all season, which puts him on a pace to catch about 10 balls this season.

Neither Massaquoi nor Robiskie has the speed to be an elite receiver in this league and neither is particularly adept at getting open. Massaquoi shows more promise than Robiskie but that’s like saying that the Indiana Hoosiers showed more promise than the Eastern Michigan Hurons did against Ohio State. Put Massaquoi and Robiskie on the only relative scale that matters, other NFL receivers, and you can better appreciate the problem.

The leading receiver on this team isn’t even someone who ever played the position until he got to the pros, the aforementioned Cribbs. He looks positively brilliant compared to Massaquoi and Robiskie but again, on the only relative scale that matters, there are probably only a few other teams in the NFL, teams like the Browns, on which Cribbs would start at receiver.

But maybe it goes beyond just Massaquoi and Robiskie. The offensive coordinator, Brian Daboll, is literally learning on the job. It was kind of fun to imagine in the offseason all the great schemes he’d come up for Wallace and Cribbs. But reality has hit in the form of a season and Daboll acts as a slave to offensive theory without so much as a hint of innovation.

The concept of having someone like Cribbs line up as a quarterback only to run isn’t exactly a new idea and isn’t particularly effective anymore anyway. Teams can adapt pretty quickly. It thus falls to Daboll to take it to a new level and he has a couple of athletes on the roster to facilitate it. Either he simply lacks the imagination to pull it off or his head coach lacks the guts to try something more creative than a 4-yard pass from Cribbs to Vickers. But the longer this continues and the more the injuries mount, the more likely this offense is to rival the beast from season’s past that literally went game after game without scoring an offensive touchdown.

The Browns have faced long odds in the past, heck it always seems like they have faced long odds. Occasionally they overcome it when emotion trumps an opponent’s complacency. But the fans should be entitled to something more than a good effort at this point. Sooner or later someone is actually going to have to fix this mess.

Mike Holmgren, you can’t say you weren’t warned.

What's the Point?

After another perfunctory, uncompetitive loss, this time to the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday, the question is begged: is there any point to the Cleveland Browns’ season any more?

The Browns had no legitimate chance of winning on Sunday and have only a fleeting chance of winning any of their remaining games, mainly because they finish up in a 2-week do-loop against Kansas City and Oakland, teams nearly as bad as them. But when they take the field each week already knowing this, that doesn’t mean the season should be as pointless as it’s been.

According to head coach Eric Mangini, all this season’s ever been about is his vaunted process. Giving him a large benefit of that doubt, then shouldn’t this season really be about furthering that so called process? Stated differently, why is it that Mangini forsakes his own high draft picks in favor of the discarded waste of others and the ritualistic servitude of aging veterans who won’t be here next year?

The fact that the season was lost before it really started was known several weeks ago so it isn’t as if winning ever really was the point. Somewhere around halftime of week 1 it became pretty clear that Mangini had done enough damage to the franchise to make it uncompetitive in the near term supposedly at the expense of building a nice, bright future. Instead, each week has been another nearly unobstructed pointless step in no particular direction. When Cincinnati Bengals’ loudmouth self-promoting receiver Chad Ochocinco says he doesn’t care about the Browns, he’s speaking for a legions of others as well.

Mangini’s calling card and the mantra he repeats like Rain Man pining for Wapner is that this is all part of the rather painful process that the franchise needs to endure in order to be redeemed. He speaks as if he views his work as that of an endodontist performing large scale root canal on 10 teeth at a time in order to eventually stop all the pain. It’s as if he’s about to say that someday we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny.

But the fans are mad, the team is sad and owner Randy Lerner is going to find himself without any money if he doesn’t step in soon. The franchise is in decay but that’s the overview. The worst sin of the moment is the fact that the season hasn’t just become unwatchable, it’s become pointless.

The Indians of my youth were repeatedly bad, out of nearly every pennant race by the 4th of July. The Indians of the present are becoming much the same thing. But at least when they were out of it they’d use the rest of the season to empty out the “talent” from the minor leagues and give them some needed major league experience. Sure it made you wonder why the Indians kept charging major league prices to view minor league talent, but it at least served as the most visible sign that the Indians were building for some amorphous vision of the future.

