No Such Thing As a Bad Win

Sports in general and professional sports in particular are the ultimate bottom line businesses.  Success is measured week by week and chronicled daily in a million or so outlets.  While it is definitely true that a team that consistently wins more than it loses can be considered a success in the same way that a team that consistently loses more than it wins can be considered a failure, on a micro basis there are truths to be learned in both the wins and losses irrespective of a team’s record.

This past weekend, both the Cleveland Browns and the Ohio State Buckeyes walked away with wins. And while that should be good enough to all the bottom liners, of course it was not because the wins were not impressive in their crafting against ostensibly lesser competition.

In the case of the Buckeyes, I guess what this means is that unless 50 or more points are scored and 500 or more yards are compiled on offense, the win might as well have been a loss.  In the case of the Browns, I’m not even sure what it means.  Given the Browns rather consistent pattern of losing at least twice as many games as it wins, season after season and that just the previous week it actually lost to a winless team, the Oakland Raiders came into the game winless and left the same way and that is somehow unsatisfactory. 

I understand the frustration of Buckeye fans.  The preseason seemed to hold realistic hope of the team getting to the first ever national championship playoffs. But the injury to Braxton Miller, coupled with very inexperienced back up, altered both the perceptions and the reality.  Couple that with a home loss to what is, at best, a very average Virginia Tech, and this season seemed like it wouldn’t take any flight.

But since that game the Buckeyes have completely turned the season on its head.  Quarterback J.T. Barrett, playing for the first time in two years, seemed to have the light go on immediately and suddenly, against weak competition, the Buckeyes’ offense turned into a juggernaut.

Well, that juggernaut got slowed on Saturday night against Penn State, a supposedly vastly inferior team and that got everyone all upset.  Rather than acknowledge the growing pains of a team that has been far better than most imagined when Miller first went down, fans and most of the media instead chastised the Buckeyes for apparently not destroying Penn State at their home field at night in front of the national media and a drunk and crazed fan base making it almost impossible to call out any signals.

There was plenty to critique in the Buckeyes’ win, but let’s keep that critique in perspective and acknowledge what is likely to be one of the more important wins this team will have in the next few seasons.

Probably the biggest issue in the entire game was the play calling.  This isn’t the first time, just the most recent, when Urban Meyer went ultra conservative in a big game.  Meyer has a fascination with letting his quarterbacks carry the entire running load even when his running backs have more than proven capable.  Michigan State last year late in the Big Ten championship game was another prime example.  Meyer seems to lose faith mostly in himself.  Stated differently, he goes into small ball protection mode too quickly at the first sign of trouble.

But let’s also remember that the Buckeyes mostly dominated Penn State even if the score didn’t reflect it.  The only Penn State touchdown in regulation came on a very well thrown pass into very tight coverage.  Sometimes the other team is going to win a battle.  It happens.

The far larger point though was the manner in which the Buckeyes reversed a huge momentum swing and found a way to win.  In thinking about the Ohio State win on Saturday and fan and media reaction to it, it was best to recall the words of LeBron James last week when talking about what it takes sometimes to build a team, according to the Plain Dealer:

 “You got to go through something in order to create a bond, and that means for the worse. You've got to lose ball games that we think we should have won. We got to get in an argument here and there every now and then just to test each other out. It has to happen. It's going to happen. I know it's going to happen. A lot of guys don't see it but I see it. That's the only way we're going to be able to grow.”

That’s exactly what Saturday night’s victory ended up being, an opportunity for this team to get tested, to bond, to grow.  If this is a team with big aspirations, whether by a confluence of events this year or a more defined approach next season, this Penn State victory will be the fulcrum on which those aspirations pivoted.  We’ll see soon enough as the Buckeyes go into hostile territory in a few weeks against Michigan State.

As for the Browns, it simply is a case of confusing progress with success.  The two concepts can intersect and sometimes they can be almost the same thing.  But for now, for this Browns team, they are at best 2^nd or 3^rd cousins.

What most of the dissection of the Browns’ win has been is to highlight the team’s faults without acknowledging some emerging strengths.  The Raiders, easily one of the worst if not the worst team in the league, is horrible in every phase of the game, including stopping the run.  Yet the Browns couldn’t find a way to run the ball because, again, Alex Mack is apparently the most important player on this team.

And yet, despite the numerous 3-and-outs, the bad passes, the lousy routes, the blown blocking assignments, this team found a way to pull together late and overcome whatever adversity it faced, much of which was arguably self-inflicted.

For all that went wrong on Sunday, plenty went right, starting with the defense.  Joe Haden, of whom I’ve been a frequent critic, played one of the best games of his entire career.  Sure he was in the right place at the right moment to field an oddly errant mid-air fumble, but his coverage was at an elite status the entire game.  Late in the game on a sideline route deep with a receiver seeming to have a step on him, Haden close fast and made a textbook deflection.  It was the kind of play that coaches from other teams at all levels will use to demonstrate proper technique.

Let’s also mention Paul Krueger who is fulfilling this year much of what was expected of him last year.  Maybe it’s head coach Mike Pettine’s defensive schemes that appeal more to Krueger’s sensibilities or it’s a case of just being more in sync with this coaching staff.  Whatever it is, Krueger played well Sunday as he has this whole season.  Even poor Justin Gilbert, who has mostly appeared overmatched since the first preseason game, looked better. 

There is still plenty of improvement this team needs.  Buster Skrine is still, well, Buster Skrine and the Browns might be the worst team I’ve ever seen at any level fielding and returning punts.  But this team is already at four wins for the season and it’s a season that’s only 7 games old!

