As Cleveland Indians’ general manager Eric Wedge continues to twist in the wind, seemingly indefinitely, many fans have turned their attention now to general manager Mark Shapiro. As Clark Griswold would say, “now you’re talking, Eddie.”
The sins of a general manager can sometimes be harder to pin down than those of the manager. And when it comes to Shapiro he can be the most difficult of all to pin down. Through careful calculation, he’s created an aura of being an accessible, regular guy on the cutting edge of the modern method for running a franchise. Yet he never really says much and, when he does, it’s more to confirm something that’s already happened than it is to tell you what might come next. As for all the technological whiz-bang analysis that Shapiro and his cadre of front office MBAs have undertaken, it still hasn’t yielded a consistent winner. But he is an earnest guy, making it easy to give him a pass most of the time.
But as it is with general managers, they are the top day-to-day executives of any franchise (except the Cleveland Browns, apparently) and control most everything that takes place on the field and behind the scenes. Thus they rightly deserve to be the focal point when fan unhappiness shifts from individual losses to institutional bungling.
Shapiro’s track record is whatever you want it to be. You can pick out any discreet period of time over his tenure to prove your point, whatever it might be. The larger picture, though, and the one for which Shapiro must be held most accountable is that the Indians are slipping back ever so gently into their “sleeping giant” status of the early 1980s. It’s a potentially devastating malady where fan interest remains high but attendance does not.
Larry and Paul Dolan know that they own a valuable asset, even if they overpaid to get it. What they are now wrestling with is how to actually keep it from being a financial millstone around their collective necks. They simply cannot countenance owning a mere sleeping giant. Yet the crossroads they face is one in which they stay the course with Shapiro or go in another direction and hope for the best.
It’s not an easy choice, especially when they just know that fans see past and current performance as indicative of the future and thus aren’t likely to embrace a stay the course approach.
That has to scare the bejeezus out of the Dolans. When 2009 rolls into 2010, they will see that their goose of a franchise isn’t going to be laying any golden eggs for a good long time; that is unless something relatively dramatic happens.
That’s where Shapiro re-enters the picture. The question for the fans as proxy for the Dolans is whether or not Shapiro can work some of the black magic that has allowed him to retain his job into a reason why they would even bother to buy tickets for next season and beyond. For too many, Shapiro seems to be out of tricks. The trade of CC Sabathia last season still hasn’t yielded anything tangible and causes many to wonder how Shapiro can make something tangible happen out of the inevitable trade of Cliff Lee, either later this season or next.
If the Dolans are thinking bigger than certainly one thing that can dramatically alter the landscape is to take the risk on the alluring but mystical alternate path. A change of direction is always good for a temporary bump in fan interest and spending. It also takes the immediate heat off the team. Whether it ends up in the same destination is hard to say but it very well could.
There are certain core facts about this franchise that aren’t going to change no matter who is in charge. The economy in this region is deeply troubled and won’t recover any time soon. Even in boom times, Cleveland is a mid-market town with mid-market upside. Whoever sits in the general manager seat next is still going to have to rely on undervalued and underpriced talent, be it young players or flawed veterans, to make it work. To be more successful than Shapiro, they’ll just need to do a better job executing those fundamentals.
This is hardly to suggest that Shapiro should hold on to his job simply because it’s hard to predict whether the next guy will do any better. He is the devil we know and, frankly, the devil we don’t can hardly drag the franchise any further down the hole.
The reality though is that the path of this franchise isn’t going to change. The only thing that can make the journey better is someone more adept at navigation. Shapiro hasn’t been a complete disaster, certainly, but he’s sure finding far more pot holes these days than smooth road and it may very well be time for the Dolans to trust a new driver.
**
Both Sheldon Ocker at the Beacon Journal and Paul Hoynes at the Plain Dealer carried the item on Wednesday that former Indians outfielder David Dellucci is miffed that he was the subject of so much abuse at the hands of Indians fans. Hoynes added, somewhat gratuitously and somewhat pejoratively, that “bloggers” also made sport of Dellucci. Well, at least Hoynes is reading.
Dellucci’s point is that he tried his best and, gosh gee, can’t a guy get a break? He has a point, but only slightly. All a player can do is give it his best effort and if it isn’t good enough then so be it. But Dellucci wasn’t pilloried because of a lack of effort. In fact, it wasn’t even personal.
Dellucci served as a symbol of the Shapiro/Wedge regime, a limping, light hitting, average fielding, good in the clubhouse veteran presence keep your head down and don’t make waves symbol of why this team’s stock is dropping faster than General Motors. It wasn’t even so much that Dellucci was a bad acquisition on a purely statistical level. It’s just that Shapiro threw stupid money at him that ultimately greatly influenced how fans viewed him.
That’s not to blame Dellucci for Shapiro’s irrational exuberance. But on a mid-market team with a mid-market budget, a player making what Dellucci made is going to be saddled with higher expectations. He’s also going to have to play every day, his mediocre performance notwithstanding. At the same time, players further down on the development curve but with potentially higher upsides have to be content with less playing time. Can you say, Franklin Gutierrez?
The fact that Dellucci is miffed with Cleveland fans is typical of the view players get from the dugout. The view from the cheap seats, though, is a whole other matter. Indians fans in particular are tired of dealing with a frustrating boom and bust cycle in which players like Dellucci come in and out of their lives with maddening regularity. They are sold to fans as missing pieces but they turn out to be cheap and ill-fitting copies. The fact is that Dellucci was way overpaid and consequently way oversold to the fans. All he really was and will ever be is a higher priced Jamey Carroll.
**
It may be an age thing, but I’ll probably never get used to how comfortable this generation is with revealing the most intimate details about themselves so publicly. In an article that appeared in ESPN the Magazine this week, Kellen Winslow had no qualms talking about how doctors were draining fluid and all manner of bad goo from his junk sack.
It was well entrenched in the category of way too much information.
Actually, what was interesting about the story is how indifferent Winslow’s teammates were toward him. Winslow was and still is a loud-mouth braggart whose wants still far exceed his accomplishments. He felt, and apparently still feels, that he’s the best tight end in the league and wanted the respect and glory that goes along with that status. That’s probably a generational thing, too.
But the story Winslow related about how he spoke up at a team meeting concerning the problems with staph and none of the players jumped to his defense speaks volumes as does that part of the story where his teammates apparently felt uncomfortable around him because of, among other things, his overly active interest in porn.
He doesn’t see his inability to fit in as anything other than a problem for others but not himself. Introspection is not one of his strong suits. This is where, for once, Braylon Edwards could have been a help. Edwards, as complex a personality as the team has ever had, at least has a modicum of introspection about him. The problem is that, like Winslow, he has an overly active ego relative to his record.
All this is too bad, by the way. Winslow, for all his personality flaws, is everything that players typically like in other players. He works hard. He plays hurt. He has skills. But he’s probably doomed in Tampa. Too many injuries, too much baggage, and just plain too weird.
**
Watching a few of the Indians’ games this week always yields the inevitable dugout view of Wedge and his ever changing battle with facial hair. It also leads to this week’s question to ponder: Why is Carl Willis always sitting so uncomfortably close to Eric Wedge in the dugout?
Showing posts with label Kellen Winslow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kellen Winslow. Show all posts
Friday, July 24, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Lingering Items--Stupid Is as Stupid Does Edition
It’s not hard to figure out why the Cleveland Browns have been lousy for the last 10 years. Dysfunction starts at the top and has run through the organization like a plate of bad clams through the digestive system. But while the Browns have been busy spending the last decade chasing their tales, the one positive is that at least they aren’t the Cincinnati Bengals.
In case it escaped your notice while fitfully watching the onset of a new baseball season, the Bengals signed defensive lineman Tank Johnson to a free agent contract. Apparently the relative lack of criminal element on the Dallas Cowboys (!) wouldn’t allow Johnson to perform at a high enough level and thus the search for a team with an atmosphere that was more to his liking.
Johnson fits right in with the Bengals and that has nothing to do with whatever ability he brings to their pass rush. As a convicted criminal who has served time in jail and been suspended by the league, signing Johnson allowed the Bengals to apparently check off every criteria they have on the job spec they keep for prospective free agents. Repeated arrests? Check. Jail time? Check. Illegal guns? Check. Traffic infractions? Check. League suspension? Check. Said he’s really, really sorry this time, I’m not kidding, I mean it? Check. With this signing the Bengals solidified their line-up, assuming their intention was to play and win a game against the guards at the Marion Correctional Institution in a third remake of “The Longest Yard.” Now all they need to do is sign Todd Marinovich and they’ll have their version of Paul Crew.
If the Bengals aren’t working on a remake of “The Longest Yard” then maybe what sealed the Johnson signing it was the fact that receiver Chris Henry has managed to string together almost 12 consecutive months without another arrest. As most may remember (and if you don’t, feel free to re-read my rant on that signing) the Bengals had publicly parted ways with Henry after his fifth arrest only to re-sign him to a two-year agreement months later when they needed more receivers. I suppose when they initially cut him following that arrest the had their fingers crossed behind their backs. Besides, what’s a token gesture about taking a stand against employing recidivists if it’s not truly token?
This latest signing, coupled with the arrest on Wednesday of Bengals’ starting cornerback Leon Hall for drunk driving, more than solidifies the Bengals as the last outpost for all of the league’s reprobates and miscreants. But in every dark cloud a silver lining of sorts does emerge. By comparison the Browns look positively well run, no matter who’s in charge.
**
Kellen Winslow is now at least $20 million richer, which either makes the Tampa Bay Buccaneers the second dumbest or the second most desperate team in the NFL (as to the leader in both categories, see the first item).
Winslow has his issues, certainly, but that’s not what makes his new 6-year contract so bizarre. Simply, it’s his injury history. He’s been hurt more than he’s been healthy and he’s now going on his sixth season in the NFL. The contract’s length, no doubt, is a function of amortizing the guaranteed money over a longer period of time to cushion the impact on the Baccaneers’ salary cap. But still, is there a person anywhere that thinks Winslow will last six more years in the NFL? The over and under in Vegas is probably three seasons and even then smart money says to take the under.
I’ve always felt in the minority in supporting Winslow. But it’s always struck me that most fan animosity toward him was the result of his abject stupidity when it came to motorcycles. His foray into stunt riding didn’t just basically cost him his career, it almost cost him his life. That understood, he took his lumps from the media and from Phil Savage who squeezed him into a more club-friendly contract. And he did work hard to get himself back into shape. He always played hard, when he played. The problem is that his body is so beat up that it prevents him from playing his best football. If that beat up body is the result of self-inflicted wounds, so be it. At least he gave the Browns a good effort while he was here.
None of that explains though why the Buccaneers would make Winslow the highest paid tight end in NFL history. It’s not a distinction Winslow’s earned yet by any measure and probably never will. He’s an excellent receiver but a lousy and half-hearted blocker. Signing Winslow wasn’t something Tampa Bay needed to do right now, either. Winslow was still under contract. What’s wrong with waiting to see whether he can even approach something resembling that level of confidence?
The contract extension does in large measure justify the Browns trading Winslow. He clearly wasn’t going to get that kind of reward here and it’s also pretty clear that he was ready to be disruptive, in the form of holding out if necessary, in order to make that happen. In that sense, Winslow was a problem the Browns didn’t need.
**
Maybe it’s because the Cavs are having a magical season or maybe it’s because baseball season just started (someone tell the Indians), but the NFL draft is only a few weeks away and it’s barely making more noise than the ground floor of a campus library on a Friday night.
The lack of enthusiasm to this point is just more evidence that a good portion of fans have drifted from anger to indifference. It’s what happens when a team isn’t successful and has just embarked on another rebuild.
The draft is filled with enough intriguing prospects that the 5th pick this year should be a layup. Of course, the Browns have blown their share of layups, including the consecutive years in which Mike Junkin and Clifford Charlton were there first round picks. Feel free to pick your favorites. The question is whether a new regime, still trying to get the fresh paint of Berea out of their slacks, can find a way to make this year’s draft a real foundation of this team. That’s always the promise, isn’t it?
I’ve never been a huge fan of the NFL draft. It’s got every bit the feel of a Civil War era slave auction and the appeal of a one hour episode of Facts of Life. The day grinds on endlessly while Chris Berman, Tom Jackson, Mel Kuiper, and a gaggle of others strive to find something, anything to say to fill the interminably long period between picks. Let’s look at more film, shall we?
With limited exceptions, there’s very little drama involved unless your idea of fun is to watch Brady Quinn twist in the wind. The Browns have so many holes at the moment it doesn’t really matter whether they take a receiver (always a mistake in the first round), a linebacker (a better idea) or a defensive lineman (the best idea). The only thing that does matter is that the Browns actually do use the draft to build a foundation for this team. They need players that will be around and contribute now and for the next several years. They don’t need any more projects. I’m still trying to figure out Beau Bell, Martin Rucker, Ahtyba Rubin and Paul Hubbard. My guess is that general manager George Kokinis and head coach Eric Mangini are doing the same thing.
**
The NFL will release its team by team schedule this week and with it will come the inevitable discussions about how easy or difficult it will be. At this juncture, there is no way to tell. Teams that you think will be good won’t be and vice versa. Moreover, the order in which you play teams is critical. Catching a good team on a short week is far better than catching it after a bye week.
Though the NFL makes much of its schedule being released, what they really are doing is releasing the order of the games. The schedule, in terms of which teams the Browns will play, has been known for months.
In addition to the usual two games against each divisional team, the Browns play Oakland, San Diego, Jacksonville, Green Bay and Minnesota at home and Denver, Kansas City, Buffalo, Chicago and Detroit on the road. When the NFL’s only prime time games were on Monday night, you could pretty much bank on a 4-12 season as an automatic disqualification from the league’s marquee game. But now the NFL plays prime time games on Thursday, some Saturdays, Sunday night and Monday night. If they could, they’d find a way to schedule games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, too. That means the Browns are probably going to find themselves featured at least once.
If the league is smart, they’ll make the Browns’ feature game Thanksgiving Day against Detroit. With the Lions losing their grip on their traditional Thanksgiving Day spot, a competitive game this year is a must for them. Who better to fit their needs than the Browns?
But don’t’ make your Thanksgiving plans just yet. More likely, we’ll see the Browns on the NFL Network some Thursday night late in the season, meaning that outside of Cleveland, the only folks that will see the game are those who subscribe to satellite or to some mom-and-pop cable outfit that the NFL bullied into carrying their sub par programming. At this point, it serves as a form of punishment and the NFL brass may be in the mood to punish a team they foolishly featured 5 times last season.
Personally, I’m glad the Browns will not see their share of prime time games this season for two reasons, one of which is completely selfish. In the grand scheme, the Browns need to stay off the radar screen for awhile. They are rebuilding and they need to focus on the task at hand and not worry about the added pressure of performing in front of a national audience. Selfishly, I’m sick of losing sleep during the week. But it wasn’t all lost. Without that game against Buffalo how would we have known that Savage was such a whiz with email?
**
Since I haven’t touched on the Indians, and there is plenty there to touch on, we’ll just use them as the launching pad for this week’s question to ponder: Simply, now what?
In case it escaped your notice while fitfully watching the onset of a new baseball season, the Bengals signed defensive lineman Tank Johnson to a free agent contract. Apparently the relative lack of criminal element on the Dallas Cowboys (!) wouldn’t allow Johnson to perform at a high enough level and thus the search for a team with an atmosphere that was more to his liking.
Johnson fits right in with the Bengals and that has nothing to do with whatever ability he brings to their pass rush. As a convicted criminal who has served time in jail and been suspended by the league, signing Johnson allowed the Bengals to apparently check off every criteria they have on the job spec they keep for prospective free agents. Repeated arrests? Check. Jail time? Check. Illegal guns? Check. Traffic infractions? Check. League suspension? Check. Said he’s really, really sorry this time, I’m not kidding, I mean it? Check. With this signing the Bengals solidified their line-up, assuming their intention was to play and win a game against the guards at the Marion Correctional Institution in a third remake of “The Longest Yard.” Now all they need to do is sign Todd Marinovich and they’ll have their version of Paul Crew.
If the Bengals aren’t working on a remake of “The Longest Yard” then maybe what sealed the Johnson signing it was the fact that receiver Chris Henry has managed to string together almost 12 consecutive months without another arrest. As most may remember (and if you don’t, feel free to re-read my rant on that signing) the Bengals had publicly parted ways with Henry after his fifth arrest only to re-sign him to a two-year agreement months later when they needed more receivers. I suppose when they initially cut him following that arrest the had their fingers crossed behind their backs. Besides, what’s a token gesture about taking a stand against employing recidivists if it’s not truly token?
This latest signing, coupled with the arrest on Wednesday of Bengals’ starting cornerback Leon Hall for drunk driving, more than solidifies the Bengals as the last outpost for all of the league’s reprobates and miscreants. But in every dark cloud a silver lining of sorts does emerge. By comparison the Browns look positively well run, no matter who’s in charge.
**
Kellen Winslow is now at least $20 million richer, which either makes the Tampa Bay Buccaneers the second dumbest or the second most desperate team in the NFL (as to the leader in both categories, see the first item).
Winslow has his issues, certainly, but that’s not what makes his new 6-year contract so bizarre. Simply, it’s his injury history. He’s been hurt more than he’s been healthy and he’s now going on his sixth season in the NFL. The contract’s length, no doubt, is a function of amortizing the guaranteed money over a longer period of time to cushion the impact on the Baccaneers’ salary cap. But still, is there a person anywhere that thinks Winslow will last six more years in the NFL? The over and under in Vegas is probably three seasons and even then smart money says to take the under.
I’ve always felt in the minority in supporting Winslow. But it’s always struck me that most fan animosity toward him was the result of his abject stupidity when it came to motorcycles. His foray into stunt riding didn’t just basically cost him his career, it almost cost him his life. That understood, he took his lumps from the media and from Phil Savage who squeezed him into a more club-friendly contract. And he did work hard to get himself back into shape. He always played hard, when he played. The problem is that his body is so beat up that it prevents him from playing his best football. If that beat up body is the result of self-inflicted wounds, so be it. At least he gave the Browns a good effort while he was here.
None of that explains though why the Buccaneers would make Winslow the highest paid tight end in NFL history. It’s not a distinction Winslow’s earned yet by any measure and probably never will. He’s an excellent receiver but a lousy and half-hearted blocker. Signing Winslow wasn’t something Tampa Bay needed to do right now, either. Winslow was still under contract. What’s wrong with waiting to see whether he can even approach something resembling that level of confidence?
The contract extension does in large measure justify the Browns trading Winslow. He clearly wasn’t going to get that kind of reward here and it’s also pretty clear that he was ready to be disruptive, in the form of holding out if necessary, in order to make that happen. In that sense, Winslow was a problem the Browns didn’t need.
**
Maybe it’s because the Cavs are having a magical season or maybe it’s because baseball season just started (someone tell the Indians), but the NFL draft is only a few weeks away and it’s barely making more noise than the ground floor of a campus library on a Friday night.
The lack of enthusiasm to this point is just more evidence that a good portion of fans have drifted from anger to indifference. It’s what happens when a team isn’t successful and has just embarked on another rebuild.