With the Browns, what fans get is Mangini’s near outright refusal to make the rest of this season meaningful for players that might still have a future in the league. Sure, Mangini has re-inserted Brady Quinn as quarterback and that’s to his credit. The only way to find out if he has enough between the ears to play this game at the highest level is to actually let him play.

What then, though, of players like David Veikune and Brian Robiskie? Both are second round picks by this very head coach. Second round picks aren’t supposed to be throwaway choices or walking the sidelines in street clothes on the 11th game of the season. They represent the very building block of every franchise, not the parade of undrafted free agents and waiver wire acquisitions that Mangini seems to court. Yet they are merely afterthoughts, relegated to some island of misfit toys.

Mangini didn’t address the Robiskie situation directly. He never does. Just know though that he addressed it indirectly by commenting on why Jake Allen, just signed off of the Green Bay Packers practice squad for goodness sakes, could get some playing time. It’s because he looked good in practice.

Let’s stop there for just a moment. Allen was signed off of another team’s practice squad just last week. He’s barely had time to check into a hotel, let alone practice. He couldn’t possibly understand offensive coordinator Brian Daboll’s overly complex and completely nonsensical offensive schemes, mainly because virtually no one whose been here the whole time does either. Yet he supposedly put on a good enough show in practice to warrant playing time against Robiskie, a guy whose been here the entire season?

The truth is that no one who hears that explanation will believe it’s the truth. It’s these more subtle but insidious gestures that make Mangini uniquely unqualified for his current job. He can try to polish his image all he wants with meaningless interviews where he answers nothing directly, but his actions are what make him the worst head coach in the history of this franchise. Whoever is in second place—Chris Palmer, Forrest Gregg, Nick Skorich, take your pick—is in no danger of moving up a notch.

If Robiskie’s biggest sin is that he’s not fast enough, it’s not as if he suddenly got slow. His speed seemed ample enough to warrant a second round selection but it’s as if Mangini just woke up and figured out that Robiskie isn’t ever going to be a team’s number one receiver and is punishing him daily for that.

If it’s Robiskie’s route running, then how bad must it be compared to Mohamed Massaquoi? This isn’t meant as a slam to Massaquoi, either. He’s a nice receiver and will be a good complement on a team with a true number one receiver. But his route running is borderline awful. Isolate on him during a game and you will see a receiver who is wildly inconsistent. If it’s a 7-yard down and out, Massaquoi may go 6 yards one play and 9 the next. He hasn’t yet figured out that hitting that 7-yard mark each and every time is what gets you the ball consistently. A quarterback has to know where you’re going to be. Massaquoi also has trouble understanding his assignment on the blitz. He turns up when he turns in and turns in when he should turn up.

All of these flaws are correctable and Massaquoi is making progress, mainly because he’s getting playing time. But Robiskie has to sit and watch, hamstrung by a head coach that seems to be holding him out in an act of vengeance. Maybe he’s ineffective on special teams. Maybe he objects to participating in Mangini’s so-called post-practice opportunity periods. Maybe he should have signed his contract sooner. Maybe he doesn’t wear his tie to team functions. But whatever it is, it can’t be lack of talent. How could anyone tell? This team has none to begin with and acting as if Jake Allen, a practice team player sitting idle the entire season is suddenly impressive enough to warrant playing time is simply dishonest.

As for Veikune, if anything his case is even more compelling. He supposedly is making a switch from defensive end to linebacker on a team with a serious deficiency at both spots. Instead of Mangini giving him valuable playing experience against credible competition, he has him going only against, well, it’s not clear who he’s going against in practice.

Because Veikune isn’t a starter, he probably gets only a few reps each practice session. Maybe he’s on the scout team, meaning that his practice is limited to a few reps of physical contact and plenty of walkthroughs. But as for any actual experience, there isn’t any worth noting. For him, like Robiskie, the year’s been wasted.