Just as with the Buckeyes, the Browns have gone through the kind of adversity now that tends to bond teams together.  Indeed, the little battles it fought in other games is largely responsible for the team’s ability to respond late this past Sunday.  In almost every other year in the last 12 other Browns teams have crumbled under like circumstances.  The fact that this team didn’t and the fact this it won should be celebrated for what it was, not the Super Bowl, but a gritty win.

I’ve been part of the fabric of this town’s crappy sports teams for more than 50 years now so I understand the manner in which all performance gets filtered.  But that doesn’t make it any less irritating for the same tired narrative of pulling defeat from the jaws of victory every time it doesn’t go to some ill-informed predetermined script.

Winning games at any level, be it Division I college football or the NFL, is hard enough.  Let’s not make it harder on ourselves by constructing impossibly high standards just so we can satisfy our inner insecurities that our teams will never be good enough to win something meaningful. And if that task is too hard then keep it simple and just remember that while you often can make the case for a good loss, you can never make the case for a bad win.

The Things We Know---Week 12

If the Cleveland Browns have indeed finally turned a corner toward a lighted street and not another darkened alley, then they’ll look back at the sloppy victories against two struggling teams that constitute a legitimate win streak as the first signs.  The Browns’ harder-than-it-had-to-be yet not-as-close-as-it-appears 20-17 win against the Oakland Raiders on Sunday was notable not because the Raiders are Kansas City Chiefs-level awful, though they’re close, but because it almost has never mattered how awful the Raiders are when playing the Browns.  The Raiders have been invincible at whatever stadium they call home, whether in Oakland, Los Angeles or wherever Al Davis’ dementia took them next, against the Browns.  It’s as big a monkey as the Browns got off their backs last week when they beat the Steelers, just less noticed.

Having unburdened themselves thusly these last two weeks, there’s reason for optimism even if there’s less reason to be totally optimistic.  It’s the same feeling really that fans had in the midst of Eric Mangini’s  “Save My Job” 4-game win streak tour at the end of his first season as head coach, a streak incidentally that claimed the Steelers and Raiders among its victims.  This is a way of acknowledging that slaying our nemeses on occasion doesn’t necessarily portend a brighter future, at least not immediately.  Counting these last two weeks, the Browns have won only 13 times since that last win streak.

What is perhaps different at the moment though is that both the head coach and the too-old rookie franchise-quarterback-to-be may be growing up together, a good thing.  There are several ways in which Sunday’s victory doesn’t come about.  Among the biggest, though, has to do with head coach Pat Shurmur’s on again off again confidence in his offense and, by proxy given his role in that offense, himself.  Sunday it was on again as he made two crucial, correct, 4th down “gambles” that kept drives alive, resulted in points and, ultimately, the victory.

Not too long ago Shurmur would have punted on 4th and 1 from the opponent’s 45 yard line late in the game.  In fact he essentially did that twice and on both occasions the team trailed and lost.  Yet here was Shurmur, his team clinging as always to a precarious lead like a teenager clings to his iPhone, having made a grand defensive gesture deep in their own red zone thanks to Sheldon Brown’s interception and deciding to take a chance with the clock winding down.  His quarterback awarded that in-context bravado with a 3-yard quarterback sneak for the first down that beget a 23-yard reception on the next play that beget a predictable Raiders’ penalty that beget the Trent Richardson touchdown that effectively put the game out of reach.  It was a potential early career defining 94-yard drive for their quarterback.

As for that quarterback, Brandon Weeden, he put together a strangely effective performance, at least as it played out in crunch time, passing for 364 yards, a key early touchdown pass to Josh Gordon, while still overthrowing both harmfully and harmlessly enough to remind fans that there is still a huge learning curve to be overcome.

But God love Weeden and that learning curve.  In the running for my favorite quote of the year is this gem he leveled on the press afterward: “Beating [the Steelers] last week and then coming on the road and beating a really good team this week, it kind of shows the maturity of this team is moving forward.”  I’m always glad when maturity moves forward even if no one outside of Weeden would ever slap the label “really good team” on the Raiders. Save the accolades for teams that deserve the moniker.

Certainly Shurmur’s and Weeden’s maturity is moving forward (assuming that’s a good thing) and so too is that of Greg “Too” Little.  Since getting off Twitter and perhaps getting on some strong ADHD medication (with a proper prescription naturally), Little more than any other player on the team has shown that forward movement maturity thing the most.  Maybe it didn’t quite spring Mohamed Massaquoi's 54-yard reception, but the block Little threw late in that reception helped the cause and was the kind of thing Braylon Edwards would never do, which means that while he may have Edwards’ hands, Little has certainly surpassed Edwards in attitude and effort.  If Little can avoid a fight with a member of LeBron James’ posse anytime in the next 6 months, then he’ll have definitively surpassed Edwards in maturity, too.

Sunday’s game was not the unwatchable mess that was the New York Jets/Arizona Cardinals debacle, but it wasn’t eminently watchable either.  The Raiders are an awful team.  Their starting quarterback, Carson Palmer, had about two games during his penultimate season of 2009 in Cincinnati,when he looked like he might not be the usual USC failure in the pros.  Since then he’s been less effective then a half dozen rookie quarterbacks I can think of off the top of my head.  Backing him up is the ultimate USC bust Matt Leinart.  Meanwhile Terrelle Pryor has been active just once in two years, which says that Pryor either is the worst quarterback imaginable or the Raiders’ personnel evaluators couldn’t see Bar Rafaeli topless and in a thong if she were standing in front of them with a come hither finger gesture a la Christie Brinkley in Vacation .  I vote for the latter given that this is the same group that gave, absolutely gave, the Cincinnati Bengals a first AND second round pick for a retired Palmer.  And that’s just the start of it.  The Raiders have no running game, no credible receivers and a defensive backfield that would bow down to Buster Skrine and worship him like the Dali Lama if they had him.  Indeed, the Raiders’ defense is probably celebrating the fact that it only gave up 20 points on Sunday, which often is good enough to win.