The draft is filled with enough intriguing prospects that the 5th pick this year should be a layup. Of course, the Browns have blown their share of layups, including the consecutive years in which Mike Junkin and Clifford Charlton were there first round picks. Feel free to pick your favorites. The question is whether a new regime, still trying to get the fresh paint of Berea out of their slacks, can find a way to make this year’s draft a real foundation of this team. That’s always the promise, isn’t it?
I’ve never been a huge fan of the NFL draft. It’s got every bit the feel of a Civil War era slave auction and the appeal of a one hour episode of Facts of Life. The day grinds on endlessly while Chris Berman, Tom Jackson, Mel Kuiper, and a gaggle of others strive to find something, anything to say to fill the interminably long period between picks. Let’s look at more film, shall we?
With limited exceptions, there’s very little drama involved unless your idea of fun is to watch Brady Quinn twist in the wind. The Browns have so many holes at the moment it doesn’t really matter whether they take a receiver (always a mistake in the first round), a linebacker (a better idea) or a defensive lineman (the best idea). The only thing that does matter is that the Browns actually do use the draft to build a foundation for this team. They need players that will be around and contribute now and for the next several years. They don’t need any more projects. I’m still trying to figure out Beau Bell, Martin Rucker, Ahtyba Rubin and Paul Hubbard. My guess is that general manager George Kokinis and head coach Eric Mangini are doing the same thing.
**
The NFL will release its team by team schedule this week and with it will come the inevitable discussions about how easy or difficult it will be. At this juncture, there is no way to tell. Teams that you think will be good won’t be and vice versa. Moreover, the order in which you play teams is critical. Catching a good team on a short week is far better than catching it after a bye week.
Though the NFL makes much of its schedule being released, what they really are doing is releasing the order of the games. The schedule, in terms of which teams the Browns will play, has been known for months.
In addition to the usual two games against each divisional team, the Browns play Oakland, San Diego, Jacksonville, Green Bay and Minnesota at home and Denver, Kansas City, Buffalo, Chicago and Detroit on the road. When the NFL’s only prime time games were on Monday night, you could pretty much bank on a 4-12 season as an automatic disqualification from the league’s marquee game. But now the NFL plays prime time games on Thursday, some Saturdays, Sunday night and Monday night. If they could, they’d find a way to schedule games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, too. That means the Browns are probably going to find themselves featured at least once.
If the league is smart, they’ll make the Browns’ feature game Thanksgiving Day against Detroit. With the Lions losing their grip on their traditional Thanksgiving Day spot, a competitive game this year is a must for them. Who better to fit their needs than the Browns?
But don’t’ make your Thanksgiving plans just yet. More likely, we’ll see the Browns on the NFL Network some Thursday night late in the season, meaning that outside of Cleveland, the only folks that will see the game are those who subscribe to satellite or to some mom-and-pop cable outfit that the NFL bullied into carrying their sub par programming. At this point, it serves as a form of punishment and the NFL brass may be in the mood to punish a team they foolishly featured 5 times last season.
Personally, I’m glad the Browns will not see their share of prime time games this season for two reasons, one of which is completely selfish. In the grand scheme, the Browns need to stay off the radar screen for awhile. They are rebuilding and they need to focus on the task at hand and not worry about the added pressure of performing in front of a national audience. Selfishly, I’m sick of losing sleep during the week. But it wasn’t all lost. Without that game against Buffalo how would we have known that Savage was such a whiz with email?
**
Since I haven’t touched on the Indians, and there is plenty there to touch on, we’ll just use them as the launching pad for this week’s question to ponder: Simply, now what?
Friday, February 27, 2009
Lingering Items--Disgruntled Edition
Shaun Rogers is unhappy and somewhere a Detroit Lions fan is smiling. So is a New York Jets fan.
If reports are true then Rogers, a Pro Bowl defensive lineman acquired last year in a trade with the Lions, is unhappy about perceived snubs at the hands of new head coach Eric Mangini. He’s also apparently miffed about a memo he (and presumably others) received about the team’s upcoming workouts in mid-March. Rogers, a player who always has teetered on this side or that of being overweight, was told to make sure he reports for the workouts at his playing weight. Rogers supposedly is upset because he managed to stay on the right side of the weight line all last season while putting together one of the few bright spot seasons for the team.
If anyone is surprised at this development, they shouldn’t be. In the first place, and without trying to be overly technical in the analysis, Rogers is a whiner. He comes by his nickname, Big Baby, honestly. The term often used for players like Rogers is that he “wore out his welcome.” The problem in Detroit, actually, was not so much that he wore it out but that he forced the issue, a problem that ultimately will surface in Cleveland.
Rogers was a key reason why the Lions got off to a 6-2 start in 2007. He was also a key reason the Lions cratered in the second half and didn’t make the playoffs. Rogers, reportedly overweight and disgruntled, spent the second half sleepwalking. It’s not clear what set him off then but maybe it had something to do with not having enough whipped cream for his ho-hos. Whatever it was, though, it grew to the point that the Lions felt that his leaving would be addition by subtracting. So did the fans.
Now the Lions don’t necessarily have the best track record when it comes to making personnel decisions, so it was easy to conclude that this was at least as much a Lions issue as a Rogers issue. And what is it that they always say when someone has “worn out his welcome?” Oh, yea, all he needs is a “change of scenery.”
Rogers got that in Cleveland and responded under the gentle hand of former Browns’ head coach Romeo Crennel. All seemed well enough, in fact, until Crennel was fired and Mangini hired. To say that Mangini carries with him a much different reputation for interpersonal relationships than Crennel does is a tad understated, which is why the Jets fans that wanted Mangini fired are smiling as well. In their view, if not Rogers it would have been someone else. Mangini carries with him that same chip that his mentor Bill Belichick still does. Not having ever played in the league themselves, they overcompensate by constantly reminding everyone around that they are in charge.
The grapevine is as alive and well in the locker rooms of the NFL as it is in your office. Well before Mangini ordered the first can of paint for the Berea offices, Rogers and the rest of the squad had their version of the inside scoop on him. It’s in that context that the rest of the story must be viewed.
Rogers’ first non-encounter with his new head coach came at a charity function in Cleveland. Both Rogers and Mangini were present, reportedly almost physically ran into each other, but neither bothered to acknowledge the other. In what appears to have been a bit of a Mexican standoff by way of middle school girl sleepover drama, both took the attitude, “you first.” For two people with a high recognition need, it was the most volatile mix possible. Not surprisingly, neither went first and the snub was on.
By the time Abby passed a note to Cassie in study hall, Shaun and Eric were like totally not talking to each other. Then Shaun, he was, like, in Berea and, so, like, Eric he was there too but he acted like, you know, he didn’t know Shuan was there and he goes, he goes, like, “I’m not gonna say hi if he’s not gonna say hi” and so Shaun he just gets all like mad and stuff cause Eric didn’t stop by and so he leaves and Eric, he’s like, “hey, I’m the boss here, he should come and see me.” And then Eric he was gonna, like, you know, text Shaun and see if they could hang later but Shaun just got his new iPhone and changed his number and totally didn’t even give it to Eric, which was kind of mean. So now they’re both just totally off the reservation about this.
The chances of the Browns simply releasing Rogers are about 9.7 million to one. That’s the size impact releasing Rogers would have on the team’s salary cap. But just because they won’t release him doesn’t mean that this problem won’t linger below the surface and raise its ugly head from time to time. At some point, Mangini and Rogers will put their school girl theatrics aside and meet like adults. Predictably they’ll emerge from the meeting having “cleared the air.” Rogers will vow to give his all for the team and profess how much he likes playing in Cleveland. All will be well.
But there will come a point in the season where this wound will reopen. With Rogers, it’s a pattern. He likes to be coddled. He’ll mope and maybe dog it a bit just like he did in Detroit until he gets his way. Mangini will throw down his own gauntlet and the game will be on once again. Mangini is building a track record but Rogers already has one. They don’t call him Big Baby because he’s just a lovable overgrown kid.
**
Speaking of disgruntled, Kellen Winslow, Jr. is headed to Tampa Bay in return for some draft picks. According to reports, he garnered a second round pick this year and a fifth round pick next year. So much for anyone’s pipe dream that it involved a first round pick.
That Winslow was traded hardly qualifies as a shocker, though some are portraying it that way. Winslow wasn’t necessarily unhappy in Cleveland, though he was wildly unhappy with former general manager Phil Savage. What he was unhappy about was his contract status and employed the one agent more than any other, Drew Rosenhaus, likely to exploit that status.
Rosenhaus trolls for other agent’s clients by promising them the moon and the stars. There isn’t a contract that Rosenhaus ever felt shouldn’t be renegotiated. The minute a Rosenhaus client puts together a decent half of football, Rosenhaus is on the phone to the general manager asking for a renegotiation. Thus, the minute Winslow hired Rosenhaus before last season, you could have circled this day on the calendar.
Winslow is under contract until 2010. There was some concern that Rosenhaus might try to have Winslow hold out last season but that subsided. It didn’t, however, disappear. Had Winslow stayed, the chances of his holding out for a better deal were extremely high. Rosenhaus, too, has a track record as do his clients. If there’s a hold out, the odds are high it’s a Rosenhaus client.
But the Winslow contract situation has always been complicated. In the first place, Winslow caused his own problems by foolishly attempting to ride a stunt motorcycle as if that were his profession. He cost himself more than just a season. The injuries and the resulting staph infection still plague him. He’ll never be able to fulfill the promise of his talent as a result.
Although Savage could have rescinded Winslow’s contract because of the nature of the injuries, he chose instead to force upon him a very club-friendly renegotiation. In truth, Winslow had no choice but to accept that outcome. Not knowing whether he would ever really be able to play again, Winslow simply couldn’t risk being cut and taking an injury settlement. It would have been difficult to catch on with another team at anything approaching the same price.
Savage got his way but it caused some hard feelings with Winslow. From Winslow’s standpoint, it was pretty understandable. The Browns took advantage when the situation was in their favor. Why shouldn’t Winslow do likewise? Once Winslow returned from injuries and put together, for example, a Pro Bowl season in 2007, he felt that he had re-earned the salary he gave up. Savage didn’t see it that way and refused to renegotiate.
Eventually, the hard feelings the contract situation were causing blew up in the middle of last season when Savage oddly had Winslow suspended for a game for complaining about the number of staph infections Browns’ players have suffered. Savage had to rescind the suspension and was forced by owner Randy Lerner to apologize. Savage gave that his usual half-hearted best. Winslow, understandably, continued to stew even as he publicly said all the right things.
Winslow had a reputation for being a hot head coming out of the University of Miami, but in truth he was mostly a model citizen while in Cleveland despite possessing an ego that exceeded his accomplishments. He worked hard to rehabilitate. He was, as coaches like to say, a “warrior” on the field. He played hurt. Donte Stallworth he was not.
That Winslow was traded probably isn’t a case of his “wearing out his welcome” in Cleveland. He had no history with Mangini or general manager George Kokinis to suggest that. In fact, Savage’s departure probably was good news in Camp Winslow.
Instead, this is one trade you can probably take mostly at face value: an effort to trade an injury-plagued player for some lost draft choices. But before anyone gets all excited, keep it in perspective. If this trade has anything more than a minimal impact on the team’s success or lack thereof next season, that would be the shock in this whole matter.
**
With Winslow gone, the Browns basically have three tight ends still on the roster, Steve Heiden, Martin Tucker and Darnell Dinkins. Of the three, Heiden is clearly the most talented. While not nearly as athletic as Winslow or as fast, he is sure handed and is a better blocker than Winslow. Tucker is still mostly an unknown commodity. Savage was a big fan, Crennel and former offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski were not. Dinkins is a role player, nothing more.
The guess is that the Mangini and Kokinis will add at least one more tight end, either through free agency or in the draft. Heiden, as serviceable as he’s been, has had his share of injuries as well. If Mangini ends up having the same view of Tucker as did Crennel, then look for the Browns to add two more tight ends. But in any case, given the other glaring holes in this team, filling these slots will fall well down on the priority list.
**
Given all the drama taking place in Berea this week, this week’s question to ponder: On which HBO series is Eric Mangini more likely to pop up on next, “Hard Knocks” or “In Treatment?”
If reports are true then Rogers, a Pro Bowl defensive lineman acquired last year in a trade with the Lions, is unhappy about perceived snubs at the hands of new head coach Eric Mangini. He’s also apparently miffed about a memo he (and presumably others) received about the team’s upcoming workouts in mid-March. Rogers, a player who always has teetered on this side or that of being overweight, was told to make sure he reports for the workouts at his playing weight. Rogers supposedly is upset because he managed to stay on the right side of the weight line all last season while putting together one of the few bright spot seasons for the team.
If anyone is surprised at this development, they shouldn’t be. In the first place, and without trying to be overly technical in the analysis, Rogers is a whiner. He comes by his nickname, Big Baby, honestly. The term often used for players like Rogers is that he “wore out his welcome.” The problem in Detroit, actually, was not so much that he wore it out but that he forced the issue, a problem that ultimately will surface in Cleveland.
Rogers was a key reason why the Lions got off to a 6-2 start in 2007. He was also a key reason the Lions cratered in the second half and didn’t make the playoffs. Rogers, reportedly overweight and disgruntled, spent the second half sleepwalking. It’s not clear what set him off then but maybe it had something to do with not having enough whipped cream for his ho-hos. Whatever it was, though, it grew to the point that the Lions felt that his leaving would be addition by subtracting. So did the fans.
Now the Lions don’t necessarily have the best track record when it comes to making personnel decisions, so it was easy to conclude that this was at least as much a Lions issue as a Rogers issue. And what is it that they always say when someone has “worn out his welcome?” Oh, yea, all he needs is a “change of scenery.”
Rogers got that in Cleveland and responded under the gentle hand of former Browns’ head coach Romeo Crennel. All seemed well enough, in fact, until Crennel was fired and Mangini hired. To say that Mangini carries with him a much different reputation for interpersonal relationships than Crennel does is a tad understated, which is why the Jets fans that wanted Mangini fired are smiling as well. In their view, if not Rogers it would have been someone else. Mangini carries with him that same chip that his mentor Bill Belichick still does. Not having ever played in the league themselves, they overcompensate by constantly reminding everyone around that they are in charge.
The grapevine is as alive and well in the locker rooms of the NFL as it is in your office. Well before Mangini ordered the first can of paint for the Berea offices, Rogers and the rest of the squad had their version of the inside scoop on him. It’s in that context that the rest of the story must be viewed.
Rogers’ first non-encounter with his new head coach came at a charity function in Cleveland. Both Rogers and Mangini were present, reportedly almost physically ran into each other, but neither bothered to acknowledge the other. In what appears to have been a bit of a Mexican standoff by way of middle school girl sleepover drama, both took the attitude, “you first.” For two people with a high recognition need, it was the most volatile mix possible. Not surprisingly, neither went first and the snub was on.
By the time Abby passed a note to Cassie in study hall, Shaun and Eric were like totally not talking to each other. Then Shaun, he was, like, in Berea and, so, like, Eric he was there too but he acted like, you know, he didn’t know Shuan was there and he goes, he goes, like, “I’m not gonna say hi if he’s not gonna say hi” and so Shaun he just gets all like mad and stuff cause Eric didn’t stop by and so he leaves and Eric, he’s like, “hey, I’m the boss here, he should come and see me.” And then Eric he was gonna, like, you know, text Shaun and see if they could hang later but Shaun just got his new iPhone and changed his number and totally didn’t even give it to Eric, which was kind of mean. So now they’re both just totally off the reservation about this.
The chances of the Browns simply releasing Rogers are about 9.7 million to one. That’s the size impact releasing Rogers would have on the team’s salary cap. But just because they won’t release him doesn’t mean that this problem won’t linger below the surface and raise its ugly head from time to time. At some point, Mangini and Rogers will put their school girl theatrics aside and meet like adults. Predictably they’ll emerge from the meeting having “cleared the air.” Rogers will vow to give his all for the team and profess how much he likes playing in Cleveland. All will be well.
But there will come a point in the season where this wound will reopen. With Rogers, it’s a pattern. He likes to be coddled. He’ll mope and maybe dog it a bit just like he did in Detroit until he gets his way. Mangini will throw down his own gauntlet and the game will be on once again. Mangini is building a track record but Rogers already has one. They don’t call him Big Baby because he’s just a lovable overgrown kid.
**
Speaking of disgruntled, Kellen Winslow, Jr. is headed to Tampa Bay in return for some draft picks. According to reports, he garnered a second round pick this year and a fifth round pick next year. So much for anyone’s pipe dream that it involved a first round pick.
That Winslow was traded hardly qualifies as a shocker, though some are portraying it that way. Winslow wasn’t necessarily unhappy in Cleveland, though he was wildly unhappy with former general manager Phil Savage. What he was unhappy about was his contract status and employed the one agent more than any other, Drew Rosenhaus, likely to exploit that status.
Rosenhaus trolls for other agent’s clients by promising them the moon and the stars. There isn’t a contract that Rosenhaus ever felt shouldn’t be renegotiated. The minute a Rosenhaus client puts together a decent half of football, Rosenhaus is on the phone to the general manager asking for a renegotiation. Thus, the minute Winslow hired Rosenhaus before last season, you could have circled this day on the calendar.
Winslow is under contract until 2010. There was some concern that Rosenhaus might try to have Winslow hold out last season but that subsided. It didn’t, however, disappear. Had Winslow stayed, the chances of his holding out for a better deal were extremely high. Rosenhaus, too, has a track record as do his clients. If there’s a hold out, the odds are high it’s a Rosenhaus client.
But the Winslow contract situation has always been complicated. In the first place, Winslow caused his own problems by foolishly attempting to ride a stunt motorcycle as if that were his profession. He cost himself more than just a season. The injuries and the resulting staph infection still plague him. He’ll never be able to fulfill the promise of his talent as a result.
Although Savage could have rescinded Winslow’s contract because of the nature of the injuries, he chose instead to force upon him a very club-friendly renegotiation. In truth, Winslow had no choice but to accept that outcome. Not knowing whether he would ever really be able to play again, Winslow simply couldn’t risk being cut and taking an injury settlement. It would have been difficult to catch on with another team at anything approaching the same price.
Savage got his way but it caused some hard feelings with Winslow. From Winslow’s standpoint, it was pretty understandable. The Browns took advantage when the situation was in their favor. Why shouldn’t Winslow do likewise? Once Winslow returned from injuries and put together, for example, a Pro Bowl season in 2007, he felt that he had re-earned the salary he gave up. Savage didn’t see it that way and refused to renegotiate.
Eventually, the hard feelings the contract situation were causing blew up in the middle of last season when Savage oddly had Winslow suspended for a game for complaining about the number of staph infections Browns’ players have suffered. Savage had to rescind the suspension and was forced by owner Randy Lerner to apologize. Savage gave that his usual half-hearted best. Winslow, understandably, continued to stew even as he publicly said all the right things.
Winslow had a reputation for being a hot head coming out of the University of Miami, but in truth he was mostly a model citizen while in Cleveland despite possessing an ego that exceeded his accomplishments. He worked hard to rehabilitate. He was, as coaches like to say, a “warrior” on the field. He played hurt. Donte Stallworth he was not.