Meanwhile, Mangini brought in Matt Roth, a waiver wire pick up from Miami, this week. Roth is more experienced but didn’t arrive for any sort of practice until Thanksgiving and yet found himself in a starting role a few days later.

The Browns are short at linebacker both because of injury and incompetence. But this is a situation tailor made for getting a young player valuable playing experience. What is Mangini worried about? That a running back coming out of the backfield might catch a pass and have a big gain? Oh wait, that’s already taking place on nearly a weekly basis and Veikune is nowhere to be found.

If Mangini wants respect for his process and the latitude to give it a go for another year, then he has to provide some sort of compelling vision of the future. To this point, all he’s provided is a muddled view of a team in constant transition with no end game in site. If the process is about building for the future, then why has he wasted the year for two high round picks that should be part of that future?

Even if every one of the remaining games on the schedule was winnable, the Browns won’t be a winner this season. The only point from game 1 forward should have been about building the future. Instead it’s been about only one thing: eviscerating the past. Any talk that it’s about the future is lip service designed to buy Mangini more time to do exactly what no one’s quite sure.

When the final words are written on this season it will turn out that this entire exercise, from the idiotic quick hire of a discredited coach to the disjointed draft to the preseason quarterback competition to the post-opportunity practice sessions to the dumping of the handpicked general manager to the erratic play calling to the self-proclaimed house of cards the defensive coordinator built will turn out to be one pointless exercise that begs the most obvious question of all: why is Mangini even being permitted to coach the last 5 games?

Lingering Items--Broncos Edition

The news that the Cleveland Browns waived tight end Martin Rucker was greeted by most with a mere yawn or at best a knowing smirk. Either way it’s below the radar when there are far bigger issues to deal with. But, really, in some sense isn’t the cutting of Rucker a marker for the biggest issue facing this team, a deep and abiding lack of talent?

Rucker was one of former general manager Phil Savage’s classic picks. Thinking, as he usually did, that he was once again outsmarting the rest of the league, he traded a 2009 third round pick to Dallas for another fourth round pick in 2008, which turned into Rucker.

If Savage were still around, the fact that he wasted a third round pick on another bust would be a dischargeable offense. Hopefully it will probably keep him further unemployed. As the Plain Dealer reported, Savage was well aware that Rucker couldn’t block, which is something most teams want from tight ends, dismissing his complete lack of skills by challenging the reporter to name a tight end that could block. Since Rucker wasn’t drafted to fill the role of a traditional tight end, he basically was competing for the position of slow receiver. In that context his being waived was inevitable. The Browns already have plenty of those.

The larger issue though is what Savage did to this franchise in the process of making such a bone-headed move. Essentially, the Browns had no 2008 draft. It was mortgaged for three defensive linemen, a quarterback and a linebacker in the persons of, Shaun Rogers, Corey Williams, Ahtyba Rubin, Brady Quinn, and Alex Hall, respectively.

Of that group, the only one to contribute meaningfully so far has been Rogers. The level of his contribution though is hard to gauge. He was chosen for the Pro Bowl on the strength of a season in which he anchored a defensive line that was one of the worst in the league. Evidently it would have been far worse without Rogers but even with him the team went 4-12. Maybe they go 3-13 or 2-14 without him, as if that would really would have mattered.

Corey Williams hasn’t been a bust but neither has he been much of a contributor, mainly due to injuries. Rubin looks like a decent prospect but again this season the defensive line can’t stop the run so it’s unclear how much of a difference he, Rogers or Williams, singularly or collectively, are making anyway. Quinn is the team’s starting quarterback on an offense without a credible running game or a credible complement of receivers to catch the ball. He looks bad but there isn’t a whole lot of ways to look good, either. As for Hall, whatever his contributions might be, the Browns linebacking corps is one of the worst in the league. Do the math on that yourself.

No team can essentially give away draft after draft after draft after draft and expect to be competitive. The Indians’ season is a testament to exactly what eventually happens when draft neglect has been committed in serial fashion. The Browns of this season and last are making a case of overtaking the Indians as the Wikipedia entry for that point.