While that end of the game 94-yard drive was a nice way to win a game, particularly coming as it did off a turnover that ended a Raiders’ serious threat and that had it not happened could have served as the ending to most of the Browns’ road games over the last few years, the overall lack of productivity by the offense remains a concern.

Richardson looked at times like he was healthy and running hard but at other times he looked more injured then he’s letting on.  He has 49 carries over the last two games and less than 200 yards to show for it.  Richardson was there at the end when the Browns needed him and his presence forces defenses to respect the run, but either he needs to get more healthy or more effective or both.  You get the sense the Browns could get similar production right now out of Montario Hardesty and have used the third pick in last year’s draft on someone else.

Gordon on the other hand is actually getting better with each game.  Though he joined the Browns under similar circumstances as Little, he’s already surpassed Little in development.  Gordon is definitely making general manager Tom Heckert look good even with surrendering a second round pick next year to get him in the second round of this year's supplemental draft.  The tight ends, particularly Jordan Cameron, are getting more active and, frankly, Weeden is getting much better at distributing the ball around.  Eight different players had receptions for the Browns on Sunday (10 if you include Weeden’s two interceptions).  That’s a very positive sign that Weeden is grasping the concept of having a second, third and outlet receiver in a pattern..

And yet for a variety of smaller reasons this team still has trouble scoring.  Penalties that kill drives, dropped passes on critical downs, solid blocking that suddenly becomes leaky all conspired throughout the game, throughout the season really, to keep this team from scoring more.  Then there’s the overreliance on placekicker Phil Dawson, who has exactly one missed field goal this entire season, a 28-yarder on Sunday that was partially blocked mainly because the snap was high and the timing was off.  Paradoxically if Dawson was a little less reliable, the offense would be a little more bold and might have won Sunday's game more comfortably.

Still, no NFL victory should ever be diminished, even if it’s against lowly or struggling teams, two terms that define the Browns’ existence over the last 14 years.  Let’s consider, for example, the plight of those Steelers.  A week ago against the Browns, Charlie Batch, subbing for Ben Roethlisberger about as well as Dick Sargent substituted for Dick York,  looked like a guy that hadn’t played in nearly a decade, which is what he was.  The rest of the Steelers’ offense took its cues from Batch and together they turned the ball over 8 times (could have been 11).  They lost only because it’s impossible to win while turning it over that much.  This past weekend, with Batch still in, the Steelers found a way to beat the Baltimore Ravens with Batch, playing, really, not appreciably better than a week before, leading the way on a late score to win the game.  Go figure.  The loss so infuriated Ravens safety Ed Reed that he blamed it on Roger Goodell who from this point forward is now the point person for everything bad happening, from the fiscal cliff to “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”

The Browns next face the Chiefs, which should be a victory under any circumstances.  I just don’t understand how a team with Romeo Crennel, Brady Quinn and Peyton Hillis, none of whom could make it in a low pressure environment like Cleveland could suddenly turn things around.  Frankly, I think Scott Pioli has lost his mind by reinventing the Chiefs as the Browns Redux and if he has a job next season then he’s holding something over the ownership of the Chiefs and I’m damn sure it’s more than incriminating photos.

It's still going to be tough for this team to surpass 5 wins for the season, but even that amount will look strangely like progress.  Go figure that, too.

**
Speaking of the Chiefs, whatever else there is to say about Crennel, give him his due for coaching the Chiefs to an improbable victory on Sunday, even if it came against Carolina.  Crennel is not a good head coach, but it wasn’t his coaching ability that led to his victory but the steadiness of his hand and the content of his character.

Nothing can prepare a person for what Crennel faced, having a player turn a gun on himself a few feet away and pull the trigger.  Jevon Belcher was clearly troubled.  He murdered the mother of his child and then killed himself, leaving that child without a parent for the rest of his life.  The better question may be why the NFL felt that game had to be played at that moment but the fact that Crennel could remain standing and clear headed enough to coach is amazing and deserving of an inordinate level of respect forevermore.

Lingering Items--Shakespeare Edition

Apparently the NFL has run out of head coach candidates. How else to explain the Kansas City Chiefs hiring Romeo Crennel as its next head coach?

Before answering that question, it’s probably worth asking why it’s even necessary for anyone in this corner of the world to contemplate the question.

It’s not except out of abject curiosity considering Crennel’s tenure in Cleveland. Crennel had one good year here.

It was 2007 and the Browns won 10 games. In typical Browns fashion, they didn’t make the playoffs, one of the few 10-win teams ever to not make the playoffs. That 2007 season was transcendent nonetheless. The Browns were riding high from the draft after grabbing Joe Thomas as an anchor left tackle and then seeing Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn fall to them late in the first round due to a weird confluence of events. At the time, Charlie Frye was the team’s starter and Derek Anderson was the back up, albeit a very tentative back up. He had a big arm but little experience and was floundering in the Ravens organization until general manager Phil Savage grabbed him on his way out of Baltimore.