That Winslow was traded probably isn’t a case of his “wearing out his welcome” in Cleveland. He had no history with Mangini or general manager George Kokinis to suggest that. In fact, Savage’s departure probably was good news in Camp Winslow.
Instead, this is one trade you can probably take mostly at face value: an effort to trade an injury-plagued player for some lost draft choices. But before anyone gets all excited, keep it in perspective. If this trade has anything more than a minimal impact on the team’s success or lack thereof next season, that would be the shock in this whole matter.
**
With Winslow gone, the Browns basically have three tight ends still on the roster, Steve Heiden, Martin Tucker and Darnell Dinkins. Of the three, Heiden is clearly the most talented. While not nearly as athletic as Winslow or as fast, he is sure handed and is a better blocker than Winslow. Tucker is still mostly an unknown commodity. Savage was a big fan, Crennel and former offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski were not. Dinkins is a role player, nothing more.
The guess is that the Mangini and Kokinis will add at least one more tight end, either through free agency or in the draft. Heiden, as serviceable as he’s been, has had his share of injuries as well. If Mangini ends up having the same view of Tucker as did Crennel, then look for the Browns to add two more tight ends. But in any case, given the other glaring holes in this team, filling these slots will fall well down on the priority list.
**
Given all the drama taking place in Berea this week, this week’s question to ponder: On which HBO series is Eric Mangini more likely to pop up on next, “Hard Knocks” or “In Treatment?”
Friday, November 07, 2008
Flat lining
For the second time in the last four days, the Cleveland Browns tried to resuscitate a season that has been in need of life support since September. And for the second time in the last four days, the Browns did all they could to kill the patient instead, again blowing a second half lead on their way to losing to a very iffy Denver Broncos team, 34-30 Thursday night.
The final blow of the game and likely the season came courtesy of Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler, who took a machete to the Cleveland secondary in the second half on his way to passing for a career high 447 yards. The coroner’s report will show that it was Cutler’s 11-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Marshall with 1:14 that officially flat lined the Browns. But it was al that had led up to that moment that really did the damage.
The Browns’ did have one final shot but it ended moments later when Brady Quinn’s pass on 4th and 1 sailed right through the hands of Kellen Winslow. It was a disastrous end to a disastrous half for Winslow that was a contributing factor, at least, toward sending the Browns to their second straight loss and third in four games. A pass interference call on Winslow on a ball thrown to Braylon Edwards helped kill one drive and a fumble by Winslow after getting a first down on the next drive lead to a Broncos touchdown that ultimately helped set the stage for the Broncos’ comeback.
But Winslow was hardly the primary reason the Browns lost the game. That dubious honor goes to a defense that barely pressured Cutler the entire night, allowing him all the time he needed to spread the ball around to six different receivers. The lack of pressure essentially exposed a weak secondary, and particularly an overmatched Brandon McDonald, who was burned for two touchdowns in the second half, a 93-yard Cutler to wide receiver Eddie Royal and the final touchdown to Marshall.
Perhaps most frustrating about the play of the defense was the fact that it knew what was coming on virtually every play and still couldn’t do anything about it. The Broncos arrived in Cleveland with virtually no running game because of injuries and halfway through the second quarter literally had no healthy tailback on its active roster when fourth string tailback Ryan Torain went down.
Apparently that was a satisfactory game plan as it allowed Cutler to embarrass a defense that had been carrying the team until recently as he compelted 24 of 42 passes for three touchdowns.
Meanwhile, the defensive collapse obscured a good debut by Brady Quinn as a legitimate NFL starting quarterback. Looking confident and capable throughout, Quinn engineered a critical fourth quarter drive that temporarily gave Cleveland a 30-27 lead with just under five minutes to play. But the defense was essentially a chew toy for Cutler and as a result, the Browns’ sixth loss of the season was firmly secured.
On the night, Quinn was 23-35 for 239 yards and two touchdowns, both to Winslow. Indeed, until it turned on him, Winslow too was having a strong night. He was Quinn’s favorite target, catching 11 passes for 111 yards. But it was the interference call, the fumble and the final drop that fans will remember most, assuming they can get the image of the defense out of their heads.
For the first half anyway the Browns played like a team that seemed to thrive on turmoil. Just as they did two weeks ago against Jacksonville, the Browns used controversy, this time the controversy that grew out of the benching of quarterback Derek Anderson, to their advantage and had a 10-point half time lead that they stretched to 13 points early in the third quarter.
But the Broncos, despite a shortage of healthy bodies, were always able to stay within striking distance because of Cutler. That much was clear from outset. On the Broncos’ first play from scrimmage, he hit tight end Tony Sheffler for 39 yards. Though that drive went for naught when kicker Matt Prater missed a 38-yard field goal a few plays later, it was certainly a precursor of what was to come.
On the Broncos’ next series, they grabbled the early lead as Cutler picked apart the secondary, moving 86 yards in 9 plays, including an 18-yard pass to Royal that took the ball to the Browns’ 1-yard line. From there, Torain hurdled over the pile at the goal line for the touchdown.
The Browns quickly answered and answered and answered again and seemed well in control doing it. Josh Cribbs, fortifying his bid for a second straight Pro Bowl, took the Prater kick back to the Browns 41-yard line. Quinn then hit Donte Stallworth on a short out pattern that Stallworth turned into an 18-yard game. It was the kind of short touch pass that has bedeviled Anderson, all season. From there, Jamal Lewis took over, running first for 8 yards and then breaking loose on a 29-yard run, the Browns’ longest run from scrimmage this season. On the night, Lewis had 60 yards on 19 carries. Then, on third and goal from the five, Quinn hit tight end Kellen Winslow with a bullet in the back of the end zone. The Phil Dawson extra point then knotted the game at 7-7.
Following a Denver punt, the Browns added to their lead thanks to a 24-yard Dawson field goal. It was a drive that featured Jerome Harrison ripping off one long run after another against the Broncos’ defense. In all, Harrison had 44 yards on 4 carries on that drive. Oddly, Harrison had only one other carry the rest of the night.
Meanwhile, Cutler kept on slinging. After a holding penalty pushed the ball back to the Broncos’ 15-yard line, Cutler tried to hit Marshall breaking long but instead hit Brodney Pool, who took the interception back to the Broncos’ 20-yard line. Three plays later, Quinn hit Winslow at the Broncos’ 5-yard line. Winslow was able to shake the tackle of Marquand Manuel on his way to the 16-yard touchdown, his second of the game, to help give the Browns a 17-7 lead with the second quarter barely four minutes old.
After a Prater 38-yard field goal brought the Broncos back to within 7, Cleveland answered with a Dawson 52-yard field goal to once again push the lead to 10, giving the Browns a 20-10 half time lead.
The Browns kept the pressure on the Broncos in the second half with a 10 play 54-yard drive to open the second half. But Quinn and Winslow couldn’t quite connect twice in the red zone and the Browns settled for a 33-yard Dawson field goal. Cutler and the Broncos answered on their opening drive with a field goal of their own, a 30-yarder by Prater. It seemed harmless at the time but as it turned out, the Broncos were just getting warmed up.
The Browns actually had a chance to perhaps put the game out of reach for good on their next drive. In the process of putting together the kind of drive that tends to break the backs of a defense, Quinn first and then Lewis converted crucial third and fourth down plays. But on 3rd and 6 from the Denver 41, Quinn hit Edwards for 15 yards, but the play was nullified because of the Winslow interference penalty. The Browns couldn’t convert on 3rd and 16 and were forced to punt.
What doesn’t kill you apparently makes you stronger as Cutler hit Royal sprinting down the left side line for what turned out to be a 93-yard touchdown play. There was either a blown assignment or Royal just badly beat McDonald. Either way, a game that the Browns were dominating had suddenly turned shaky with the Browns clinging to a 23-20.
And it seemed like it would only be shaky for as long as it took Prater to kick the ball to Cribbs. Fielding the ball at the 5-yard line, Cribbs nearly broke it for a touchdown before being dragged down at the 50-yard line. But after catching a key 3rd down pass from Quinn for a first down, Winslow fumbled the ball and Denver recovered, giving the Broncos the ball at their own 38-yard line with a chance to take the lead, which predictably is what happened.
The colossal mess that the game eventually devolved into for the Browns was typified on that Broncos drive. Throwing on virtually every down and with almost no pass rush to challenge him, Cutler had no problem finding a variety of receivers against a defensive secondary that was neither covering nor tackling well. The epitome came on Cutler’s 27-yard touchdown pass to tight end Daniel Graham who essentially walked the final 10 yards into the end zone as both Mike Adams and D’Qwell Jackson whiffed on tackles. It didn’t help either that McDonald, fresh off giving up the long touchdown to Royal, had a chance to make amends in that drive but dropped what should have been his second interception of the game that allowed the Broncos drive to continue.
After the Quinn-engineered touchdown gave the Browns back the lead, the defense had a chance to shut the door again but couldn’t. On the Broncos’ final drive, they faced a 4th and 1 from their own 45-yard line. After being forced to call a timeout in order to get the right personnel in, Cutler gave the ball to fullback Peyton Hills. Sean Jones had Hills stopped behind the line of scrimmage but couldn’t finish the tackle as Hills dove forward for the first down.
From there, Cutler continued to slice the defense as finely as a ginsu knife slices a tomato, helping his own cause with an18-yard run that took the ball to the Browns’ 11-yard line. From there he put the knife to, who else, McDonald who couldn’t stay with Marshall. The easy touchdown, along with the Prater extra point, gave the Broncos the 34-30 lead and the game.
With two games completed in just four days, the Browns now have 11 days off. They’ll need it, but not to find a quarterback but to find a defensive lineman who can pressure a quarterback or a cornerback that can cover. Is that DeAngelo Hall’s phone I just heard ringing?
More than likely, the Browns will just squander the time off instead in favor of some sort of self-inflicted controversy. But as we know now, not even turmoil can rally this team anymore. With the loss and the way it happened, the Browns have officially run out of excuses. The monitor can be unplugged.
The final blow of the game and likely the season came courtesy of Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler, who took a machete to the Cleveland secondary in the second half on his way to passing for a career high 447 yards. The coroner’s report will show that it was Cutler’s 11-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Marshall with 1:14 that officially flat lined the Browns. But it was al that had led up to that moment that really did the damage.
The Browns’ did have one final shot but it ended moments later when Brady Quinn’s pass on 4th and 1 sailed right through the hands of Kellen Winslow. It was a disastrous end to a disastrous half for Winslow that was a contributing factor, at least, toward sending the Browns to their second straight loss and third in four games. A pass interference call on Winslow on a ball thrown to Braylon Edwards helped kill one drive and a fumble by Winslow after getting a first down on the next drive lead to a Broncos touchdown that ultimately helped set the stage for the Broncos’ comeback.
But Winslow was hardly the primary reason the Browns lost the game. That dubious honor goes to a defense that barely pressured Cutler the entire night, allowing him all the time he needed to spread the ball around to six different receivers. The lack of pressure essentially exposed a weak secondary, and particularly an overmatched Brandon McDonald, who was burned for two touchdowns in the second half, a 93-yard Cutler to wide receiver Eddie Royal and the final touchdown to Marshall.
Perhaps most frustrating about the play of the defense was the fact that it knew what was coming on virtually every play and still couldn’t do anything about it. The Broncos arrived in Cleveland with virtually no running game because of injuries and halfway through the second quarter literally had no healthy tailback on its active roster when fourth string tailback Ryan Torain went down.
Apparently that was a satisfactory game plan as it allowed Cutler to embarrass a defense that had been carrying the team until recently as he compelted 24 of 42 passes for three touchdowns.
Meanwhile, the defensive collapse obscured a good debut by Brady Quinn as a legitimate NFL starting quarterback. Looking confident and capable throughout, Quinn engineered a critical fourth quarter drive that temporarily gave Cleveland a 30-27 lead with just under five minutes to play. But the defense was essentially a chew toy for Cutler and as a result, the Browns’ sixth loss of the season was firmly secured.
On the night, Quinn was 23-35 for 239 yards and two touchdowns, both to Winslow. Indeed, until it turned on him, Winslow too was having a strong night. He was Quinn’s favorite target, catching 11 passes for 111 yards. But it was the interference call, the fumble and the final drop that fans will remember most, assuming they can get the image of the defense out of their heads.
For the first half anyway the Browns played like a team that seemed to thrive on turmoil. Just as they did two weeks ago against Jacksonville, the Browns used controversy, this time the controversy that grew out of the benching of quarterback Derek Anderson, to their advantage and had a 10-point half time lead that they stretched to 13 points early in the third quarter.
But the Broncos, despite a shortage of healthy bodies, were always able to stay within striking distance because of Cutler. That much was clear from outset. On the Broncos’ first play from scrimmage, he hit tight end Tony Sheffler for 39 yards. Though that drive went for naught when kicker Matt Prater missed a 38-yard field goal a few plays later, it was certainly a precursor of what was to come.
On the Broncos’ next series, they grabbled the early lead as Cutler picked apart the secondary, moving 86 yards in 9 plays, including an 18-yard pass to Royal that took the ball to the Browns’ 1-yard line. From there, Torain hurdled over the pile at the goal line for the touchdown.
The Browns quickly answered and answered and answered again and seemed well in control doing it. Josh Cribbs, fortifying his bid for a second straight Pro Bowl, took the Prater kick back to the Browns 41-yard line. Quinn then hit Donte Stallworth on a short out pattern that Stallworth turned into an 18-yard game. It was the kind of short touch pass that has bedeviled Anderson, all season. From there, Jamal Lewis took over, running first for 8 yards and then breaking loose on a 29-yard run, the Browns’ longest run from scrimmage this season. On the night, Lewis had 60 yards on 19 carries. Then, on third and goal from the five, Quinn hit tight end Kellen Winslow with a bullet in the back of the end zone. The Phil Dawson extra point then knotted the game at 7-7.
Following a Denver punt, the Browns added to their lead thanks to a 24-yard Dawson field goal. It was a drive that featured Jerome Harrison ripping off one long run after another against the Broncos’ defense. In all, Harrison had 44 yards on 4 carries on that drive. Oddly, Harrison had only one other carry the rest of the night.
Meanwhile, Cutler kept on slinging. After a holding penalty pushed the ball back to the Broncos’ 15-yard line, Cutler tried to hit Marshall breaking long but instead hit Brodney Pool, who took the interception back to the Broncos’ 20-yard line. Three plays later, Quinn hit Winslow at the Broncos’ 5-yard line. Winslow was able to shake the tackle of Marquand Manuel on his way to the 16-yard touchdown, his second of the game, to help give the Browns a 17-7 lead with the second quarter barely four minutes old.
After a Prater 38-yard field goal brought the Broncos back to within 7, Cleveland answered with a Dawson 52-yard field goal to once again push the lead to 10, giving the Browns a 20-10 half time lead.
The Browns kept the pressure on the Broncos in the second half with a 10 play 54-yard drive to open the second half. But Quinn and Winslow couldn’t quite connect twice in the red zone and the Browns settled for a 33-yard Dawson field goal. Cutler and the Broncos answered on their opening drive with a field goal of their own, a 30-yarder by Prater. It seemed harmless at the time but as it turned out, the Broncos were just getting warmed up.
The Browns actually had a chance to perhaps put the game out of reach for good on their next drive. In the process of putting together the kind of drive that tends to break the backs of a defense, Quinn first and then Lewis converted crucial third and fourth down plays. But on 3rd and 6 from the Denver 41, Quinn hit Edwards for 15 yards, but the play was nullified because of the Winslow interference penalty. The Browns couldn’t convert on 3rd and 16 and were forced to punt.
What doesn’t kill you apparently makes you stronger as Cutler hit Royal sprinting down the left side line for what turned out to be a 93-yard touchdown play. There was either a blown assignment or Royal just badly beat McDonald. Either way, a game that the Browns were dominating had suddenly turned shaky with the Browns clinging to a 23-20.
And it seemed like it would only be shaky for as long as it took Prater to kick the ball to Cribbs. Fielding the ball at the 5-yard line, Cribbs nearly broke it for a touchdown before being dragged down at the 50-yard line. But after catching a key 3rd down pass from Quinn for a first down, Winslow fumbled the ball and Denver recovered, giving the Broncos the ball at their own 38-yard line with a chance to take the lead, which predictably is what happened.
The colossal mess that the game eventually devolved into for the Browns was typified on that Broncos drive. Throwing on virtually every down and with almost no pass rush to challenge him, Cutler had no problem finding a variety of receivers against a defensive secondary that was neither covering nor tackling well. The epitome came on Cutler’s 27-yard touchdown pass to tight end Daniel Graham who essentially walked the final 10 yards into the end zone as both Mike Adams and D’Qwell Jackson whiffed on tackles. It didn’t help either that McDonald, fresh off giving up the long touchdown to Royal, had a chance to make amends in that drive but dropped what should have been his second interception of the game that allowed the Broncos drive to continue.
After the Quinn-engineered touchdown gave the Browns back the lead, the defense had a chance to shut the door again but couldn’t. On the Broncos’ final drive, they faced a 4th and 1 from their own 45-yard line. After being forced to call a timeout in order to get the right personnel in, Cutler gave the ball to fullback Peyton Hills. Sean Jones had Hills stopped behind the line of scrimmage but couldn’t finish the tackle as Hills dove forward for the first down.
From there, Cutler continued to slice the defense as finely as a ginsu knife slices a tomato, helping his own cause with an18-yard run that took the ball to the Browns’ 11-yard line. From there he put the knife to, who else, McDonald who couldn’t stay with Marshall. The easy touchdown, along with the Prater extra point, gave the Broncos the 34-30 lead and the game.
With two games completed in just four days, the Browns now have 11 days off. They’ll need it, but not to find a quarterback but to find a defensive lineman who can pressure a quarterback or a cornerback that can cover. Is that DeAngelo Hall’s phone I just heard ringing?
More than likely, the Browns will just squander the time off instead in favor of some sort of self-inflicted controversy. But as we know now, not even turmoil can rally this team anymore. With the loss and the way it happened, the Browns have officially run out of excuses. The monitor can be unplugged.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Dysfunction Junction
If the Cleveland Browns’ season was being scripted by the folks at Schoolhouse Rock, the musical question they’d ask is: Dysfunction Junction what’s your function? At this point, other than the ubiquitous “to win games” I doubt even general manager Phil Savage could actually answer that question. With turmoil once again the operating theme orchestrated by a general manager clearly in over his head, the Browns once again find themselves in the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
Apparently not satisfied mishandling one marquee player in tight end Kellen Winslow, Savage decided to try his particular brand of handiwork on another marquee player, Brady Quinn. Meanwhile, the locker room and the coaching staff are in disarray and all head coach Romeo Crennel can do is fiddle.
In the end, the Browns (meaning Savage but not Crennel) reached the right decision regarding now-deposed quarterback Derek Anderson and newly-anointed starter Quinn. But as usual, they can’t even figure out how to make a right decision correctly. Crennel appeared as scheduled for his Monday press conference, proceeded to say (honestly, I believe) that he didn’t foresee any immediate changes and then found himself undercut several hours later by Savage who was going in a different direction. It’s hardly the first time Savage and Crennel haven’t been on the same page even as the principals deny it.