That gets head coach Eric Mangini off the hook except that it really doesn’t. To this point his 2009 draft isn’t looking so smart, either. All the manipulating and cleverness that he tried to exhibit on draft day cost him Mark Sanchez and instead brought the team a rookie center and two receivers who apparently can’t even beat out a converted college quarterback and kick returner, even if he is one of the best kick returners in the league. There also are a couple of linebackers that haven’t contributed despite the gaping need the team has at that position and a defensive back that plays on special teams because, again, he can’t crack an incredibly weak starting defensive backfield. Finally, there’s a running back who shows promise but hasn’t contributed much in two games despite, wait for it, a gaping need at that position as well.

That’s not to pass judgment on the Browns 2009 draft class. It has plenty of time to get better and one preseason and two games in is just far too early to judge it to conclusion. But it is fair to suggest that it ought to contributing more considering the alternatives that are playing in their places. In any case, last year’s class is kaput. Rucker is now gone and forgotten. But what won’t be is what he stands for; another failed draft. If 2009 turns into another failed draft, just add another few years before the team can even hope to be competitive.


**

Does the fact that Coye Francies tried to take on the entire Browns’ locker room after being the victim of some sort of prank mean the wheels are starting to fall off the team so soon? Probably not. But of all the comments made about it, the most intriguing was that made by receiver Braylon Edwards when he told reporters, according to the Plain Dealer, “welcome to the Browns’ locker room.”

In that comment Edwards was clearly telling the collected media, in front of whom the skirmish broke out, that this kind of chaos is de rigueur for the team. Small wonder Mangini doesn’t want the media around.

It might be fair to ask why any Browns are playing a prank on any player, no matter how juvenile, instead of concentrating on not suffering their third straight beat down. But that would just be poking at the obvious. What is clear is that despite all the discipline he promised to bring, Mangini is no more in charge of the locker room than his predecessor.

Under former head coach Romeo Crennel, Brady Quinn was the victim of a prank that he was none too happy about, the shaving of his Sampson-like locks last year. Then there was that little tête-à-tête (that’s two French phrases in one item, take that Gladys McCoy) Quinn had with Shaun Smith. That all probably meant that Quinn doesn’t have much of a sense of humor or it might mean that neither incident was particularly funny. But it also meant that Crennel was busy sitting in his office while the players were doing anything but trying to win the next game.

There is a “boys will be boys” element to every team and in sports, the pranks are particularly amateurish, usually involving humiliation. But right now the Browns are being laughed at nationally because their play on the field is a joke. Now they’re also being laughed at nationally because their players can’t take a joke.

**

The muted response by Browns’ fans to last week’s loss in Denver can only mean that a large portion of them are already in either stage 4 or 5 of the grieving process. That means some are still depressed by most are in the acceptance phase, which is healthy.

Occasionally I get a random email from someone still in the bargaining stage, as in “if Jamal Lewis can just….and if Quinn can find Edwards…and if Eric Wright becomes the Pro Bowl corner he should be…then this team can make the playoffs” or something like that. But those are far less than they used to be.

The Browns as a franchise died when Art Modell moved them to Baltimore. The new Browns arrived terminally ill, clinging to a ventilator. The plug was effectively pulled when Randy Lerner took over as owner. The best way to look at it these days is to simply think of Mangini’s hire as the equivalent to the team starting over from scratch. It’s a refreshing state of mind, actually. It makes you realize that it’s no longer about trying to keep grandpa alive but about watching a newborn grow. Whether it has the right parents is open to much debate. But this truly is a franchise at the moment that is learning to crawl—forward.

**

As a bit of a follow-up to an item last week, it is noted that Green Bay New York Jets Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre has apologized, sort of, for getting his former team, the Jets, and his former coach, Mangini, in trouble with the league. Poor Brett is just apoplectic about having cost them $150,000 in fines, but not apoplectic enough to reimburse either of them.