The season opened in rather typical fashion, with the Browns getting thumped by the Pittsburgh Steelers. Frye had a season opening debut that was such a disaster that he was benched before halftime. Crennel took responsibility for that, as if he could avoid it. A few days later Savage traded Frye to Seattle for a 6th round pick. It suddenly elevated Anderson to starter, a position most fans also thought was simply a placeholder until Quinn found his sea legs. Indeed, had Quinn reported to camp on time instead of stupidly holding out, he almost certainly would have been the starter instead of Anderson and both Quinn's and Anderson's trajectories may have been forever changed. But missteps like that have defined Quinn’s mostly inert career.

Then a funny thing happened. Anderson caught fire in a way that was in many ways far more unreal then anything either Tim Tebow or Cam Newton have done this past season. Tebow and Newton were well known commodities. Anderson could have walked through any mall in Cleveland at noon on a Sunday in December and no one would have noticed. The Browns under Anderson didn’t go on a specific tear. Their longest win streak was 3 games. But Anderson was terrific, putting together a season of historical significance. And while the Browns tied the Steelers for the division lead, they lost the tie breaker as the Steelers, not surprisingly, swept the season series. Then the Browns lost out on a wild card when the Indianapolis Colts tanked the last game of the season against the Tennessee Titans. It was a large measure of satisfaction when the Titans lost to San Diego in the first round of the playoffs and the Colts, coming off a 13-3 season and with great Super Bowl hopes, also lost to the Chargers.

Things looked so good for Crennel at the moment and for Savage, the general manager who stoutly stood behind Crennel when the wheels were falling off in 2006, that owner Randy Lerner gave both new contracts.1  

1 If you want to know why a hold out inevitably follows a player’s first break out season, it’s because of owners like Lerner. Neither Crennel’s nor Savage’s contract was up. But buoyed by one year of success and disregarding one year of failure, Lerner acted like he had just won the lottery and decided to blow all the winnings on a flying car, which would have been a much better investment then giving either Crennel or Savage new, more lucrative and longer term deals that neither had quite yet earned. Lerner had to swallow both contracts after a disastrous 2008 season, thus continuing the pattern of throwing good money after bad when he Butch Davis quit and later perfected when he bought Aston Villa. He may be an idiot with money but wouldn’t you like to be one of his kids? Better still, someone he likes enough to hire?

But the 2007 season ended up being far more smoke and mirrors then substance. Those passes Anderson completed in 2007 became overthrown interceptions the next and Braylon Edwards, off of his one good season, became an intolerable pain in the ass in the locker room that Crennel simply couldn’t control. As other players watched Edwards do what he wanted without consequence (remember the trip to the Ohio State/Michigan game that caused Edwards to miss a team meeting on the night before a game?), other players acted similarly. Each week you could literally watch parts fall off the car as it careened down the highway with no one at the steering wheel.

The season ended at 4-12, just like Crennel’s first season, with the 10-6 season sandwiched in between. What characterized Crennel’s tenure most, though, was his massive disorganization. A lifelong assistant suddenly thrust into the spotlight, Crennel was gentle in his demeanor and approach, treating the players like visiting grandkids and he the goodtime grandpa. The problem was that the grandkids were an unruly mess and there were no parents to send them back to at the end of the day. The inmates were running the asylum and tried to keep the status quo by constantly praising the warden as the greatest guy around.

I’m surprised Crennel has gotten a second chance though in context, maybe not so much. He worked with Scott Pioli, Kansas City’s general manager, in New England. But this won’t end up any better for Crennel then it did in Cleveland. Crennel may have learned some lessons in the last few years, but he’s never going to be a successful head coach. His niche is as an assistant, someone that the players can occasionally confide in when they feel they’re being picked on by the head coach. He’s simply too good natured to draw firm lines with the various malcontents that populate NFL locker rooms from time to time. Stil, I envy Crennel a bit. Securing the Kansas City job is like winning the lottery but not because he’s a head coach again. More so because it will give him a chance in the next year or two to retire quietly on the contract that the Kansas City owner will have to eat for having greenlighted this hire in the first place.

**

Although many in the media have been writing the obituary of the Pittsburgh Steelers for years, this time they may be right. When the playoff season closes after this season, the award for the worst performance will undoubtedly be handed to those Steelers.

First of all, the Denver Broncos aren’t a very good team irrespective of what miracles Tim Tebow and Jesus are able to accomplish this year. The Broncos play in the worst division in the NFL at the moment and basically by finishing 8-8 won it by default. (Fascinating, though, isn’t it, that three teams in the division finished 8-8 and the fourth 7-9?

That’s the kind of mediocre parity that would have given Paul Tagliabue a chubby.) The Steelers on the other hand looked to be on the upswing. They finished 12-4, which was tied them with the Ravens for the second best record in the conference. But if there is such a thing as a soft 12-4, these Steelers accomplished it.

This past Sunday they were exposed for the aging mess that they’ve been building toward for several seasons. All it took was a few key injuries to the several octogenarians on the team to underscore this fact. Ben Roethlisberger will recover from the gimpy ankle he suffered against the Browns but he’s not the biggest problem anyway. The Steelers are old on offense and old on defense. Their best players all are on the back sides of their careers.

The bigger problem though is that the Steelers, who for years seemed to always find the right replacements, may have made a major miscalculation by letting this group get old together. Where they had been deft in cutting ties to players at just the right moment, this time they let it ride for a few more years and lost the opportunity to do what they had done nearly better then any other—draft well and work those players in quickly.