If reports are accurate, the decision to start Quinn on Thursday against Denver stems in part from fan reaction to Anderson’s bumbling of the most crucial moments of last Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Ravens. Apparently Savage didn’t want to see his prized project Anderson booed off a national stage come Thursday by the fans who just a few months ago were actually chanting “Super Bowl” at the team’s first pre-season practice.
If Savage is going to run this team like a minor league baseball club and let the fans actually pick the lineup, then maybe he’ll extend that to the entire staff and give fans a say in whether Crennel survives the Denver game. Want to guess how that would turn out?
One can only imagine how pained Savage must have been in bowing to public pressure this time. His disdain for the fans is evident every time he speaks publicly, which, not coincidentally, is coming less and less frequently as the team spirals further out of control. Indeed, it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that owner Randy Lerner may have even pushed this decision on Savage, if only to avoid the embarrassment of empty seats occasionally broken up by angry fans on Thursday night. It would be easier to attribute this decision to Lerner except that he’s essentially disappeared somewhere between Cleveland and England. But as we now know with this team, anything’s possible, and I don’t mean that in a good way.
The decision to bench Anderson seems to have come only as a surprise to the players inside of Berea and disgruntled ex-players like Trent Dilfer. Center Hank Fraley said Monday that he thought that Anderson was joking when he texted Fraley earlier in the day to tell him the news. Anderson may be a lot of things, but a prankster he’s not. Meanwhile, Dilfer was telling anyone Monday with a microphone and a reporter’s notebook that this was a bad decision poorly executed. Dilfer had a mouthful more to say in an interview on WKNR Monday evening and saw no reason to filter. He blasted the team, and Savage, for the usual dysfunction that keeps this team from progressing and then tossed more than a few additional blasts toward receiver Braylon Edwards. Ok, Dilfer wasn’t wrong about everything.
But Anderson did deserve this fate, Dilfer’s assessment notwithstanding. Anderson has the worst quarterback rating in the league among quarterbacks who have thrown at least 200 passes. Depending on how far back you want to go last season, he’s either the worst or among the worst quarterbacks based on a whole host of measures.
Anderson wasn’t necessarily given a lot of support by Edwards, an all-world receiver just ask him. Dilfer, while dumping on Edwards, pointed out that there are a lot more than just 13 passes that Edwards’ has dropped this season. Dilfer claims that he and some others went back and looked at every Cleveland game this season and put that number of catchable passes that Edwards failed to haul in at around 30. Maybe Dilfer isn’t a Michigan fan, either.
But the bigger problem for Anderson wasn’t the fact that Edwards can’t catch, it’s that Anderson can’t overcome it. (For that matter, neither can Edwards, but we’ll stay on point here). Edwards’ crucial drop of a perfectly thrown pass on Sunday didn’t have to be the momentum killer that it became. That’s on Anderson for letting it impact him in that way.
Anderson had four good opportunities to put this team into a position to win on Sunday after the Edwards pass and couldn’t get it done. He went three-and-out on the first series. On 3rd and 8 in that series Anderson threw underneath to Winslow and the Browns’ were forced to punt. On the next series, Anderson faced and identical 3rd and 8 and again threw underneath, this time to Steve Saunders. The pass never got there and the Browns were again forced to punt. The next series featured the screen pass to Ravens’ linebacker Terrell Suggs that Suggs took back for a touchdown. The final series featured a frantic scramble followed by three straight completions.
As much as anything else, it was these four series that put Anderson on the bench. The other thing that put Anderson on the bench, and this is really the essence of the problem, is that his confidence peaks and valleys far too often to be an effective leader. When it’s high, Anderson looks as good as any quarterback in the league. When it’s low, he might as well be Brad Johnson or any number of other faceless backups in the league. Indeed, the fact that Savage didn’t want to expose Anderson to a hostile home crowd tells you that even Savage questions Anderson’s makeup.
Many have argued that starting Quinn on a short week doesn’t give him enough time to prepare. To that I ask: how could anyone possibly tell? Crennel has a number of shortcomings as a head coach, but leading that list is his inability to get a team prepared, so assuming that having 10 days to prepare Quinn will somehow be fruitful is an assumption best no made. Besides, putting Quinn under this kind of pressure is a decent test of his mettle.
The question that remains to be answered now is how permanent the benching will be. Crennel probably would prefer to start Anderson if only because Crennel himself is in full survival mode at this point and probably still thinks Anderson gives the team the best chance to win. But it’s clear by now that Crennel isn’t even getting to choose his own starting lineup, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. How long Quinn remains as starter depends really on whether Savage believes it’s Quinn’s time or he’s just setting Quinn up to fail in order to eventually bring back Anderson.
With Savage, anything is possible. Again, I don’t mean that in a good way.
Apparently not satisfied mishandling one marquee player in tight end Kellen Winslow, Savage decided to try his particular brand of handiwork on another marquee player, Brady Quinn. Meanwhile, the locker room and the coaching staff are in disarray and all head coach Romeo Crennel can do is fiddle.
In the end, the Browns (meaning Savage but not Crennel) reached the right decision regarding now-deposed quarterback Derek Anderson and newly-anointed starter Quinn. But as usual, they can’t even figure out how to make a right decision correctly. Crennel appeared as scheduled for his Monday press conference, proceeded to say (honestly, I believe) that he didn’t foresee any immediate changes and then found himself undercut several hours later by Savage who was going in a different direction. It’s hardly the first time Savage and Crennel haven’t been on the same page even as the principals deny it.
If reports are accurate, the decision to start Quinn on Thursday against Denver stems in part from fan reaction to Anderson’s bumbling of the most crucial moments of last Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Ravens. Apparently Savage didn’t want to see his prized project Anderson booed off a national stage come Thursday by the fans who just a few months ago were actually chanting “Super Bowl” at the team’s first pre-season practice.
If Savage is going to run this team like a minor league baseball club and let the fans actually pick the lineup, then maybe he’ll extend that to the entire staff and give fans a say in whether Crennel survives the Denver game. Want to guess how that would turn out?
One can only imagine how pained Savage must have been in bowing to public pressure this time. His disdain for the fans is evident every time he speaks publicly, which, not coincidentally, is coming less and less frequently as the team spirals further out of control. Indeed, it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that owner Randy Lerner may have even pushed this decision on Savage, if only to avoid the embarrassment of empty seats occasionally broken up by angry fans on Thursday night. It would be easier to attribute this decision to Lerner except that he’s essentially disappeared somewhere between Cleveland and England. But as we now know with this team, anything’s possible, and I don’t mean that in a good way.
The decision to bench Anderson seems to have come only as a surprise to the players inside of Berea and disgruntled ex-players like Trent Dilfer. Center Hank Fraley said Monday that he thought that Anderson was joking when he texted Fraley earlier in the day to tell him the news. Anderson may be a lot of things, but a prankster he’s not. Meanwhile, Dilfer was telling anyone Monday with a microphone and a reporter’s notebook that this was a bad decision poorly executed. Dilfer had a mouthful more to say in an interview on WKNR Monday evening and saw no reason to filter. He blasted the team, and Savage, for the usual dysfunction that keeps this team from progressing and then tossed more than a few additional blasts toward receiver Braylon Edwards. Ok, Dilfer wasn’t wrong about everything.
But Anderson did deserve this fate, Dilfer’s assessment notwithstanding. Anderson has the worst quarterback rating in the league among quarterbacks who have thrown at least 200 passes. Depending on how far back you want to go last season, he’s either the worst or among the worst quarterbacks based on a whole host of measures.
Anderson wasn’t necessarily given a lot of support by Edwards, an all-world receiver just ask him. Dilfer, while dumping on Edwards, pointed out that there are a lot more than just 13 passes that Edwards’ has dropped this season. Dilfer claims that he and some others went back and looked at every Cleveland game this season and put that number of catchable passes that Edwards failed to haul in at around 30. Maybe Dilfer isn’t a Michigan fan, either.
But the bigger problem for Anderson wasn’t the fact that Edwards can’t catch, it’s that Anderson can’t overcome it. (For that matter, neither can Edwards, but we’ll stay on point here). Edwards’ crucial drop of a perfectly thrown pass on Sunday didn’t have to be the momentum killer that it became. That’s on Anderson for letting it impact him in that way.
Anderson had four good opportunities to put this team into a position to win on Sunday after the Edwards pass and couldn’t get it done. He went three-and-out on the first series. On 3rd and 8 in that series Anderson threw underneath to Winslow and the Browns’ were forced to punt. On the next series, Anderson faced and identical 3rd and 8 and again threw underneath, this time to Steve Saunders. The pass never got there and the Browns were again forced to punt. The next series featured the screen pass to Ravens’ linebacker Terrell Suggs that Suggs took back for a touchdown. The final series featured a frantic scramble followed by three straight completions.
As much as anything else, it was these four series that put Anderson on the bench. The other thing that put Anderson on the bench, and this is really the essence of the problem, is that his confidence peaks and valleys far too often to be an effective leader. When it’s high, Anderson looks as good as any quarterback in the league. When it’s low, he might as well be Brad Johnson or any number of other faceless backups in the league. Indeed, the fact that Savage didn’t want to expose Anderson to a hostile home crowd tells you that even Savage questions Anderson’s makeup.
Many have argued that starting Quinn on a short week doesn’t give him enough time to prepare. To that I ask: how could anyone possibly tell? Crennel has a number of shortcomings as a head coach, but leading that list is his inability to get a team prepared, so assuming that having 10 days to prepare Quinn will somehow be fruitful is an assumption best no made. Besides, putting Quinn under this kind of pressure is a decent test of his mettle.
The question that remains to be answered now is how permanent the benching will be. Crennel probably would prefer to start Anderson if only because Crennel himself is in full survival mode at this point and probably still thinks Anderson gives the team the best chance to win. But it’s clear by now that Crennel isn’t even getting to choose his own starting lineup, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. How long Quinn remains as starter depends really on whether Savage believes it’s Quinn’s time or he’s just setting Quinn up to fail in order to eventually bring back Anderson.
With Savage, anything is possible. Again, I don’t mean that in a good way.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
The Far Bigger Problem
In a week filled with one bizarre revelation after another regarding the Cleveland Browns, there was only one real conclusion worth drawing about the whole mess, Kellen Winslow is far less of a problem than Phil Savage, the team’s general manager.
When Winslow decided to rip the scab off of a wound that was clearly festering about his contacting another staph infection, at least two prominent sports writers in this town, Terry Pluto and Patrick McManamon, were quick to choose sides without any particular need for facts. Pluto concluded that this was simply Winslow seeing an opportunity to press his claims for a new contract. McManamon simply said that Winslow was such a disruptive force, it was time for the Browns to set him free.
At least Pluto admitted he was wrong.
The case against Winslow was never easily made in the first place. He’s an emotional player who has had his share of adversity in his relatively brief career, much self-inflicted. But what’s not been articulated only concluded is exactly why he’s a “net minus” for the Browns. By all accounts, Winslow plays well and plays injured. No one questions that he has a high pain threshold. He can actually catch.
Savage, on the other hand, is building a tidy pile of issues in his own right that suggests that as a general manager, he makes an awfully good scout. Like Winslow, Savage is emotional. In fact, given the difference between Savage’s job and Winslow’s, it’s a fair conclusion to draw that Savage has had far more public displays of inappropriate emotion.
Start with Monday’s 29-second press conference and work backwards. On Monday, Savage interrupted head coach Romeo Crennel’s scheduled press conference to deliver a rather terse statement that Winslow only had a staph infection, nothing more. Got it? While there is no way of knowing for sure, it seemed apparent that Savage had been ordered to step out in front of the media by his boss, owner Randy Lerner, in order to clear up the confusion he added on Sunday to a matter that had supposedly been resolved on Saturday. He spit out his words defiantly, like a kid whose parent had told him to go apologize to his sister for calling her a name.
Of course Savage wouldn’t have had to put himself in that position in the first place if he had just let well enough alone on Sunday. Instead, when asked to comment on the resolution of the suspension, Savage decided to muddy the waters further by suggesting that there was far more to the story still and that perhaps the reporters ought to talk with Winslow if they were really interested in getting full disclosure on the nature of Winslow’s illness.
In dropping that turd in the punchbowl, Savage came off mostly as a sore loser for having to rescind a suspension that in retrospect should never have been issued in the first place. Rather than simply say that matter was resolved amicably, he instead continued to try and justify it, when a more politic general manager would have simply smiled and moved on.
Of course Savage wouldn’t have even had to put himself in that position if he had not been so emotional mid-week to the local flagship radio station in explaining why an out-of-control Winslow just had to be stopped, for the good of the team. It might have been useful for Savage to have first gathered all of the facts and not just the ones he felt supported a rather harsh response to a clearly emotional and sensitive issue.
What’s very evident is that the real sore point for Savage is that it wasn’t so much that the Winslow grievance was resolved as it was that the Browns’ capitulated. They had to. As the facts revealed, a member of the team’s public relations staff, a group that reports up to Savage, did indeed tell Winslow not to disclose the nature of his illness or else face Savage’s wrath. In other words, Winslow was right, Savage was wrong and that’s giving Savage the benefit of the doubt that he really didn’t know what his p.r. staff was doing. But if you to see this all as some sort of conspiracy engineered by Savage to take the heat off a team that was falling apart, then remember that Savage’s reaction to Winslow’s initial statements exactly tracked the text messages that the p.r. staff sent Winslow in the first place. Savage did react angrily at Winslow’s comments, to the point of actually suspending Winslow for a week.
What the Browns really have in Savage is an incredibly emotional and incredibly thin-skinned general manager. He’s had several other public outbursts, mostly tied to his visible irritation at either members of the media or the fans who dare question the direction of the franchise. He treats any legitimate question about his decisions in a dismissive, petulant manner. He doesn’t like to be second guessed and he doesn’t play well with others. It’s in this context that one now wonders what really did happen in that little front office drama Savage had with former team president John Collins.
That Savage would treat one of his marquee players in such a shabby manner, particularly when it was so disproportionate to the actions by that player, doesn’t speak well for his suitability as the team’s most visible front office representative. That Savage engineered this entire mess when he didn’t have all the facts and then mostly disappeared leaving Crennel to face the media says something about Savage’s own leadership skills. Crennel has enough trouble just keeping the lid on players like Braylon Edwards. The last thing he needs is to play Darren Stevens to Savage’s Larry Tate.
To this point, I have been mostly supportive of Savage. While I disagreed with some of his personnel decisions, I at least admired his willingness to take them on. He clearly saw the need to make step changes with this team and hasn’t been afraid to make that happen, even at the expense of making a mistake or two.
But Savage’s biggest Achilles heel has always been his overwhelming need to make himself look like the smartest guy in the room. As long as the team is winning and headed in the right direction, a whole host of sins are easy to forgive. But the erratic and overly emotional behavior he displayed this past week frankly makes any decisions he makes going forward that much more suspect. If the Browns are in the tie-severing business anytime soon, far better to look first at Savage before getting to one of the few guys on this team that can actually play.
When Winslow decided to rip the scab off of a wound that was clearly festering about his contacting another staph infection, at least two prominent sports writers in this town, Terry Pluto and Patrick McManamon, were quick to choose sides without any particular need for facts. Pluto concluded that this was simply Winslow seeing an opportunity to press his claims for a new contract. McManamon simply said that Winslow was such a disruptive force, it was time for the Browns to set him free.
At least Pluto admitted he was wrong.
The case against Winslow was never easily made in the first place. He’s an emotional player who has had his share of adversity in his relatively brief career, much self-inflicted. But what’s not been articulated only concluded is exactly why he’s a “net minus” for the Browns. By all accounts, Winslow plays well and plays injured. No one questions that he has a high pain threshold. He can actually catch.
Savage, on the other hand, is building a tidy pile of issues in his own right that suggests that as a general manager, he makes an awfully good scout. Like Winslow, Savage is emotional. In fact, given the difference between Savage’s job and Winslow’s, it’s a fair conclusion to draw that Savage has had far more public displays of inappropriate emotion.
Start with Monday’s 29-second press conference and work backwards. On Monday, Savage interrupted head coach Romeo Crennel’s scheduled press conference to deliver a rather terse statement that Winslow only had a staph infection, nothing more. Got it? While there is no way of knowing for sure, it seemed apparent that Savage had been ordered to step out in front of the media by his boss, owner Randy Lerner, in order to clear up the confusion he added on Sunday to a matter that had supposedly been resolved on Saturday. He spit out his words defiantly, like a kid whose parent had told him to go apologize to his sister for calling her a name.
Of course Savage wouldn’t have had to put himself in that position in the first place if he had just let well enough alone on Sunday. Instead, when asked to comment on the resolution of the suspension, Savage decided to muddy the waters further by suggesting that there was far more to the story still and that perhaps the reporters ought to talk with Winslow if they were really interested in getting full disclosure on the nature of Winslow’s illness.
In dropping that turd in the punchbowl, Savage came off mostly as a sore loser for having to rescind a suspension that in retrospect should never have been issued in the first place. Rather than simply say that matter was resolved amicably, he instead continued to try and justify it, when a more politic general manager would have simply smiled and moved on.
Of course Savage wouldn’t have even had to put himself in that position if he had not been so emotional mid-week to the local flagship radio station in explaining why an out-of-control Winslow just had to be stopped, for the good of the team. It might have been useful for Savage to have first gathered all of the facts and not just the ones he felt supported a rather harsh response to a clearly emotional and sensitive issue.
What’s very evident is that the real sore point for Savage is that it wasn’t so much that the Winslow grievance was resolved as it was that the Browns’ capitulated. They had to. As the facts revealed, a member of the team’s public relations staff, a group that reports up to Savage, did indeed tell Winslow not to disclose the nature of his illness or else face Savage’s wrath. In other words, Winslow was right, Savage was wrong and that’s giving Savage the benefit of the doubt that he really didn’t know what his p.r. staff was doing. But if you to see this all as some sort of conspiracy engineered by Savage to take the heat off a team that was falling apart, then remember that Savage’s reaction to Winslow’s initial statements exactly tracked the text messages that the p.r. staff sent Winslow in the first place. Savage did react angrily at Winslow’s comments, to the point of actually suspending Winslow for a week.
What the Browns really have in Savage is an incredibly emotional and incredibly thin-skinned general manager. He’s had several other public outbursts, mostly tied to his visible irritation at either members of the media or the fans who dare question the direction of the franchise. He treats any legitimate question about his decisions in a dismissive, petulant manner. He doesn’t like to be second guessed and he doesn’t play well with others. It’s in this context that one now wonders what really did happen in that little front office drama Savage had with former team president John Collins.
That Savage would treat one of his marquee players in such a shabby manner, particularly when it was so disproportionate to the actions by that player, doesn’t speak well for his suitability as the team’s most visible front office representative. That Savage engineered this entire mess when he didn’t have all the facts and then mostly disappeared leaving Crennel to face the media says something about Savage’s own leadership skills. Crennel has enough trouble just keeping the lid on players like Braylon Edwards. The last thing he needs is to play Darren Stevens to Savage’s Larry Tate.
To this point, I have been mostly supportive of Savage. While I disagreed with some of his personnel decisions, I at least admired his willingness to take them on. He clearly saw the need to make step changes with this team and hasn’t been afraid to make that happen, even at the expense of making a mistake or two.