Mangini, as usual, has put the whole matter behind him though he never addressed it either. I mention this because it’s a fascinating counterpoint to the rather impassioned justification Mangini gave for fining Abram Elam $1700 for not paying for a $3 bottle of water at a hotel. Mangini said there is a code of conduct that everyone in every walk of life lives by and his football players should be no different. In that, of course, Mangini’s views are above reproach.

But Mangini is also rather convenient when it comes to the more squishy issues of league rules as they apply to him. Mangini knew full well that he wasn’t properly reporting Favre’s injury last year but continued to do it anyway. He wouldn’t have been caught but for Favre’s big mouth. If you’re keeping score, that means that Elam’s offense wasn’t walking out without paying for the water, it was getting caught.

To this point Mangini hasn’t substantively spoken about the $25,000 fine he received from the league. In basically sweeping it away, he creates the impression that he doesn’t believe he did anything wrong but there’s no use fighting big brother. Maybe he actually feels that way, maybe he doesn’t. But either way, Mangini missed a teaching opportunity with his troops that, more than empty words about his players’ place in proper society, would have demonstrated exactly why it was proper to fine Elam fine and any other player similarly situated. Mangini could have done this by the simple act of publicly declaring that his actions last year with respect to Favre were wrong, a violation of the rules for which he was rightly fined and then giving his word that it will never happen again.

Mangini couldn’t do that because he lacks that gene. If he did, it wouldn’t be Saturday before Browns fans found out that the starting kicker has a serious enough injury that the team was auditioning emergency kickers.

The truth is that Mangini plays the outer boundaries of any rules he simply doesn’t like. League rules require that he provide the media reasonable access to the team and he complies with the letter but hardly the spirit. He pressured rookies into taking a 10-hour bus ride, a ride Mangini himself was unwilling to make, skirting again the spirit if not the letter of the collective bargaining agreement. In both cases he’s left a bus-load of pissed off people in his wake.

It’s a disturbing pattern, actually. There’s no problem with Mangini holding his players accountable for not acting like jerks in public. There is a problem when Mangini is only willing to live by that same code when it’s convenient. Ethics and integrity aren’t about what you do when someone’s looking. They’re about what you do when no one is.

**

If a team can possibly be a “soft” 2-0 then the Denver Broncos have met that charge. After opening against the Bengals and then the Browns, the Broncos have gotten off to a the kind of start Browns fans can only dream about and, in the process, have given their fans a reason to believe that Pat Bowlen’s firing of Mike Shanahan was the right move at the right moment.

It won’t last.

Denver’s cause will be helped this year by the division they play in, but it won’t be helped enough. As long as the Broncos continue to start Kyle Orton as their quarterback, and what choice do they have really, they and their fans will eventually face reality. You can drink all night and not feel like you’re drunk, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have a headache when you wake up in the morning.

The Broncos, frankly, are a borderline pathetic franchise at the moment. They beat the Browns last week because that’s what they, like the Steelers, always do. But there are bills coming due. Head coach Josh McDaniel’s decision to trade quarterbacks with the Bears was not just plain dumb, it will become a millstone around his neck when his offense can’t keep pace with the better defensive teams in the league. When they play the Steelers or the Ravens, take either and give the points.

The Broncos defense may have been able to stifle the Browns offense, but then again I think Ohio State’s defense could hold the Browns to under 10 points at the moment. When the Broncos begin facing teams with a legitimate offense, their defense will struggle. The seeds of that struggle were evident even against the Browns.

**

The San Francisco 49ers haven’t yet signed receiver Michael Crabtree. If the 49ers are smart, they’ll let him dangle some more. The 49ers have made an offer befitting Crabtree’s place in the draft but Crabtree wants an offer befitting where he believes he should have gone in the draft. Eventually he’ll sign. Sitting out the year will result in money he’ll never recoup. All this is a very long set up for this week’s question to ponder: When the 2009 season concludes, who will have more receptions, Crabtree or Brian Robiskie and Mohamed Massaquoi?