No one who watched the Steelers’ wretched offensive line on Monday came away thinking that they are poised for a quick rebound. Indeed, four of the front seven on the offensive line, indeed half the offense, are at least 29 years old. In NFL dog years, that’s old. The situation is even worse on defense where 7 of the starters are at least 32 years old. It’s now clear why James Harrison resorts to thug-like antics such as the cheap shot on Tebow Sunday. He’s 33 years old and that’s the only way he can make his presence felt. I don’t see the Steelers taking any sort of Browns-like nose dive to the bottom of the conference, but neither do I see them being an elite team in the near-term either. The great year they just had, from a record standpoint, will just serve to delay their repairs as they suffer the purgatory that’s created when you limp into the playoffs and then end up with only a lousy draft position to show for the effort.

**

I wonder if Reggie McKenzie, the new general manager for the Oakland Raiders, learned something from how poorly Mike Holmgren handled the Eric Mangini situation.

Emboldened by the death of Barnabas-in-a-turtleneck Al Davis and being the first person to hold the GM title for the Raiders, McKenzie decided that head coach Hue Jackson wasn’t his type of coach and canned him after only a year at the helm. It is either that McKenzie didn’t think Jackson had the right stuff to be a head coach or that he felt Jackson had bungled key personnel decisions, like acquiring Carson Palmer for a first and second round draft pick. Either would have been enough. Both sins put him squarely in the Mangini camp.

Whereas Holmgren kept Mangini and wasted an entire season in the process, something Holmgren now reluctantly admits in the same way that I reluctantly admit I watch the Cavs, McKenzie decided that would be a ridiculous approach and sent Jackson off to contemplate his next coaching job.

The move isn’t going to make McKenzie popular with the fraternity that is NFL head coaches past and present but it is the right thing, if the Browns are any example. But ultimately it’s the right thing for the Raiders. By almost every measure imaginable, the Browns latest facelift was delayed at least 12 months, and actually longer when you factor in the impact of the lockout, by Holmgren’s incessant need to look like a good guy to his coaching brethren. That’s why the Browns find themselves, at best, stuck in the lowest ring of purgatory now and for probably another season or two, and the Raiders will find themselves much closer to the playoffs next year.

**
With the playoffs in full bloom and this weekend representing the single best weekend in professional football, this week’s question to ponder: Why is it so difficult for the NFL to simply guarantee each team one possession in overtime?

A Not So Special Team

If the Cleveland Browns did any work during their bye week it wasn't particularly apparent in the Oakland Coliseum on Sunday. Looking mostly like they were still hung over from the game two weeks ago, the Browns fell hard to the Oakland Raiders by a somewhat deceiving score of 24-17.

It's only somewhat deceiving because it never really felt like the Browns were in the game despite the objective proof that they had a chance to tie the game with under a minute remaining thanks to a late touchdown pass by Colt McCoy to Mohamed Massaquoi with just over a minute and then a successful onside kick brilliantly executed by kicker Phil Dawson and recovered by defensive back James Dockery.

But McCoy couldn't capitalize on the opportunity for mostly the same reasons the Browns were in the position they were in at that moment. He was off target on his throws when it mattered most and the Raiders went away with the victory on the day that they honored the recently deceased Al Davis.

The hubbub near the end of the game notwithstanding, the Browns' offense had another miserable day against another team that was ripe for the taking.

And lest anyone think that the Browns inability to again generate any consistent offense had more to do with the emotion of the day exhibited by the Raiders for Davis, it was not. The Raiders were without their starting quarterback for most of the game and while that stymied their offense from that point forward, it didn't matter. Almost from the outset it looked like an early Raiders 14-7 lead was really more then enough anyway against a Browns' offense that seems to regress each week.

The funny thing is, this Raiders team, particularly with Kyle Boller in and Jason Campbell out, isn't very good. They're the usual undisciplined mess they've been for years. There's some talent on defense and a few good skill players on offense, but they aren't a first tier ball club.

Let's consider the evidence. Before getting injured, Campbell was 6-9 for just 52 yards and no touchdowns. Boller was, well, Boller. He was 8-14 for 100 yards and no touchdowns. The Raiders didn't have a running back gain more than 100 yards, though Darren McFadden was close with 91 yards on 20 carries. In many ways, the Raiders' offense resembled the Browns' offense. It generated one early touchdown, a Darren McFadden 4-yard run on the Raiders' first possession of the game and a Sebastian Janikowski 48-yard field goal in the third quarter. And that was it.

So why did the Browns lose? Well, a decent amount of the blame can be put on the special teams, which yielded two touchdowns. The first was a 101-yard kickoff return by Jacoby Ford and then, for good measure, another when they bit hard on a fake field goal as punter Shane Lechler found a wide open Kevin Boss for a 35-yard touchdown. The Ford return was particularly damaging because it completely sapped the Browns' only real offensive momentum of the day. On the previous play quarterback Colt McCoy hit tight end Alex Smith on a 1-yard touchdown pass that helped knot the game at 7-7.

So, yea, throw out the mistakes by the special teams and theoretically the Browns win the game. But the problem with that kind of thinking is that it ignores two overarching points. First, the Browns got as close as they did because Raiders' head coach Hue Jackson channeled Ron Zook at just the right or wrong time, depending on your perspective. Second, the Browns have fundamental problems on offense. The Raiders have theirs and that's for them to figure out. But the Browns have to answer some serious questions around why their offense gets worse when it should be getting better.