But Savage’s biggest Achilles heel has always been his overwhelming need to make himself look like the smartest guy in the room. As long as the team is winning and headed in the right direction, a whole host of sins are easy to forgive. But the erratic and overly emotional behavior he displayed this past week frankly makes any decisions he makes going forward that much more suspect. If the Browns are in the tie-severing business anytime soon, far better to look first at Savage before getting to one of the few guys on this team that can actually play.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Lingering Items--Redskins Edition
Usually when a player pops off to the media, fans tend to rally around the team and against the payer. Judging on the response thus far to the suspension of Cleveland Browns’ tight end Kellen Winslow by general manager Phil Savage, the team isn’t exactly winning this dirty little war. It’s hardly surprising. Fans are smarter than the club would like to think.
One wonders, actually, what Savage really was thinking in taking on Winslow when he’s distanced himself so many times from the equally detrimental acts of receiver Braylon Edwards. It’s possible that Savage views Winslow as a habitual offender and thus it was time to ratchet up the club’s response. It’s just a possible, though, that Savage did this in a vain attempt to keep a lid on a pot that is near full boil.
If it’s the former, Savage certainly could have found a better way to handle the matter. Keeping it in house, as he wanted Winslow to do, comes to mind as the most obvious option. If it’s the latter, it probably won’t work. By trying to quell a distraction he’s made it more so. But whichever it is, Savage came off looking rather small, petty and thin-skinned, not to mention cowardly by simply releasing a statement rather than talking to the media directly.
And what of that statement? Carefully written by the Browns’ public relations department, it parses words to leave the impression that Winslow is being just a bit dishonest about who decided to keep this latest staph episode quiet. But read the words carefully. Savage never claims it was Winslow’s decision or even his suggestion. Instead he just lays it out there for people to assume, saying “…following discussions with Kellen Winslow and his representation, the Browns agreed to make every effort to maintain the confidentiality of his recent medical condition.” Agreed with whom, Winslow or among themselves? Kudos to the staffer who wrote it.
The real issues in Savage’s mind is that Winslow went public with his complaints as if he violated some sort of “team first” credo that Savage has been working so darn hard on creating,. In truth, Savage appears embarrassed for having conspired to keep from his own players the fact that staph had once again reared its ugly head at the team’s facilities. In that sense, Winslow is being punished as a whistleblower to a matter Savage certainly would rather have kept quiet, even if that silence was fueling one outrageous internet rumor after another about Winslow. By taking it out on Winslow, all Savage really did was bring more attention, more “unjustified negative attention” to himself and the organization in the process.
Lost in all of this is a more basic set of questions. What really was so “disparaging” about Winslow’s comments or brought “unjustified negative attention” to the organization? For that matter, let’s start with what was untrue? The Browns have a problem rooting out staph infections. It may not be a problem confined to the Browns, but it is a problem with the Browns and their facilities nonetheless. By most reports, there have been six or seven relatively recent episodes of staph involving such high profile players as Winslow, LeCharles Bentley, Joe Jurevicius,. Stating a fact that is already a part of the public record hardly strikes me as unjustified.
Was it untrue that Savage didn’t call Winslow while he was in the hospital? Savage doesn’t deny it. If Savage finds that disparaging it’s only because it revealed publicly a personality flaw in Savage that he would rather have kept quiet. While this may sound like a small matter, let’s keep in mind that this is the second time Savage has been called out for this sort of insensitivity. As Terry Pluto reported earlier this summer, when LeCharles Bentley was hospitalized for his staph infection, he too was hurt that Savage never called. Savage supposedly admitted this was a mistake and that he should have made some calls. Yet here we have it again. If indeed Savage punished Winslow for being a habitual offender, isn’t that sort of like a nerd telling the hippie his clothes look weird?
The only thing left, then, is Winslow’s contention that the Browns were trying to keep his infection quiet in order to allay concerns among the rest of the team, which we now know was true. Was this disparaging because it made the Browns’ look bad, like they were hiding something unflattering? Perhaps but why is that Winslow’s fault? It’s hardly a stretch to think that the Browns front office might have some motivation in not acknowledging publicly that still another player had still another staph infection. If you were a free agent, might not you be a little nervous about the cleanliness of the Browns’ facilities?
There’s no reason not to take the Browns at their word that they are doing everything within their power to control staph infections. There certainly is no reason for them to look the other way on a serious health issue and every reason, in fact, to confront it directly. But if they are somehow worried that Winslow shined a light on an unflattering fact about the organization, they need not be. The staph problems are well known. Besides, there’s plenty of other things going wrong in Berea to distract one’s attention.
**
Lost in all of the turmoil was any sort of coherent explanation of how exactly keeping Winslow away from the Browns’ complex for a week makes either Winslow or the team better? Maybe that’s necessary to carry out a suspension, but didn’t Savage have a better option, like having Crennel bench Winslow for the game but otherwise make him participate in practice for the week?
***
The suspension of Winslow gives Savage a chance to test a theory he’s obviously floated to some of the local reporters he has in his pocket—that this team is actually better off without Winslow. I see no compelling need to address this issue again this week, but do see a compelling need to remind Savage, if not the fans that are buying into this bit of propaganda, that a team with a real talent deficit like the Browns can never be better off by letting one of its best players get away.
Winslow’s outburst last Sunday notwithstanding, he simply is not a distraction, at least to the extent where one could reasonably conclude that his absence constitutes addition by subtraction.
**
Moving on for a moment from Winslow and on to something more mundane, it will be interesting to see how long it takes Savage to realize that quarterback Derek Anderson is Kelly Holcomb revisited. Holcomb, like Anderson, fascinated general managers and offensive coordinators alike with a strong arm and a penchant for occasionally playing really well.
Browns fans remember less than six years ago when Holcomb threw for 429 yards and three touchdowns and almost singlehandedly beat Pittsburgh in a playoff game. In spot duty that season subbing for Tim Couch, Holcomb had 8 touchdowns in four games, only four interceptions, and completed over 60% of his passes.
The next season, with a chance to be the starter for an extended period of time, Holcomb couldn’t quite live up to that promise. Still, he did enough to maintain enough of a mystique that took him to Buffalo as a free agent, where he remained long on promise that ultimately was never fully realized. After bouncing around the league for 12 seasons, he had a mostly undistinguished career.
Anderson is following that script almost to the letter, but either Savage doesn’t want to see it or Savage wants to think he’s smart enough to avoid the inevitable outcome of misplaced faith. But the longer Savage continues to delude himself into thinking that Anderson will eventually develop into Tom Brady (and hence make Savage look like a genius in the process), the more likely that he’ll divest the team of a quarterback in Brady Quinn who has a more realistic chance of actually being able to deliver on the promise of an actual pedigree.
**
This week’s question to ponder: If/when the Browns and Romeo Crennel part ways, does Crennel ever get another head coaching job in the NFL?
One wonders, actually, what Savage really was thinking in taking on Winslow when he’s distanced himself so many times from the equally detrimental acts of receiver Braylon Edwards. It’s possible that Savage views Winslow as a habitual offender and thus it was time to ratchet up the club’s response. It’s just a possible, though, that Savage did this in a vain attempt to keep a lid on a pot that is near full boil.
If it’s the former, Savage certainly could have found a better way to handle the matter. Keeping it in house, as he wanted Winslow to do, comes to mind as the most obvious option. If it’s the latter, it probably won’t work. By trying to quell a distraction he’s made it more so. But whichever it is, Savage came off looking rather small, petty and thin-skinned, not to mention cowardly by simply releasing a statement rather than talking to the media directly.
And what of that statement? Carefully written by the Browns’ public relations department, it parses words to leave the impression that Winslow is being just a bit dishonest about who decided to keep this latest staph episode quiet. But read the words carefully. Savage never claims it was Winslow’s decision or even his suggestion. Instead he just lays it out there for people to assume, saying “…following discussions with Kellen Winslow and his representation, the Browns agreed to make every effort to maintain the confidentiality of his recent medical condition.” Agreed with whom, Winslow or among themselves? Kudos to the staffer who wrote it.
The real issues in Savage’s mind is that Winslow went public with his complaints as if he violated some sort of “team first” credo that Savage has been working so darn hard on creating,. In truth, Savage appears embarrassed for having conspired to keep from his own players the fact that staph had once again reared its ugly head at the team’s facilities. In that sense, Winslow is being punished as a whistleblower to a matter Savage certainly would rather have kept quiet, even if that silence was fueling one outrageous internet rumor after another about Winslow. By taking it out on Winslow, all Savage really did was bring more attention, more “unjustified negative attention” to himself and the organization in the process.
Lost in all of this is a more basic set of questions. What really was so “disparaging” about Winslow’s comments or brought “unjustified negative attention” to the organization? For that matter, let’s start with what was untrue? The Browns have a problem rooting out staph infections. It may not be a problem confined to the Browns, but it is a problem with the Browns and their facilities nonetheless. By most reports, there have been six or seven relatively recent episodes of staph involving such high profile players as Winslow, LeCharles Bentley, Joe Jurevicius,. Stating a fact that is already a part of the public record hardly strikes me as unjustified.
Was it untrue that Savage didn’t call Winslow while he was in the hospital? Savage doesn’t deny it. If Savage finds that disparaging it’s only because it revealed publicly a personality flaw in Savage that he would rather have kept quiet. While this may sound like a small matter, let’s keep in mind that this is the second time Savage has been called out for this sort of insensitivity. As Terry Pluto reported earlier this summer, when LeCharles Bentley was hospitalized for his staph infection, he too was hurt that Savage never called. Savage supposedly admitted this was a mistake and that he should have made some calls. Yet here we have it again. If indeed Savage punished Winslow for being a habitual offender, isn’t that sort of like a nerd telling the hippie his clothes look weird?
The only thing left, then, is Winslow’s contention that the Browns were trying to keep his infection quiet in order to allay concerns among the rest of the team, which we now know was true. Was this disparaging because it made the Browns’ look bad, like they were hiding something unflattering? Perhaps but why is that Winslow’s fault? It’s hardly a stretch to think that the Browns front office might have some motivation in not acknowledging publicly that still another player had still another staph infection. If you were a free agent, might not you be a little nervous about the cleanliness of the Browns’ facilities?
There’s no reason not to take the Browns at their word that they are doing everything within their power to control staph infections. There certainly is no reason for them to look the other way on a serious health issue and every reason, in fact, to confront it directly. But if they are somehow worried that Winslow shined a light on an unflattering fact about the organization, they need not be. The staph problems are well known. Besides, there’s plenty of other things going wrong in Berea to distract one’s attention.
**
Lost in all of the turmoil was any sort of coherent explanation of how exactly keeping Winslow away from the Browns’ complex for a week makes either Winslow or the team better? Maybe that’s necessary to carry out a suspension, but didn’t Savage have a better option, like having Crennel bench Winslow for the game but otherwise make him participate in practice for the week?
***
The suspension of Winslow gives Savage a chance to test a theory he’s obviously floated to some of the local reporters he has in his pocket—that this team is actually better off without Winslow. I see no compelling need to address this issue again this week, but do see a compelling need to remind Savage, if not the fans that are buying into this bit of propaganda, that a team with a real talent deficit like the Browns can never be better off by letting one of its best players get away.
Winslow’s outburst last Sunday notwithstanding, he simply is not a distraction, at least to the extent where one could reasonably conclude that his absence constitutes addition by subtraction.
**
Moving on for a moment from Winslow and on to something more mundane, it will be interesting to see how long it takes Savage to realize that quarterback Derek Anderson is Kelly Holcomb revisited. Holcomb, like Anderson, fascinated general managers and offensive coordinators alike with a strong arm and a penchant for occasionally playing really well.
Browns fans remember less than six years ago when Holcomb threw for 429 yards and three touchdowns and almost singlehandedly beat Pittsburgh in a playoff game. In spot duty that season subbing for Tim Couch, Holcomb had 8 touchdowns in four games, only four interceptions, and completed over 60% of his passes.
The next season, with a chance to be the starter for an extended period of time, Holcomb couldn’t quite live up to that promise. Still, he did enough to maintain enough of a mystique that took him to Buffalo as a free agent, where he remained long on promise that ultimately was never fully realized. After bouncing around the league for 12 seasons, he had a mostly undistinguished career.
Anderson is following that script almost to the letter, but either Savage doesn’t want to see it or Savage wants to think he’s smart enough to avoid the inevitable outcome of misplaced faith. But the longer Savage continues to delude himself into thinking that Anderson will eventually develop into Tom Brady (and hence make Savage look like a genius in the process), the more likely that he’ll divest the team of a quarterback in Brady Quinn who has a more realistic chance of actually being able to deliver on the promise of an actual pedigree.
**
This week’s question to ponder: If/when the Browns and Romeo Crennel part ways, does Crennel ever get another head coaching job in the NFL?
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Fraying at the Edges
The San Francisco 49ers fired their head coach, Dick Nolan, yesterday. The strong sense is that Cleveland Browns general manager, Phil Savage, is just shaking his head in disbelief. “That’s no way to run a franchise,” he’s likely muttering to himself.
Perhaps, but it’s also true that the clearest path to recovery is to first admit you have a problem. At least the 49ers were willing to take that step. Despite arguably more evidence than the 49ers had to work with, Savage remains firmly stuck in denial that his team even has a problem, except when it comes to Winslow.
The outburst on Sunday by Winslow, coming as it did during a game in which quarterback Derek Anderson had another on-field confrontation with another player, demonstrated far more than anything else to date that Savage has a serious problem on his hands. If he thinks suspending Winslow, justified or not, is the answer, then he can't even begin to comprehend the question. Eventually, when Savage has no choice but to take a critical look at the state of his franchise, he’ll see a team rapidly fraying at the edges and threatening to unravel completely. But the longer he waits, the harder the repair job.
Savage’s main issue with taking the step the 49ers did, particularly midseason, is the instability it creates. Most certainly, it takes away any chance of the team competing for the rest of the current season. But staying the course just because it’s easier and doesn’t require reprinting the media guides is no reason to maintain a status quo that isn’t all that great to begin with. The Browns aren’t going to the Super Bowl this season anyway; why not get a head start on next season?
When the Browns laid an egg on Sunday against the Washington Redskins, the inclination is to think that the picture just got murkier. To the contrary, it actually got clearer. This team needs a new direction, a new discipline no matter how much Savage wants to turn a blind eye to it all.
The game against the Giants was instructive because it revealed the full potential of the team. That’s the good news. But it also set a bar that fans rightly expect to be matched each week, if not in total output, at least in approach. Instead, what they have been treated to is a team that is far more notable for its rabid inconsistency and its uncontrollable personalities than as a legitimate contender for football greatness.
After Sunday’s loss to the Washington Redskins, a good but not great team, head coach Romeo Crennel was asked why his team couldn’t carry forward the momentum it had just six days earlier. Essentially Crennel said that if he knew the answer to that, he’d be a better head coach. Well said. The fact that Crennel can admit that he’s clueless can be a useful virtue, but until he can turn that from a concept to an action item it will be a mostly useless virtue.
Meanwhile the evidence against Savage and the direction he’s set is starting to pile up like dirty dishes in the sink. First to be dispelled is the myth that the players respect his head coach. If they do, they have a funny way of showing it. Too many times too many of the so-called leaders of the team demonstrate their public disdain.
Exhibit A is Braylon Edwards. If Savage doesn’t want to treat previous season incidents as proof--like the trip to the Ohio State/Michigan game that Crennel told him not to make-- that’s fine. Let’s look at this last week. One of the more startling admissions after Sunday’s game came from Edwards who claimed that he and others on the team were a bit lax after their big win the previous week. It’s an admission Edwards has made at several other points in his short career as well. That doesn’t mean Crennel isn’t saying the right things in the meetings, it’s just that after all these years it still hasn’t taken hold. That’s a respect issue.
If the Browns had one hope of saving this season, it was to build on the confidence it gained in the Giants game by taking it on the field in Washington D.C. They didn’t. Among the chief culprits was Edwards who dropped four passes. Edwards shares some responsibility in all of this, certainly, but a great head coach, like a great boss, has to find a way to draw out the best from those he supervises each and every week, to help them translate potential into performance. It’s absolutely critical to success and, unfortunately, this is one of Crennel’s biggest failures as a head coach.
Ask yourself this question, how many players can you name on this team who have played beyond their abilities? Then compare that answer to this question: how many players can you name on this team who usually play below their abilities? If the answer to the first question is less than the answer to the second, which it is, you start to understand the depth of the problem.
Exhibit B is Winslow. He came to the Browns as a difficult personality and in that regard he’s been as advertised. His outburst on Sunday may very well have been contract frustration finally boiling over, as others have argued, and perhaps the suspension was justified. But it’s also true that Winslow is not finding a receptive audience internally from his head coach. Despite the number of times Crennel supposedly has spoken to Winslow about keeping matters in house, it, too, hasn’t resonated. That, too, is a respect issue.
If Winslow felt slighted that Savage didn’t call him in the hospital last week, imagine how he feels having been made scapegoat for talking about it publicly. Savage may now look organizationally tough, as if he's in control, but all he's done is confirm the existence of a problem in the first place. Winslow's outburst was a symptom, not the disease, particularly when you consider that Winslow didn’t place much stock in a phone call Crennel did make to him. As far as Winslow’s concerned, Crennel doesn’t represent the Browns, Savage does. That’s a fairly damning indictment right there of the lack of traction Crennel has gotten with some of his key players and the suspension not only reinforces the point, but arguably makes the problem worse.
Exhibit C is Anderson. At this point it’s clear that Savage is far more interested in developing the flyer pick he orchestrated while in Baltimore than he is in developing the number one pick he orchestrated in Cleveland. On this one it’s hard to tell what Crennel really thinks but it’s clear he’s having trouble translating his boss’s wishes into reality. Crennel has yet to reach Anderson in a meaningful way. Crennel rarely interacts with his quarterback during the game, despite having a wealth of knowledge about defense that Anderson might actually find useful. He hasn’t had much of an impact on smoothing Anderson’s wildly uneven development nor in curbing Anderson’s emotional need to confront teammates whose mistakes he thinks are making him look bad.
More to the point though is the fact that during the heat of the game, Crennel at times acts as if he’s forgotten he’s the head coach, something the players can’t help but notice. Anderson struggled mightily on Sunday against the Redskins, just as he has for roughly 90% of the team’s possessions this season. Most of his passes were off target, often badly. There was absolutely no spark. Yet Crennel, just as he’s done most of the rest of the season, sat back wishing a better result rather than remembering he had the ability to coax a better performance by, if necessary, inserting Brady Quinn into the lineup, even as a change of pace.
Crennel may not want to create a “controversy” by making that kind of move, but every time someone throws that up as an excuse, it’s hard not to wonder whether that’s just a convenient way of apologizing for Crennel’s apparent unwillingness to confront a difficult circumstance and make a hard decision. Changing quarterbacks comes with its fair share of political risk, but a true leader welcomes that challenge precisely because it’s hard. That’s a point Savage would do well to remember as well.
You can talk about all the poor Xs and Os decisions fans witness each week, the utter lack of preparation that symbolizes this team and the seemingly aimless direction of it all and all you’re really doing is describing the personality that has overtaken this team. Even if this team isn’t the reincarnation of the Bronx Zoo, Savage would be a fool to deny that it’s a team beginning to spiral out of control just the same.
Perhaps, but it’s also true that the clearest path to recovery is to first admit you have a problem. At least the 49ers were willing to take that step. Despite arguably more evidence than the 49ers had to work with, Savage remains firmly stuck in denial that his team even has a problem, except when it comes to Winslow.
The outburst on Sunday by Winslow, coming as it did during a game in which quarterback Derek Anderson had another on-field confrontation with another player, demonstrated far more than anything else to date that Savage has a serious problem on his hands. If he thinks suspending Winslow, justified or not, is the answer, then he can't even begin to comprehend the question. Eventually, when Savage has no choice but to take a critical look at the state of his franchise, he’ll see a team rapidly fraying at the edges and threatening to unravel completely. But the longer he waits, the harder the repair job.
Savage’s main issue with taking the step the 49ers did, particularly midseason, is the instability it creates. Most certainly, it takes away any chance of the team competing for the rest of the current season. But staying the course just because it’s easier and doesn’t require reprinting the media guides is no reason to maintain a status quo that isn’t all that great to begin with. The Browns aren’t going to the Super Bowl this season anyway; why not get a head start on next season?
When the Browns laid an egg on Sunday against the Washington Redskins, the inclination is to think that the picture just got murkier. To the contrary, it actually got clearer. This team needs a new direction, a new discipline no matter how much Savage wants to turn a blind eye to it all.
The game against the Giants was instructive because it revealed the full potential of the team. That’s the good news. But it also set a bar that fans rightly expect to be matched each week, if not in total output, at least in approach. Instead, what they have been treated to is a team that is far more notable for its rabid inconsistency and its uncontrollable personalities than as a legitimate contender for football greatness.
After Sunday’s loss to the Washington Redskins, a good but not great team, head coach Romeo Crennel was asked why his team couldn’t carry forward the momentum it had just six days earlier. Essentially Crennel said that if he knew the answer to that, he’d be a better head coach. Well said. The fact that Crennel can admit that he’s clueless can be a useful virtue, but until he can turn that from a concept to an action item it will be a mostly useless virtue.
Meanwhile the evidence against Savage and the direction he’s set is starting to pile up like dirty dishes in the sink. First to be dispelled is the myth that the players respect his head coach. If they do, they have a funny way of showing it. Too many times too many of the so-called leaders of the team demonstrate their public disdain.
Exhibit A is Braylon Edwards. If Savage doesn’t want to treat previous season incidents as proof--like the trip to the Ohio State/Michigan game that Crennel told him not to make-- that’s fine. Let’s look at this last week. One of the more startling admissions after Sunday’s game came from Edwards who claimed that he and others on the team were a bit lax after their big win the previous week. It’s an admission Edwards has made at several other points in his short career as well. That doesn’t mean Crennel isn’t saying the right things in the meetings, it’s just that after all these years it still hasn’t taken hold. That’s a respect issue.
If the Browns had one hope of saving this season, it was to build on the confidence it gained in the Giants game by taking it on the field in Washington D.C. They didn’t. Among the chief culprits was Edwards who dropped four passes. Edwards shares some responsibility in all of this, certainly, but a great head coach, like a great boss, has to find a way to draw out the best from those he supervises each and every week, to help them translate potential into performance. It’s absolutely critical to success and, unfortunately, this is one of Crennel’s biggest failures as a head coach.
Ask yourself this question, how many players can you name on this team who have played beyond their abilities? Then compare that answer to this question: how many players can you name on this team who usually play below their abilities? If the answer to the first question is less than the answer to the second, which it is, you start to understand the depth of the problem.
Exhibit B is Winslow. He came to the Browns as a difficult personality and in that regard he’s been as advertised. His outburst on Sunday may very well have been contract frustration finally boiling over, as others have argued, and perhaps the suspension was justified. But it’s also true that Winslow is not finding a receptive audience internally from his head coach. Despite the number of times Crennel supposedly has spoken to Winslow about keeping matters in house, it, too, hasn’t resonated. That, too, is a respect issue.
If Winslow felt slighted that Savage didn’t call him in the hospital last week, imagine how he feels having been made scapegoat for talking about it publicly. Savage may now look organizationally tough, as if he's in control, but all he's done is confirm the existence of a problem in the first place. Winslow's outburst was a symptom, not the disease, particularly when you consider that Winslow didn’t place much stock in a phone call Crennel did make to him. As far as Winslow’s concerned, Crennel doesn’t represent the Browns, Savage does. That’s a fairly damning indictment right there of the lack of traction Crennel has gotten with some of his key players and the suspension not only reinforces the point, but arguably makes the problem worse.
Exhibit C is Anderson. At this point it’s clear that Savage is far more interested in developing the flyer pick he orchestrated while in Baltimore than he is in developing the number one pick he orchestrated in Cleveland. On this one it’s hard to tell what Crennel really thinks but it’s clear he’s having trouble translating his boss’s wishes into reality. Crennel has yet to reach Anderson in a meaningful way. Crennel rarely interacts with his quarterback during the game, despite having a wealth of knowledge about defense that Anderson might actually find useful. He hasn’t had much of an impact on smoothing Anderson’s wildly uneven development nor in curbing Anderson’s emotional need to confront teammates whose mistakes he thinks are making him look bad.
More to the point though is the fact that during the heat of the game, Crennel at times acts as if he’s forgotten he’s the head coach, something the players can’t help but notice. Anderson struggled mightily on Sunday against the Redskins, just as he has for roughly 90% of the team’s possessions this season. Most of his passes were off target, often badly. There was absolutely no spark. Yet Crennel, just as he’s done most of the rest of the season, sat back wishing a better result rather than remembering he had the ability to coax a better performance by, if necessary, inserting Brady Quinn into the lineup, even as a change of pace.
Crennel may not want to create a “controversy” by making that kind of move, but every time someone throws that up as an excuse, it’s hard not to wonder whether that’s just a convenient way of apologizing for Crennel’s apparent unwillingness to confront a difficult circumstance and make a hard decision. Changing quarterbacks comes with its fair share of political risk, but a true leader welcomes that challenge precisely because it’s hard. That’s a point Savage would do well to remember as well.
You can talk about all the poor Xs and Os decisions fans witness each week, the utter lack of preparation that symbolizes this team and the seemingly aimless direction of it all and all you’re really doing is describing the personality that has overtaken this team. Even if this team isn’t the reincarnation of the Bronx Zoo, Savage would be a fool to deny that it’s a team beginning to spiral out of control just the same.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Lingering Items--Giants Edition
It’s understandable why the Cleveland Browns’ victory last Monday night gave the fans some hope. When the Tennessee Titans are the league’s only undefeated team six weeks into the season, you can pretty much conclude that this is shaping up to be a strange year in the NFL. At this point, it’s probably easier to name the bottom 10 teams than it is to name the top 10.
Starting the season, most figured that the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts, again, would fight it out for the AFC’s top spot. The NFC looked to be the province of the Dallas Cowboys. But an injury to Patriots’ Tom Brady, some late offseason knee surgery for the Colts’ Peyton Manning and a busted pinky finger for the Cowboys’ Tony Romo has everyone rethinking their fantasy football lineups, not to mention their pre-season playoff predictions.
The Browns are still two games behind the Steelers (call it 2 ½ because they already lost to the Steelers) but it no longer seems insurmountable. Part of that is due certainly to the other-world performance of the team against the New York Giants. But a big part of it is the feeling most have outside of Pittsburgh that the Steelers’ simply aren’t that good, and that was before they had injury problems of their own. Offensively, they’re just average and that’s with a healthy Willie Parker at running back. Defensively, they’ve played well all season but they just don’t strike anyone as a dominating defense, like the Baltimore Ravens during their Super Bowl year.
Speaking of the Ravens, they, too, are two games behind the Steelers (and a leg up on the Browns) but somehow they feel further away than Cleveland. Baltimore’s defense is again carrying the team but it is far from the most dominant unit in the league, very far from it actually. Offensively, the Ravens remain mostly a mess.
A reassertion by the Browns into the thick of the AFC North race, though, lies in their ability to carry forward the supposedly freakish chemistry that broke out on Monday. That’s hardly a proposition worth betting what’s left of your 401(k) on. The moon, the stars, the planets and a whole host of intergalactic bodies will all have to align to get the Browns this season to where many fans expected, but in a season of oddities already, anything is possible. Except when it comes to the Cincinnati Bengals, where the only real question is whether Marvin Lewis will quit first or get fired.
***
Kellen Winslow’s mystery illness and his absence from the Giants’ game has sparked all sorts of conversation, from the derivation of the illness itself to an emerging theory that the Browns should consider trading him. It’s all rather amusing, actually.
I’m not sure there’s any mystery to what is ailing Winslow. It’s just that the particular malady hasn’t been revealed. For the conspiracy theorists out there that sees virtually everything as a cover-up, this lack of information is probably hiding something sinister. But the reality is that the Browns are just following the law.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, commonly known as HIPAA, set in motion new regulations mandating the privacy of individually identifiable health information. It’s the statute and regulations that keeps your employer from releasing your medical information publicly just as it keeps the Browns from releasing the medical information of its employees, including its players.
Certainly, Winslow could authorize the release of the information publicly, but why should he? Fans don’t have an absolute right to know his private medical information anymore than they have an absolute right to know the medical information for the guy sitting in Sec. 26, Row D. And spare me the argument that Winslow is highly paid professional athlete as if that somehow changes the equation.
Some fans, like some people, tend to equate their needs with their rights. They may feel a need to know the extent of Winslow’s illness in order to make a good decision on who to start in their fantasy football league or to make a wager in Vegas, but that doesn’t magically translate into a right to that information. But all the logic or legalities in the world isn’t going to stop fans from speculating, even if they’d object vehemently if the situations were reversed. Don’t you hate it when something gets in the way of a good conspiracy theory?
As to whether the Browns would be better off without Winslow, that’s a stretch. Steve Heiden and Darnell Dinkens had decent games against the Giants, but they are and always will be serviceable back-ups in the NFL, nothing more. Those two are great examples of the one area that the Browns have depth. The minute it reveals itself in a positive way, some fans start losing perspective and immediately want to undercut it by trading away the starter.
It’s an old Cleveland mindset, actually, usually practiced though by the Indians. Anyone around long enough to have lived through the Indians in the 1960s and 1970s will remember a seemingly never ending series of trades that all had the same feature, the Indians trading away a steak for three weenies. It kept the team afloat, I suppose, but did nothing to produce a winner. Neither would trading Winslow.
The other thing about Winslow that shouldn’t be underestimated is his positive impact on this team. After an incredibly rocky start by a player whose own immaturity nearly cost him his life and not merely his career, Winslow has turned into a rock solid tight end with an incredibly high threshold for pain. He’ll never be a great blocker, but he’s gotten much better. More importantly, he’s got superb pass-catching skills and is not afraid to use them in virtually any situation. He’ll make a catch knowing he’s going to take a hit. In short, he’s one of the few players you can rely on when you need him most.
Winslow runs neck-and-neck with Jamal Lewis as the heart and soul of the entire team. Other players see the pain these two are willing to incur in order to win and gain not just inspiration but the drive not to let them down. If anything, this team needs more players like Winslow, not less.
Letting Winslow go, by whatever means, would be disastrous for the Browns. That’s probably why it will eventually happen.
***
If Browns quarterback Brady Quinn doesn’t have the worst timing of anyone in the NFL, then I’d like to meet who is first. Ok, maybe he’s second to Troy Smith, but you get the point. Every time Quinn seems on the precipice of finally starting his career in a meaningful way, fate has a way of jumping up and smacking him in the face. It started with the NFL draft and continued through last week.
Going into Monday night’s game, Quinn’s moment was nearly in hand. Derek Anderson had struggled for several games dating back to last season and the only one that seemed willing to ignore the on-the-field results was head coach Romeo Crennel. But then Anderson somehow found a groove that had been eluding him. Anyone watching Monday night’s game had to notice the look on Quinn’s face when the camera flashed to him after Anderson’s first touchdown pass. The camera didn’t stay on him long, but long enough. It was an expression that said “Looks like I’m not getting behind center in a game anytime soon.” When the camera returned a few minutes later, Quinn’s expression was far more positive, either because he knew the cameras were now on him or because he was genuinely happy about what was taking place on the field. Still, it was hard to miss his disappointment.
Fans of Quinn won’t want to hear this, but if Anderson stays healthy and relatively hot the rest of the season, it’s hard to imagine general manager Phil Savage nonetheless dumping him in favor of Quinn. That’s probably unfair to Quinn because he’s never had much of a chance and Savage won’t likely get what he gave up, but the Browns can’t continue to pour that kind of money into one position when they have so many other needs. Savage will go with the known commodity, it’s the safer bet.
***
This week’s question to ponder: When the Cincinnati Bengals lost last week to run their record to 0-6, should Chad Ochocinco have changed his name to Chad Ochoseis?
Starting the season, most figured that the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts, again, would fight it out for the AFC’s top spot. The NFC looked to be the province of the Dallas Cowboys. But an injury to Patriots’ Tom Brady, some late offseason knee surgery for the Colts’ Peyton Manning and a busted pinky finger for the Cowboys’ Tony Romo has everyone rethinking their fantasy football lineups, not to mention their pre-season playoff predictions.
The Browns are still two games behind the Steelers (call it 2 ½ because they already lost to the Steelers) but it no longer seems insurmountable. Part of that is due certainly to the other-world performance of the team against the New York Giants. But a big part of it is the feeling most have outside of Pittsburgh that the Steelers’ simply aren’t that good, and that was before they had injury problems of their own. Offensively, they’re just average and that’s with a healthy Willie Parker at running back. Defensively, they’ve played well all season but they just don’t strike anyone as a dominating defense, like the Baltimore Ravens during their Super Bowl year.
Speaking of the Ravens, they, too, are two games behind the Steelers (and a leg up on the Browns) but somehow they feel further away than Cleveland. Baltimore’s defense is again carrying the team but it is far from the most dominant unit in the league, very far from it actually. Offensively, the Ravens remain mostly a mess.
A reassertion by the Browns into the thick of the AFC North race, though, lies in their ability to carry forward the supposedly freakish chemistry that broke out on Monday. That’s hardly a proposition worth betting what’s left of your 401(k) on. The moon, the stars, the planets and a whole host of intergalactic bodies will all have to align to get the Browns this season to where many fans expected, but in a season of oddities already, anything is possible. Except when it comes to the Cincinnati Bengals, where the only real question is whether Marvin Lewis will quit first or get fired.
***
Kellen Winslow’s mystery illness and his absence from the Giants’ game has sparked all sorts of conversation, from the derivation of the illness itself to an emerging theory that the Browns should consider trading him. It’s all rather amusing, actually.
I’m not sure there’s any mystery to what is ailing Winslow. It’s just that the particular malady hasn’t been revealed. For the conspiracy theorists out there that sees virtually everything as a cover-up, this lack of information is probably hiding something sinister. But the reality is that the Browns are just following the law.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, commonly known as HIPAA, set in motion new regulations mandating the privacy of individually identifiable health information. It’s the statute and regulations that keeps your employer from releasing your medical information publicly just as it keeps the Browns from releasing the medical information of its employees, including its players.
Certainly, Winslow could authorize the release of the information publicly, but why should he? Fans don’t have an absolute right to know his private medical information anymore than they have an absolute right to know the medical information for the guy sitting in Sec. 26, Row D. And spare me the argument that Winslow is highly paid professional athlete as if that somehow changes the equation.
Some fans, like some people, tend to equate their needs with their rights. They may feel a need to know the extent of Winslow’s illness in order to make a good decision on who to start in their fantasy football league or to make a wager in Vegas, but that doesn’t magically translate into a right to that information. But all the logic or legalities in the world isn’t going to stop fans from speculating, even if they’d object vehemently if the situations were reversed. Don’t you hate it when something gets in the way of a good conspiracy theory?
As to whether the Browns would be better off without Winslow, that’s a stretch. Steve Heiden and Darnell Dinkens had decent games against the Giants, but they are and always will be serviceable back-ups in the NFL, nothing more. Those two are great examples of the one area that the Browns have depth. The minute it reveals itself in a positive way, some fans start losing perspective and immediately want to undercut it by trading away the starter.
It’s an old Cleveland mindset, actually, usually practiced though by the Indians. Anyone around long enough to have lived through the Indians in the 1960s and 1970s will remember a seemingly never ending series of trades that all had the same feature, the Indians trading away a steak for three weenies. It kept the team afloat, I suppose, but did nothing to produce a winner. Neither would trading Winslow.
The other thing about Winslow that shouldn’t be underestimated is his positive impact on this team. After an incredibly rocky start by a player whose own immaturity nearly cost him his life and not merely his career, Winslow has turned into a rock solid tight end with an incredibly high threshold for pain. He’ll never be a great blocker, but he’s gotten much better. More importantly, he’s got superb pass-catching skills and is not afraid to use them in virtually any situation. He’ll make a catch knowing he’s going to take a hit. In short, he’s one of the few players you can rely on when you need him most.
Winslow runs neck-and-neck with Jamal Lewis as the heart and soul of the entire team. Other players see the pain these two are willing to incur in order to win and gain not just inspiration but the drive not to let them down. If anything, this team needs more players like Winslow, not less.
Letting Winslow go, by whatever means, would be disastrous for the Browns. That’s probably why it will eventually happen.
***
If Browns quarterback Brady Quinn doesn’t have the worst timing of anyone in the NFL, then I’d like to meet who is first. Ok, maybe he’s second to Troy Smith, but you get the point. Every time Quinn seems on the precipice of finally starting his career in a meaningful way, fate has a way of jumping up and smacking him in the face. It started with the NFL draft and continued through last week.
Going into Monday night’s game, Quinn’s moment was nearly in hand. Derek Anderson had struggled for several games dating back to last season and the only one that seemed willing to ignore the on-the-field results was head coach Romeo Crennel. But then Anderson somehow found a groove that had been eluding him. Anyone watching Monday night’s game had to notice the look on Quinn’s face when the camera flashed to him after Anderson’s first touchdown pass. The camera didn’t stay on him long, but long enough. It was an expression that said “Looks like I’m not getting behind center in a game anytime soon.” When the camera returned a few minutes later, Quinn’s expression was far more positive, either because he knew the cameras were now on him or because he was genuinely happy about what was taking place on the field. Still, it was hard to miss his disappointment.
Fans of Quinn won’t want to hear this, but if Anderson stays healthy and relatively hot the rest of the season, it’s hard to imagine general manager Phil Savage nonetheless dumping him in favor of Quinn. That’s probably unfair to Quinn because he’s never had much of a chance and Savage won’t likely get what he gave up, but the Browns can’t continue to pour that kind of money into one position when they have so many other needs. Savage will go with the known commodity, it’s the safer bet.
***
This week’s question to ponder: When the Cincinnati Bengals lost last week to run their record to 0-6, should Chad Ochocinco have changed his name to Chad Ochoseis?