Let's go back to Jackson. Had the Browns been able to tie the game, he would have had some 'splainin' to do. Seemingly taking pity on a Browns' team his Raiders' were dominating to that point, Jackson eschewed a late field goal on 4th and 1 from inside the Browns' 10-yard line with just under 5 minutes remaining that would have given the Raiders a 17-point lead. With Janikowski kicking off, the Browns would likely have had to march 80 yards quickly and recovered two onside kicks in order to actually get back into the game. But the 4th and 1 failed and probably caused more then a few butts to pucker when the Browns recovered the onside kick. Good think for Jackson that Davis died. Otherwise he might have fired him on the spot. He still might from whatever middle earth lair he's occupying at the moment.

But the Raiders' escaped and the Browns are left to wonder why a team with two weeks to prepare looked like they hadn't practiced in a month, particularly on offense.

McCoy, looking more confused and uncertain then at any time since freshman football, couldn't discern coverages, couldn't detect pressure, and missed receivers all day in the most spectacular of fashion. Balls sailed high. Balls fell short. Balls missed their targets by 5 yards. It was a miracle, really, that he wasn't picked off.

The late rally juiced his stats but he still was only 21-45 for 215 yards, though he had the two touchdown passes.

The running game was again non-existent. It's becoming increasingly clear exactly why the Browns haven't extended the contract of running back Peyton Hillis. He's just not in their long range plans. After starting the game, Hillis was mostly absent from there on out, making a brief appearance in the fourth quarter. Marv Albert, announcing another Browns' game as if it's a permanent assignment, said that Hillis supposedly tweaked his hamstring. Perhaps, but he did re-enter the game, so that explanation falls by the wayside.

So, too, will the explanation that Shurmur used for not deploying Hillis against the Titans two weeks ago, that the situation didn't dictate his use. It's not clear why those same situations dictate using Montario Hardesty instead of Hillis, especially since Hardesty can't catch. It must be that Shurmur sees something in Hardesty that isn't quite apparent to the untrained eyes of every other observer. Hardesty rushed 11 times for 35 yards and Hillis had 6 carries for 14 yards.

Whoever is running the ball at the moment isn't really the issue anyway. Teams are stacking the box against the Browns because they simply don't fear any part of the Browns' passing attack. They're willing to concede short and even mid-range routes because they don't sense that anyone receiver on the Browns has big play capability. And they're right until they're proven wrong.

That means that McCoy needs to get better and quickly. His decision making isn't crisp. He's not handling pressure well. His fundamentals are awful. His lack of accuracy has everything to do with an inability to set his feet and throw, even when he does have time. It is up to him and the receivers to stretch the defense and give the running game some breathing room and they're failing miserably.

So while the loss can be pinned on the offense and the special teams, at least the defense was mostly respectable, despite the absence of cornerback Joe Haden. You had to feel some compassion for his replacement, Dmitri Patterson. The Raiders threw in his direction on nearly every pass play. The Raiders had only 14 completed passes and it seemed like every one was in front of Patterson who kept coverage soft to avoid the big plays.

It would be nice to think that what fans are seeing from this Browns team at the moment are the necessary growing pains of a team in transition. And hopefully that's all this malaise really is because anything more is too difficult to ponder at the moment. So standing at 2-3 and not even at the half way point of the season, it's not time to write the season off completely and start planning next year's draft. But that's not to excuse what's taken place to date. There has to be progress soon or all of this just ends up being another wasted season for a franchise that, unfortunately, has that act down pat.

Continuity 101

If there is anything about the recent firing of Cleveland Browns’ head coach Eric Mangini that is surprising it is the number of people who feel that club president Mike Holmgren made the worst decision possible. Other than perhaps the Mrs., no one was much complaining when Romeo Crennel was fired and it’s hard to see how the situations are all that much different.

Both boil down to the same thing: neither had the ability to get this team to a satisfactory level.

Right now those that are complaining are doing so in the context of a moribund franchise left for dead that appeared after all these years to have a few breaths of life in it. Mangini was responsible for that, no doubt. But let’s face it; the franchise is still barely breathing and Mangini, like Crennel, lacked the skills necessary to get it fully upright and moving in the direction of a Super Bowl title, which is the only criterion fans should be settling for at the moment.

It’s all well and good that Mangini cleaned up some messes, got the players to like him and had them playing far more competitively than Crennel did (except for the year when Crennel went 10-6 and didn’t make the playoffs). But plucking every piece of fruit lying on or close to the ground doesn’t automatically qualify one to climb to the highest branches.

Holmgren, who does know a thing or two about the game, felt that Mangini wasn’t that kind of coach and made the change. Why is that a problem? Why do the Mangini defenders assume their curbside views fashioned from a life outside of football make them automatically more qualified than Holmgren, informed by a life inside of football, to reach that conclusion?

There are a number of arguments that Mangini’s staunchest defenders advance and most of them are as thin as Mangini’s resume. But the one argument worth considering is that the lack of continuity is what is hurting this franchise the most and if for no other reason that’s why Holmgren should have stuck it out with Mangini.

If there is one thing that Browns fans have learned the hard way is that the lack of continuity in this franchise has made it nearly impossible to be successful. With two notable exceptions, a unifying figure in the front office and/or on the field is the one thread weaving through every successful franchise and the lack of that figure is the one thread weaving through every moribund franchise.

The notable exceptions though demonstrate the pitfalls of continuity for continuity’s sake.

Consider the Cincinnati Bengals. Marvin Lewis just re-signed with the Bengals and will now be entering into his 9th season with the team, making him the longest tenured coach in Bengals’ history.