Monday, July 21, 2008
The Training Camp Ritual
The official opening of the Cleveland Browns training camp on Wednesday also operates as the unofficial close of the Cleveland Indians 2008 season.
With the Indians attendance in the tank, neither owners Larry and Paul Dolan nor those responsible for putting the “Progressive” name on the former Jacobs Field are likely to be all that happy about it. But the daily overload of Browns coverage in this town provides enough of a distraction from the wreckage of an Indians season that initially held such promise that it all but assures that the Indians will be mostly a footnote for about the next six months to most fans.
Already there have been a couple of dozen of the same story about the upcoming Browns season from the usual media outlets. You’ve read them. It’s a civic obligation. They have such come-on headlines as “The 10 Questions Heading into Training Camp” or “Everything You Need to Know about the 2008 Browns” or “The Five Key Battles to Watch in Training Camp.” If there were indeed only 10 questions, five key battles and someone did know everything, we could bank the season and start the debate early on the 2009 Indians.
But these are the Browns, a puzzling franchise on its best days. All you really need to know right now is that the team made dramatic moves in the offseason that will take most of the season to evaluate, has temporarily staved off a potential quarterback controversy by anointing Derek Anderson the starter and managed to find a way to muzzle sports agent and self-promoter extraordinaire Drew Rosenhaus long enough so that Kellen Winslow, Jr.’s contract situation won’t be a distraction, at least early on.
Thus do the Browns find themselves heading into the season riding the wave of trendy expectations with a whole bunch of naysayers waiting in the wings to say “I told you so.” That can wait for another day, like when the first high ankle sprain is suffered. Questions may abound, just as they do with any team this time of year. But if you are harboring the naïve, almost quaint notion that the purpose of training camp is to resolve such matters, think again. Most of what will get resolved are questions that no one yet has thought to ask.
The problem, of course, is figuring out just how to glean insight from the daily grind of a mind-grippingly dull training camp. Feel free to attend if you’d like, but don’t say you weren’t warned. If you’re going to go, take sunscreen. It will be hot, real hot.
Camp is important for the players, but for the fans there is little information to be gained from watching players stretch. The lure of training camp for fans really seems to be the ability to channel Phil Savage as you watch players going from one drill to the next.
You, too, can then cross your arms, adjust your sunglasses and experience the whistles blowing as the players go from drill to drill. You, too, can watch the kickers standing around mostly quizzing each other on movie trivia as they “rest” between kicks. You’ll get to see passes thrown and passes dropped. Some will also be caught. Many will get intercepted. Predictably, you’ll conclude that “Quinn threw several tight spirals” or “Anderson under threw his receivers all day.” If you’re lucky a few fights will break out. None of it will mean a thing.
In fact, this year’s version of training camp could very well be the most boring in recent memory. There’s a decided lack of controversy. There aren’t any hold outs. Most of the key positions are settled and those that are not have little chance of being settled in 7-on-7 drills.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t significant work to do, there is. It’s just that most of it actually takes place away from the fans anyway, inside the meeting halls and conference rooms of the Browns’ practice facility. It’s there that film is broken down, technique studied and players lectured to for hours on end about the various finer points of the game.
So much about pro football has changed over the years that it’s not a surprise that training camp has taken on such a vastly different character when compared to the “old days,” by which I mean when the Browns used to hold training camp at Hiram College. Back then, the overriding emphasis was on getting players back in shape. Many actually had off-season jobs because they needed the money. If they stayed in shape, and many of them did certainly, it wasn’t under the laser-like glare of team officials. The players needed training camp for physical conditioning as much as anything else.
These days, a player that reports for training camp in anything other than optimal shape is a major story and it should be. Football is considered their full time job and players are paid to work out in the off-season. If a player does anything else in the offseason, maybe he heads back to school to complete his degree. But his first priority is to keep himself in shape and focused and if it’s not, then he finds himself looking for work elsewhere. Just ask Jason Taylor.
That’s why so much of training camp is now devoted to the mental side of the game. Physically, the players are ready on Day 1 and whatever fine tuning is needed for established veterans comes during the otherwise meaningless pre-season games. Mentally is where coaches believe this game seems to be won more often than not.
What you’re left with really is the misnomer that training camp really has become. You see it in the schedule established and in the approach to the fans. There are now official autograph tents and plenty of buying opportunities—refreshments and team merchandise of course. But it seems that outside of making a few bucks, the only reason teams invite fans any more is tradition. Given the paranoia that grips most NFL teams, you get the sense they’d rather face a congressional inquiry on steroids then open up a meaningless practice in August.
Still, as rituals go, attending training camp is a mostly harmless exercise. And as a last bit of advice, treat it like you would the regular season. Go in with expectations lowered. That way you can’t be disappointed. Oh, yeah. Take sunscreen.
With the Indians attendance in the tank, neither owners Larry and Paul Dolan nor those responsible for putting the “Progressive” name on the former Jacobs Field are likely to be all that happy about it. But the daily overload of Browns coverage in this town provides enough of a distraction from the wreckage of an Indians season that initially held such promise that it all but assures that the Indians will be mostly a footnote for about the next six months to most fans.
Already there have been a couple of dozen of the same story about the upcoming Browns season from the usual media outlets. You’ve read them. It’s a civic obligation. They have such come-on headlines as “The 10 Questions Heading into Training Camp” or “Everything You Need to Know about the 2008 Browns” or “The Five Key Battles to Watch in Training Camp.” If there were indeed only 10 questions, five key battles and someone did know everything, we could bank the season and start the debate early on the 2009 Indians.
But these are the Browns, a puzzling franchise on its best days. All you really need to know right now is that the team made dramatic moves in the offseason that will take most of the season to evaluate, has temporarily staved off a potential quarterback controversy by anointing Derek Anderson the starter and managed to find a way to muzzle sports agent and self-promoter extraordinaire Drew Rosenhaus long enough so that Kellen Winslow, Jr.’s contract situation won’t be a distraction, at least early on.
Thus do the Browns find themselves heading into the season riding the wave of trendy expectations with a whole bunch of naysayers waiting in the wings to say “I told you so.” That can wait for another day, like when the first high ankle sprain is suffered. Questions may abound, just as they do with any team this time of year. But if you are harboring the naïve, almost quaint notion that the purpose of training camp is to resolve such matters, think again. Most of what will get resolved are questions that no one yet has thought to ask.
The problem, of course, is figuring out just how to glean insight from the daily grind of a mind-grippingly dull training camp. Feel free to attend if you’d like, but don’t say you weren’t warned. If you’re going to go, take sunscreen. It will be hot, real hot.
Camp is important for the players, but for the fans there is little information to be gained from watching players stretch. The lure of training camp for fans really seems to be the ability to channel Phil Savage as you watch players going from one drill to the next.
You, too, can then cross your arms, adjust your sunglasses and experience the whistles blowing as the players go from drill to drill. You, too, can watch the kickers standing around mostly quizzing each other on movie trivia as they “rest” between kicks. You’ll get to see passes thrown and passes dropped. Some will also be caught. Many will get intercepted. Predictably, you’ll conclude that “Quinn threw several tight spirals” or “Anderson under threw his receivers all day.” If you’re lucky a few fights will break out. None of it will mean a thing.
In fact, this year’s version of training camp could very well be the most boring in recent memory. There’s a decided lack of controversy. There aren’t any hold outs. Most of the key positions are settled and those that are not have little chance of being settled in 7-on-7 drills.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t significant work to do, there is. It’s just that most of it actually takes place away from the fans anyway, inside the meeting halls and conference rooms of the Browns’ practice facility. It’s there that film is broken down, technique studied and players lectured to for hours on end about the various finer points of the game.
So much about pro football has changed over the years that it’s not a surprise that training camp has taken on such a vastly different character when compared to the “old days,” by which I mean when the Browns used to hold training camp at Hiram College. Back then, the overriding emphasis was on getting players back in shape. Many actually had off-season jobs because they needed the money. If they stayed in shape, and many of them did certainly, it wasn’t under the laser-like glare of team officials. The players needed training camp for physical conditioning as much as anything else.
These days, a player that reports for training camp in anything other than optimal shape is a major story and it should be. Football is considered their full time job and players are paid to work out in the off-season. If a player does anything else in the offseason, maybe he heads back to school to complete his degree. But his first priority is to keep himself in shape and focused and if it’s not, then he finds himself looking for work elsewhere. Just ask Jason Taylor.
That’s why so much of training camp is now devoted to the mental side of the game. Physically, the players are ready on Day 1 and whatever fine tuning is needed for established veterans comes during the otherwise meaningless pre-season games. Mentally is where coaches believe this game seems to be won more often than not.
What you’re left with really is the misnomer that training camp really has become. You see it in the schedule established and in the approach to the fans. There are now official autograph tents and plenty of buying opportunities—refreshments and team merchandise of course. But it seems that outside of making a few bucks, the only reason teams invite fans any more is tradition. Given the paranoia that grips most NFL teams, you get the sense they’d rather face a congressional inquiry on steroids then open up a meaningless practice in August.
Still, as rituals go, attending training camp is a mostly harmless exercise. And as a last bit of advice, treat it like you would the regular season. Go in with expectations lowered. That way you can’t be disappointed. Oh, yeah. Take sunscreen.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Rocks Heading for the Windshield
Whether it is the side effects of winning, as Erik Cassano underscores in his excellent column, or the inevitability of all things Cleveland, the Browns seemingly idyllic “season of dreams” is quickly turning into a series of rocks headed for the windshield this off-season.
One of the first was the announcement last month that ticket prices were going up. The Browns press release was a model of ridiculous understatement and an example of the journalistic sin of burying the lead. It begins by noting that 20% of the “ticketed areas” will not experience an increase, leaving to the to translate that to the fact that 80% will, to the tune of $5 to $10 per seat. It’s the Browns first increase in three seasons, as they would readily tell you, leaving it the average fan to complete the punchline that it’s also the first time in that same period at least that any sort of increase was even justified.
This is not, however, to tweak the Browns about their spin control or fly speck their balance sheet. Most fans intuitively understand that prices increase, more often after a good season than a bad one. The bigger point is that irrespective of how they feel about it, fans will have to dig a little deeper. Whether the product will be worth it may depend on whether the rest of the rocks headed for that windshield actually connect and if so, how much damage they might do.
Entering into the 2007 season, Browns fans were legitimately excited about the possibility, at some point, that Brady Quinn would be ready to take over and eventually be the long-term solution to the quarterback situation that has lingered for as long as the Browns, Part 2 have been in existence. The debate centered on when he should be thrown into the mix, not if, with a bit of time spent on who best could fit the role of third-string quarterback, Ken Dorsey or Derek Anderson
All at once and out of nowhere at the same time, Anderson put together one of the best single seasons of any quarterback in Browns history. He completed 298-527 passes for 3,787 yards and 29 touchdowns. Only four other times has any Cleveland quarterback attempted more passes. Only five other times has any Cleveland quarterback completed more passes. Anderson’s touchdown total has only been equaled or exceeded twice. Just three times has a Cleveland quarterback thrown for more yardage.
The timing of these achievements couldn’t have been better or worse. On the one hand, it creates what folks like to call a “good problem.” On the other hand, it is still a problem.
But Anderson’s season, combined with his impending status as a restricted free agent, lays open a variety of options that, frankly, the Browns haven’t had in years.
For example, Anderson’s successfully completed season gives the Browns a highly tradable commodity, its first in years. So desperate are so many teams for a quarterback of any accomplishment that it’s likely the Browns can turn Anderson into a number one pick, at a minimum, and possibly much more via a trade.
But trading Anderson requires a leap of faith that Quinn can be at least as good, if not better, in the long term. It’s a leap the Browns have taken several times previously, starting with Tim Couch and ending with Charlie Frye, and have been wrong every time.
The NFL rolls are filled with players who were one or two season wonders. They’re also filled with players who came into the league without much of a pedigree and achieved great success anyway. Right now Anderson fits into the first category and is only a candidate for the second.
The Browns, typically, are trying to hedge their bets as to which is which by offering Anderson a contract that reportedly would span three years and pay around $15-20 million. That won’t get it done mainly because to this point Anderson’s agents think he is more deserving of the kind of contract and money that Tony Romo and Matt Schaub signed for last season. That translates to about $3-5 million more per year and for a few additional seasons than the Browns have currently offered.
It’s quite possible, actually, that the Browns really are letting Anderson and his agents make the decision for them through what most fans would agree are unreasonable demands. By voluntarily painting themselves into this corner, the Browns would then tender Anderson a one-year contract worth around $2.5 million in order to preserve their right to receive compensation, in the form of a first and third round pick, from a team just desperate enough to pay Anderson as if he were Romo or Schaub. It’s probably as much as they could get in a trade anyway.
If that doesn’t occur, then the Browns buy another season to make a decision. If it does occur, then Quinn gets the job by default and Browns and their fans are back where they were entering last season, hoping that Quinn is the real deal. But this time, they’ll have one eye on whatever team Anderson is with, lamenting each touchdown pass and cheering each interception. For a team coming off a 10-6 record and hoping for more, it introduces a new level of uncertainty that no one was anticipating.
The other option is that Browns general manager Phil Savage becomes quickly convinced that Anderson is no one-hit wonder and does give him a longer term deal. That decision would essentially put Quinn on the trading block, although whether the Browns could squeeze both a first and third round pick for him may be a stretch. Still, it’s a decent option, even if not the more preferable of the two.
While the damage may be significant, the quarterback situation has a relatively efficient manner of resolving itself. The same can’t necessarily be said about the case of Kellen Winslow. On the heels of getting into his first Pro Bowl, Winslow let it be known that he’d like his contract renegotiated. Who wouldn’t?
The fact that Winslow would go down this road likely was not much of a surprise to Savage. When Winslow fired his previous loudmouth agents, the Poston brothers, for an even bigger loudmouth, Drew Rosenhaus, a demand for a renegotiation with the subtext of a holdout was as inevitable as a Cavaliers loss to the Denver Nuggets. Rosenhaus has taken virtually every one of his clients down this road, the most notable of which was Dallas Cowboys wide receiver, Terrell Owens. In the process, Rosenhaus almost ruined Owens’ career.
Winslow has built up a great deal of good will with the fans over the past two years by racking up impressive numbers while minimizing his verbal outbursts. He’s not wrong when he notes that his performance over this span has established him as one of the elite tight ends in the league.
But the fans and the internet have a long memory and that doesn’t necessarily help his cause. Winslow didn’t endear himself to anyone when he crashed his motorcycle and missed an entire season and jeopardized his career. In fact, despite his performance over the last two years, he’s still suffering from the effects of that accident and by how much that might shorten an otherwise bright career is a significant unknown.
The fans stood behind Winslow with moral support. The Browns stood behind him with big bucks. But the way in which they did so actually gives Winslow more than a little opening for a self-promoter like Rosenhaus to stake out the higher ground, which is why this situation is so tricky.
The Browns used the hammer of Winslow’s blatant contract violation to wrangle through a contract renegotiation because of the significantly changed circumstances of his injury. Having now recovered sufficiently to perform at Pro Bowl level, the circumstances have again changed, this time in Winslow’s favor. It’s not unfair, even for an abject jerk like Rosenhaus, to suggest that what was once good for the Browns is now good for Winslow. Truthfully, it would be disingenuous in this case for the Browns to take the posture that contracts are meant to be honored, not renegotiated. We may not see Winslow holding out and conducting a press conference while doing sit-ups in his driveway, like Owens, but this could get ugly. The only questions now are when this rock will hit the windshield and how much damage will it do.
The only saving grace in all of this for the Browns is that having chosen to raise ticket prices, they now can use the extra money to buy plenty of insurance. With all the potential cracks coming to their windshield, it looks like they’re going to need it.
One of the first was the announcement last month that ticket prices were going up. The Browns press release was a model of ridiculous understatement and an example of the journalistic sin of burying the lead. It begins by noting that 20% of the “ticketed areas” will not experience an increase, leaving to the to translate that to the fact that 80% will, to the tune of $5 to $10 per seat. It’s the Browns first increase in three seasons, as they would readily tell you, leaving it the average fan to complete the punchline that it’s also the first time in that same period at least that any sort of increase was even justified.
This is not, however, to tweak the Browns about their spin control or fly speck their balance sheet. Most fans intuitively understand that prices increase, more often after a good season than a bad one. The bigger point is that irrespective of how they feel about it, fans will have to dig a little deeper. Whether the product will be worth it may depend on whether the rest of the rocks headed for that windshield actually connect and if so, how much damage they might do.
Entering into the 2007 season, Browns fans were legitimately excited about the possibility, at some point, that Brady Quinn would be ready to take over and eventually be the long-term solution to the quarterback situation that has lingered for as long as the Browns, Part 2 have been in existence. The debate centered on when he should be thrown into the mix, not if, with a bit of time spent on who best could fit the role of third-string quarterback, Ken Dorsey or Derek Anderson
All at once and out of nowhere at the same time, Anderson put together one of the best single seasons of any quarterback in Browns history. He completed 298-527 passes for 3,787 yards and 29 touchdowns. Only four other times has any Cleveland quarterback attempted more passes. Only five other times has any Cleveland quarterback completed more passes. Anderson’s touchdown total has only been equaled or exceeded twice. Just three times has a Cleveland quarterback thrown for more yardage.
The timing of these achievements couldn’t have been better or worse. On the one hand, it creates what folks like to call a “good problem.” On the other hand, it is still a problem.
But Anderson’s season, combined with his impending status as a restricted free agent, lays open a variety of options that, frankly, the Browns haven’t had in years.
For example, Anderson’s successfully completed season gives the Browns a highly tradable commodity, its first in years. So desperate are so many teams for a quarterback of any accomplishment that it’s likely the Browns can turn Anderson into a number one pick, at a minimum, and possibly much more via a trade.
But trading Anderson requires a leap of faith that Quinn can be at least as good, if not better, in the long term. It’s a leap the Browns have taken several times previously, starting with Tim Couch and ending with Charlie Frye, and have been wrong every time.
The NFL rolls are filled with players who were one or two season wonders. They’re also filled with players who came into the league without much of a pedigree and achieved great success anyway. Right now Anderson fits into the first category and is only a candidate for the second.
The Browns, typically, are trying to hedge their bets as to which is which by offering Anderson a contract that reportedly would span three years and pay around $15-20 million. That won’t get it done mainly because to this point Anderson’s agents think he is more deserving of the kind of contract and money that Tony Romo and Matt Schaub signed for last season. That translates to about $3-5 million more per year and for a few additional seasons than the Browns have currently offered.
It’s quite possible, actually, that the Browns really are letting Anderson and his agents make the decision for them through what most fans would agree are unreasonable demands. By voluntarily painting themselves into this corner, the Browns would then tender Anderson a one-year contract worth around $2.5 million in order to preserve their right to receive compensation, in the form of a first and third round pick, from a team just desperate enough to pay Anderson as if he were Romo or Schaub. It’s probably as much as they could get in a trade anyway.
If that doesn’t occur, then the Browns buy another season to make a decision. If it does occur, then Quinn gets the job by default and Browns and their fans are back where they were entering last season, hoping that Quinn is the real deal. But this time, they’ll have one eye on whatever team Anderson is with, lamenting each touchdown pass and cheering each interception. For a team coming off a 10-6 record and hoping for more, it introduces a new level of uncertainty that no one was anticipating.