Per the wire service reports owner Mike Brown said "we are close to being the kind of team we can be. I think continuity will give us the best shot at becoming that team. We have a good relationship, Marvin and I. We work well together. It isn't an easy relationship, but it's a good one."

What’s interesting about Brown’s striking a blow for continuity is that Lewis hasn’t been a particularly good or particularly successful head coach. He’s 9 games under .500 for his career and has just two winning season, both of which resulted in short-lived playoff appearances.

Lewis comes from the Romeo Crennel school of discipline as Lewis’ tenure has been defined in large part by the number of miscreants on his rosters. No other coach in the league has had as many players get arrested as Lewis. It may not have been Lewis’ idea to bring in those kinds of players, but he never took a public stand against them, either. The late Chris Henry should have never been allowed back in the league but Lewis took on the problem anyway.

But it’s more than that. The Bengals may have been among the most talented teams in the NFL this year, at least on paper. They were certainly far more talented, again on paper, than the Browns. And yet Lewis managed to squeeze a 4-12 record out of them with a franchise record 10-game losing streak.

Consider, too, Carson Palmer’s startling lack of development. Palmer certainly has his moments and he’s also had injury problems, but he is not the player he should be at this point in his career.

The bottom line on Lewis is that same as Mangini. For whatever else their merits might be, neither is going to get a team to the league’s highest levels. Keeping Lewis in Cincinnati may be good for continuity but it won’t do anything for improving their win total significantly.

The other example is the Oakland Raiders. There is no personality in the league larger than owner Al Davis or who has been around longer. He’s as hands on as any owner in the history of the game. Others may have held the title but there is no question that Davis serves as the general manager of his club. Davis certainly has a vision of the Raider way and certainly understands what he’s trying to build.
The problem, of course, is that the Raiders have been unstable for the last two decades. They’ve had only 7 winning seasons in the last 22 years and Davis has hired and fired 11 coaches in that time period.

But are they unstable because Davis doesn’t understand the value of continuity? Doubtful. He had John Madden as his head coach for 9 season and Tom Flores for 9 more after that. The Raiders have been unstable because Davis hasn’t landed on a coach he can live with. You can argue that perhaps some of the firings were a mistake, like Jon Gruden. But that’s not the point. What matters for this purpose is to understand that continuity makes sense but only when there is a reason for it.
No one will much argue that firing coaches like Norv Turner (struggling as usual in San Diego), Joe Bugle, Mike White, Art Shell or Tom Cable were a mistake. None of them were ever going to lead that franchise to the Super Bowl. Even Bill Callahan, who did lead the team to the Super Bowl, has more than proven since that he is not an elite head coach.

The point is that there are two franchises (a third if you count San Diego and their dogged insistence on marching Turner out there week after week), Cincinnati and Oakland, that understand the value of continuity but haven’t been able to make it work for them and won’t until there is a compelling reason to adhere to that principle.

That gets us back to Mangini. The real question on his continued status in my mind came down to whether or not there was a legitimate reason to believe that he was a “franchise” coach, someone who would lead this team to the Promised Land. A franchise coach can come in any form but he has to have a certain “it” factor that Mangini just doesn’t possess.

There’s no bigger jerk in the NFL than Belichick but to deny he has the “it” factor is to deny science. This isn’t to say that Mangini isn’t a credible head coach or that he’s without merit. But it is to say that Mangini is a mostly generic coach, easily replaced by someone who could accomplish the same things as he’s accomplished.

What Holmgren needs to do is find that franchise coach and he knows it. They are out there but they aren’t easy to find and even when you can find them it doesn’t mean they want to be part of what your team is all about. And while the odds are always going to be stacked against finding the needle amongst all that hay, it’s far more palatable for Holmgren to go on that search then to just throw up his hands to the God of Continuity and continue and experiment with Mangini that he already was convinced would fail.

To Destinations Unknown

In a game that served mostly as a series of reminders and what ifs, the Cleveland Browns beat a mistake-prone Oakland Raiders on Sunday, 23-9, to notch their third straight victory in a season ending sprint to destinations unknown.

The reminders came in the form of the two starting quarterbacks, Charlie Frye for the Oakland Raiders and Derek Anderson for the Cleveland Browns. The “what ifs” came in the form of what if the Browns had made better use of Jerome Harrison and Josh Cribbs all season and had benched right guard John St. Clair and defensive back Brandon McDonald earlier in the year.

The last time the Browns and their fans saw Frye, he was packing his bags after a little more than a quarter of play into the Browns’ opening season loss in 2007 to the Pittsburgh Steelers. As for the man that replaced Frye that season, Derek Anderson, the last time he was spotted it was on his back and reeling from one ineffective performance after another before being permanently benched several games ago in favor of Brady Quinn.

As it turned out, neither player ended up being the story of the game. Frye showed his game hasn’t changed much, some fire too much ice, while Anderson was mostly doing his level best to get out of the way of both Cribbs and Harrison while limiting his own mistakes. It mostly worked. But the real story of the game was the undisciplined mess that the Oakland Raiders still are after all these years, though without nearly enough good players to overcome that tendency.

The Raiders probably relished the trip to Cleveland over the holidays about as much as kids relish the end of Christmas vacation. But that still doesn’t excuse 13 penalties for 126 yards, many of which came at critical points of drives that forced field goals when touchdowns were needed, and 3 Frye interceptions, the first of which led to Cleveland’s first touchdown before the game was even 2 minutes old and the last of which snuffed out the Raiders’ last scoring attempt.