The other option is that Browns general manager Phil Savage becomes quickly convinced that Anderson is no one-hit wonder and does give him a longer term deal. That decision would essentially put Quinn on the trading block, although whether the Browns could squeeze both a first and third round pick for him may be a stretch. Still, it’s a decent option, even if not the more preferable of the two.
While the damage may be significant, the quarterback situation has a relatively efficient manner of resolving itself. The same can’t necessarily be said about the case of Kellen Winslow. On the heels of getting into his first Pro Bowl, Winslow let it be known that he’d like his contract renegotiated. Who wouldn’t?
The fact that Winslow would go down this road likely was not much of a surprise to Savage. When Winslow fired his previous loudmouth agents, the Poston brothers, for an even bigger loudmouth, Drew Rosenhaus, a demand for a renegotiation with the subtext of a holdout was as inevitable as a Cavaliers loss to the Denver Nuggets. Rosenhaus has taken virtually every one of his clients down this road, the most notable of which was Dallas Cowboys wide receiver, Terrell Owens. In the process, Rosenhaus almost ruined Owens’ career.
Winslow has built up a great deal of good will with the fans over the past two years by racking up impressive numbers while minimizing his verbal outbursts. He’s not wrong when he notes that his performance over this span has established him as one of the elite tight ends in the league.
But the fans and the internet have a long memory and that doesn’t necessarily help his cause. Winslow didn’t endear himself to anyone when he crashed his motorcycle and missed an entire season and jeopardized his career. In fact, despite his performance over the last two years, he’s still suffering from the effects of that accident and by how much that might shorten an otherwise bright career is a significant unknown.
The fans stood behind Winslow with moral support. The Browns stood behind him with big bucks. But the way in which they did so actually gives Winslow more than a little opening for a self-promoter like Rosenhaus to stake out the higher ground, which is why this situation is so tricky.
The Browns used the hammer of Winslow’s blatant contract violation to wrangle through a contract renegotiation because of the significantly changed circumstances of his injury. Having now recovered sufficiently to perform at Pro Bowl level, the circumstances have again changed, this time in Winslow’s favor. It’s not unfair, even for an abject jerk like Rosenhaus, to suggest that what was once good for the Browns is now good for Winslow. Truthfully, it would be disingenuous in this case for the Browns to take the posture that contracts are meant to be honored, not renegotiated. We may not see Winslow holding out and conducting a press conference while doing sit-ups in his driveway, like Owens, but this could get ugly. The only questions now are when this rock will hit the windshield and how much damage will it do.
The only saving grace in all of this for the Browns is that having chosen to raise ticket prices, they now can use the extra money to buy plenty of insurance. With all the potential cracks coming to their windshield, it looks like they’re going to need it.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Finding Meaning in the Meaningless
As much as Browns players should be used to playing in meaningless games in December, so too should Browns fans be used to watching meaningless games in December. It’s been that way for years with this franchise. But this version of a meaningless game was far different than most. Neither a pre-season tune-up nor a get-out-of-Dodge end-of-the year sleepwalk, the game was mostly an opportunity to recalibrate after last week’s disaster with the underlying goal to be ready for a playoff birth that may never come.
Bowing in respect to the ambiguities presented, the Browns played neither overtly good nor preposterously bad in beating an awful San Francisco 49ers team being led by their fourth quarterback, 20-7. It was all the effort they really needed on this day and all they really would have needed a week ago against Cincinnati, but that’s a lament for another time, beginning around 11:30 p.m. on Sunday when Tennessee beat Indianapolis in the Sunday night game.
The win, of course, did nothing to change the playoff calculus. A loss would only have altered it marginally. But psychologically, the victory was important even if the playoffs must wait another year.
The victory gave the Browns their seventh home win this season, their most ever, and re-established Cleveland Browns Stadium as a true home field advantage. It also represented their best record since 1995 when they went 11-5 under then genius-in-training, Bill Belichick. On the down side, if the Browns do not make the playoffs, the win represents only the second time in franchise history that this team won at least 10 games and didn’t make the playoffs. The last time that happened was in 1963, when a 10-4 Browns team finished second in the NFL’s Eastern Conference to the New York Giants. The Giants lost to the Chicago Bears that year in the NFL championship game.
With no weather issues for the first time in the last three weeks, the Browns offense still looked stuck somewhere between second and third gear, particularly in the second half. Running back Jamal Lewis wasn’t to blame. He continued his late season surge, running hard and gaining 128 yards on 26 carries. It gave Lewis over 1300 rushing yards for the season. But quarterback Derek Anderson, until his injury and even after his return, was more of a culprit, running more cold than hot, a 45-yard touchdown pass to Braylon Edwards notwithstanding. Anderson was victimized by the same things that have tended to hamper him every time he is “bad” Derek—poor decision making. He also seemed a bit gun shy.
That much was evident early anyway, just as it was against the Cincinnati Bengals a week ago. After the Browns defense held the 49ers to three and out on their first possession, Josh Cribbs took the punt back to the 49ers 33 yard line. Moving the ball with some effect, Anderson then threw to a well-covered Kellen Winslow and San Francisco cornerback Walt Harris stepped in for the easy interception.
Anderson temporarily rediscovered his groove two possessions later, however, hitting a wide open Braylon Edwards who was streaking back a defenseless Nate Clements for a 45-yard touchdown, which was notable mostly for the penalty called on Edwards afterward for unsportsmanlike conduct. Edwards took offense when Clements tried to tackle him while in the end zone by turning and taunting the beaten Clements. But that penalty notwithstanding, the catch was important as it pushed Edwards past Webster Slaughter for the most receiving yards in a season. On the day, Edwards had three receptions for 67 yards, giving him 1289 yards on the season, well past Slaughter’s 1236 yards in 1989. Winslow wasn’t too far behind, either. His 62 receiving yards on Sunday gave him over 1100 for the season.
The Edwards touchdown pushed the score to 14-0. The Browns first touchdown came on a Cribbs 76-yard punt return. That, coupled with his 53-yard return after San Francisco’s first possession gave him 129 return yards and the game was barely 11 minutes old. For the game, he had 192 yards and that doesn’t include the 94-yard kickoff return that was called back. It was affirmation that Cribbs’ Pro Bowl selection was well-deserved.
But other than the touchdown pass to Edwards, Anderson was throwing conservatively against a depleted 49ers defense, opting more for screens and quick outs than anything much downfield. That’s what five interceptions in less than two games will do for a player’s psyche. The injury, though, which wasn’t serious, provided the perfect cover for head coach Romeo Crennel to do what many fans were clamoring for anyway—put in Brady Quinn.
But before that could occur there was the little matter of the defense. Even a struggling team struggles less against the Browns, particularly if they have any sort of running attack. Though 49ers running back Frank Gore has been somewhat of a disappointment to fantasy football league owners around the country, he still entered the Browns game with over 1000 yards rushing. That was more than enough to keep the Browns front seven on their heels and the defensive backs skittish, at least in the first half, and it showed mightily as Weinke took the 49ers down the field and closed the gap to 14-7 with a seven-yard touchdown pass to Darrell Jackson. The drive was helped by Gore’s running and a questionable roughing the passer call on linebacker Kamerion Wimbley.
But after that bit of interference was cleared, in came Quinn with just over three minutes left in the half. Let the record show that Quinn’s first completion came with 1:59 left in the half, a 15-yard toss to tight end Steve Heiden. Let the record also show that at 1:19 and again at 1:07, Quinn should have had the first touchdown pass of his career. But Edwards dropped the first pass, which is never unexpected, and Winslow dropped the second, which was quite unexpected.
Still, there were at least two positives. First, Quinn looked comfortable playing. It helps, of course, to have a good offensive line, but frankly Quinn looked the same as he did in the preseason, calm and in charge. If nothing else, it’s pretty clear that he’s been doing more in the last 17 weeks than just making Subway commercials. Second, by moving the team into the red zone, Quinn gave Phil Dawson his first chance in two weeks to kick a field goal. By converting the 23-yard chance, which pushed the score to 17-7, coupled with the two extra points earlier in the half, Dawson also entered the record books, pushing past Lou Groza for the most points by a Browns kicker in a single season. In all, Dawson ended the regular season with 120 points, five more than Groza’s 115 in 1964. It also tied Dawson for second in season scoring with Leroy Kelly, who had 120 points in 1968. Jim Brown holds the record with 126 points in 1965.
The game, hardly in doubt even at halftime, had only one remaining mystery: whether Crennel would stay with Quinn in the second half or tempt fate further by putting Anderson back in. Mystery solved. Crennel went right back to Anderson, his starter, and it didn’t even take a coin flip. The truth is, though, that it hardly mattered. Ken Dorsey could have moved this offense against that team. Heck, Jimmy Dorsey would have been at least even money to throw a touchdown pass against the 49ers, assuming of course he had receivers who wouldn’t drop it in the end zone.
Anderson took the team on a 12-play, 69-yard drive that didn’t result in any points (do you see a pattern here?) and that probably shouldn’t have been anyway. Cribbs had taken the second-half kickoff 94 yards for what should have been his second return touchdown of the day. It was called back, however, on a holding call against Lennie Friedman that seemed more imagined than real. Anderson moved the team capably enough, but when running back Jason Wright dropped a touchdown pass in the end zone (do you see another pattern here?), the call went out to Dawson. But Clements, playing in front of family and friends, blocked the 25-yard attempt.
It hardly mattered. Weinke and the 49ers were unable to move the ball then or for the rest of the game. For the next quarter and a half, the game was mostly a death march toward the final gun, punctuated only occasionally by something semi-interesting, like a couple of Willie McGinest sacks (the Browns had five in all), a couple of good Jamal Lewis runs and a 49-yard field goal by Dawson that pushed the score to 20-7 with just over 10 minutes left in the game. It was the only points scored in the second half. By the end, it looked every bit like the fourth preseason game in both form and substance, particularly when the Browns backfield featured Jerome Harrison and Charles Ali late in the game.
Nonetheless, it did make more than a few fans loudly wonder, then, why Crennel was keeping Quinn nailed to the bench. But nailed did he remain to the bench. The only thing it really cost the Browns was the chance to get a better feel for Quinn under actual game conditions, which one can only assume mattered more to General Manager Phil Savage than it obviously did to Crennel.
Unquestionably, a 10-6 record is a successful season by any measure, particularly when the NFL seems designed to yield mostly 9-7 and 7-9 records. But more than just that visceral success, it validated the direction Savage has set for this team. First he overhauled the offensive line by first signing free agent guard Eric Steinbach and then resisting the call to draft a skill player with the first pick and instead opting for left tackle Joe Thomas. That move alone resulted in an astounding 35 less sacks than the previous season. He then brought in a hungry Jamal Lewis, threw his faith in the quarterback he stole from the Ravens rather than the quarterback he drafted in the third round, and rounded it off by taking control of the coaching staff by handpicking Rob Chudzinski as offensive coordinator. Crennel is getting the attention nationally for the Browns success by people who aren’t paying attention, but the person most deserving of post-season accolades is Savage, for executive of the year. And no matter that the season officially ended Sunday evening, the real meaning to be wrung from this season is that for the first time in a long time, Cleveland has a real football team.
Bowing in respect to the ambiguities presented, the Browns played neither overtly good nor preposterously bad in beating an awful San Francisco 49ers team being led by their fourth quarterback, 20-7. It was all the effort they really needed on this day and all they really would have needed a week ago against Cincinnati, but that’s a lament for another time, beginning around 11:30 p.m. on Sunday when Tennessee beat Indianapolis in the Sunday night game.
The win, of course, did nothing to change the playoff calculus. A loss would only have altered it marginally. But psychologically, the victory was important even if the playoffs must wait another year.
The victory gave the Browns their seventh home win this season, their most ever, and re-established Cleveland Browns Stadium as a true home field advantage. It also represented their best record since 1995 when they went 11-5 under then genius-in-training, Bill Belichick. On the down side, if the Browns do not make the playoffs, the win represents only the second time in franchise history that this team won at least 10 games and didn’t make the playoffs. The last time that happened was in 1963, when a 10-4 Browns team finished second in the NFL’s Eastern Conference to the New York Giants. The Giants lost to the Chicago Bears that year in the NFL championship game.
With no weather issues for the first time in the last three weeks, the Browns offense still looked stuck somewhere between second and third gear, particularly in the second half. Running back Jamal Lewis wasn’t to blame. He continued his late season surge, running hard and gaining 128 yards on 26 carries. It gave Lewis over 1300 rushing yards for the season. But quarterback Derek Anderson, until his injury and even after his return, was more of a culprit, running more cold than hot, a 45-yard touchdown pass to Braylon Edwards notwithstanding. Anderson was victimized by the same things that have tended to hamper him every time he is “bad” Derek—poor decision making. He also seemed a bit gun shy.
That much was evident early anyway, just as it was against the Cincinnati Bengals a week ago. After the Browns defense held the 49ers to three and out on their first possession, Josh Cribbs took the punt back to the 49ers 33 yard line. Moving the ball with some effect, Anderson then threw to a well-covered Kellen Winslow and San Francisco cornerback Walt Harris stepped in for the easy interception.
Anderson temporarily rediscovered his groove two possessions later, however, hitting a wide open Braylon Edwards who was streaking back a defenseless Nate Clements for a 45-yard touchdown, which was notable mostly for the penalty called on Edwards afterward for unsportsmanlike conduct. Edwards took offense when Clements tried to tackle him while in the end zone by turning and taunting the beaten Clements. But that penalty notwithstanding, the catch was important as it pushed Edwards past Webster Slaughter for the most receiving yards in a season. On the day, Edwards had three receptions for 67 yards, giving him 1289 yards on the season, well past Slaughter’s 1236 yards in 1989. Winslow wasn’t too far behind, either. His 62 receiving yards on Sunday gave him over 1100 for the season.
The Edwards touchdown pushed the score to 14-0. The Browns first touchdown came on a Cribbs 76-yard punt return. That, coupled with his 53-yard return after San Francisco’s first possession gave him 129 return yards and the game was barely 11 minutes old. For the game, he had 192 yards and that doesn’t include the 94-yard kickoff return that was called back. It was affirmation that Cribbs’ Pro Bowl selection was well-deserved.
But other than the touchdown pass to Edwards, Anderson was throwing conservatively against a depleted 49ers defense, opting more for screens and quick outs than anything much downfield. That’s what five interceptions in less than two games will do for a player’s psyche. The injury, though, which wasn’t serious, provided the perfect cover for head coach Romeo Crennel to do what many fans were clamoring for anyway—put in Brady Quinn.
But before that could occur there was the little matter of the defense. Even a struggling team struggles less against the Browns, particularly if they have any sort of running attack. Though 49ers running back Frank Gore has been somewhat of a disappointment to fantasy football league owners around the country, he still entered the Browns game with over 1000 yards rushing. That was more than enough to keep the Browns front seven on their heels and the defensive backs skittish, at least in the first half, and it showed mightily as Weinke took the 49ers down the field and closed the gap to 14-7 with a seven-yard touchdown pass to Darrell Jackson. The drive was helped by Gore’s running and a questionable roughing the passer call on linebacker Kamerion Wimbley.
But after that bit of interference was cleared, in came Quinn with just over three minutes left in the half. Let the record show that Quinn’s first completion came with 1:59 left in the half, a 15-yard toss to tight end Steve Heiden. Let the record also show that at 1:19 and again at 1:07, Quinn should have had the first touchdown pass of his career. But Edwards dropped the first pass, which is never unexpected, and Winslow dropped the second, which was quite unexpected.
Still, there were at least two positives. First, Quinn looked comfortable playing. It helps, of course, to have a good offensive line, but frankly Quinn looked the same as he did in the preseason, calm and in charge. If nothing else, it’s pretty clear that he’s been doing more in the last 17 weeks than just making Subway commercials. Second, by moving the team into the red zone, Quinn gave Phil Dawson his first chance in two weeks to kick a field goal. By converting the 23-yard chance, which pushed the score to 17-7, coupled with the two extra points earlier in the half, Dawson also entered the record books, pushing past Lou Groza for the most points by a Browns kicker in a single season. In all, Dawson ended the regular season with 120 points, five more than Groza’s 115 in 1964. It also tied Dawson for second in season scoring with Leroy Kelly, who had 120 points in 1968. Jim Brown holds the record with 126 points in 1965.
The game, hardly in doubt even at halftime, had only one remaining mystery: whether Crennel would stay with Quinn in the second half or tempt fate further by putting Anderson back in. Mystery solved. Crennel went right back to Anderson, his starter, and it didn’t even take a coin flip. The truth is, though, that it hardly mattered. Ken Dorsey could have moved this offense against that team. Heck, Jimmy Dorsey would have been at least even money to throw a touchdown pass against the 49ers, assuming of course he had receivers who wouldn’t drop it in the end zone.
Anderson took the team on a 12-play, 69-yard drive that didn’t result in any points (do you see a pattern here?) and that probably shouldn’t have been anyway. Cribbs had taken the second-half kickoff 94 yards for what should have been his second return touchdown of the day. It was called back, however, on a holding call against Lennie Friedman that seemed more imagined than real. Anderson moved the team capably enough, but when running back Jason Wright dropped a touchdown pass in the end zone (do you see another pattern here?), the call went out to Dawson. But Clements, playing in front of family and friends, blocked the 25-yard attempt.
It hardly mattered. Weinke and the 49ers were unable to move the ball then or for the rest of the game. For the next quarter and a half, the game was mostly a death march toward the final gun, punctuated only occasionally by something semi-interesting, like a couple of Willie McGinest sacks (the Browns had five in all), a couple of good Jamal Lewis runs and a 49-yard field goal by Dawson that pushed the score to 20-7 with just over 10 minutes left in the game. It was the only points scored in the second half. By the end, it looked every bit like the fourth preseason game in both form and substance, particularly when the Browns backfield featured Jerome Harrison and Charles Ali late in the game.
Nonetheless, it did make more than a few fans loudly wonder, then, why Crennel was keeping Quinn nailed to the bench. But nailed did he remain to the bench. The only thing it really cost the Browns was the chance to get a better feel for Quinn under actual game conditions, which one can only assume mattered more to General Manager Phil Savage than it obviously did to Crennel.
Unquestionably, a 10-6 record is a successful season by any measure, particularly when the NFL seems designed to yield mostly 9-7 and 7-9 records. But more than just that visceral success, it validated the direction Savage has set for this team. First he overhauled the offensive line by first signing free agent guard Eric Steinbach and then resisting the call to draft a skill player with the first pick and instead opting for left tackle Joe Thomas. That move alone resulted in an astounding 35 less sacks than the previous season. He then brought in a hungry Jamal Lewis, threw his faith in the quarterback he stole from the Ravens rather than the quarterback he drafted in the third round, and rounded it off by taking control of the coaching staff by handpicking Rob Chudzinski as offensive coordinator. Crennel is getting the attention nationally for the Browns success by people who aren’t paying attention, but the person most deserving of post-season accolades is Savage, for executive of the year. And no matter that the season officially ended Sunday evening, the real meaning to be wrung from this season is that for the first time in a long time, Cleveland has a real football team.
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