On Frye’s first pass of the game, he made an ill-conceived decision that landed in the hands of linebacker David Bowens, who returned it 15 yards to the Oakland 17-yard line. Two plays later, Harrison ran the remaining 17-yards untouched for the touchdown that helped give the Browns a 7-0 lead that they ended up never relinquishing.

But it was a Raiders meltdown of classic proportions just before the end of the first half that ultimately propelled the Raiders back to Oakland with the loss.

It started innocently enough for the Raiders. After the Browns were able to pin the Raiders back to their own 1-yard line thanks to handy teamwork by Josh Cribbs and Brandon McDonald on a Reggie Hodges punt, the Raiders were able to regain field position thanks to a booming Shane Lechler punt and two Browns penalties that put the ball on the Browns own 7-yard line.

Pinned back and heading further backward, the Raiders then emptied their frustration bucket all over themselves when a little discipline would likely have kept the score close.

First it was Richard Seymour igniting a scuffle with an unsportsmanlike penalty that was offset by a penalty on Rex Hadnot somewhere inside the pile. But Seymour, not content with having to share the spotlight with Hadnot, let referee Jeff Triplett know about it and was flagged for another unsportsmanlike penalty before the Browns were able to snap the ball. It took the ball to the Cleveland 40-yard line. That was followed a few plays later by another unsportsmanlike penalty, this time on cornerback Stanford Routt for a head butt that was deemed so flagrant that Routt was ejected.

That put the ball on the Oakland 27-yard line. Harrison, still showing great spring in his legs after last week’s record-breaking effort, ran 8 yards. That set up a 19-yard touchdown throw from Anderson to Mohammad Massaquoi. Phil Dawson added the extra point and it gave the Browns a 17-6 lead with just seconds remaining in the half.

The Browns defense couldn’t quite hold the Raiders in those waning seconds. After a few quick passes by Frye moved the ball to the Cleveland 43-yard line, Janikowski hit an amazing 61-yard field goal that closed the gap to 17-9. It didn’t end up giving the Raiders much of a lift and, ultimately, was just an interesting highlight in a highly imperfect game.

The Browns meanwhile were able to push their late first half score to a 20-9 lead with a 33-yard Dawson field goal to open the second half. The Raiders, unwilling to kick deep to Cribbs, instead put the ball in Harrison’s hands and all he did was return it 39 yards to the Oakland 43-yard line. The Browns then broke out their wildcat formation with Cribbs hitting on a 21-yard run that nearly went for a touchdown. But the Raiders defense then stiffened forcing the Browns to settle for the Dawson field goal.

The Raiders offense, however, was still a mess. It couldn’t answer the Browns’ field goal after another drive was snuffed out not so much by the Browns’ defense but another series of penalties including a holding call and an intentional grounding penalty on Frye.

The Browns, not exactly an artistic success themselves, had a chance to push the lead out even further but had a Harrison touchdown nullified on an illegal block by tight end Michael Gaines and then two plays later Harrison fumbled at the Oakland 5-yard line. Oakland linebacker Kirk Morrison recovered, but the Raiders couldn’t find a way to turn it into points of their own.

The Raiders seemed on the verge of getting back in the game as the fourth quarter began, with Frye moving the ball effectively through the air. But on 3rd and 9 from the Cleveland 24-yard line, Frye’s sideline pass was intercepted by McDonald at the 14-yard line. McDonald ran it back 39 yards to the Oakland 47 yard line. That led to a 34-yard Dawson field goal and a 23-9 lead. It was Dawson’s third field goal of the day, the other two covering 42 and 33 yards, respectively.

Then Raiders’ tried to make a game out of it late and may have but for, predictably, a series of mistakes.

Taking over with over 8 minutes remaining and the ball at his own 6-yard line, Frye hit a series of passes that quickly put the ball in Cleveland territory. On 2nd and 10 from the Cleveland 26 yard line, Browns’ defensive back Hank Poteat was then flagged for interference in the end zone on a pass that was intercepted by safety Abe Elam. It put the ball at the 2 yard line. Frye then threw four straight incompletions. Within those four passes though was an interception by Eric Wright that was overturned and an offensive pass interference penalty on Chaz Schilens on 4th down that gave the Browns the ball with a little over 4 minutes to play.

The Browns were not able to get a first down and were forced to punt as the Raiders burned all of their time outs. Hodges punt put the ball at the Oakland 46-yard line. Frye then moved the Raiders quickly into scoring position again but his third interception, this one to Wright, effectively ended the game.

Those final two Raiders drives were a theme as they brilliantly illustrated the Raiders squandering of good opportunities to not just close the gap but perhaps take the lead, only to see drives stymied by mistakes, usually penalties.

For example, the Raiders’ first points came courtesy of a Sebastian Janikowski 45-yard field goal in the first quarter but it could have, maybe should have been more. With Frye finding his rhythm after the early interception, he was able to put together a nice drive that got the ball down to the Cleveland 16-yard line. But a holding penalty on right tackle Cornell Green killed the drive.

On the Raiders’ next drive, which started from the 50-yard line, a false start penalty on 3rd and 3 on tackle Chris Morris made it 3rd and long and led to a Shane Lechler punt.

Then, after the Browns second straight series in the second quarter that finished further from the end zone than when it started forced a put from Hodges out of his end zone, his punt traveled only to the Cleveland 45-yard line and then a penalty on McDonald for running into the returner put the ball at the Cleveland 30-yard line. But the Raiders couldn’t turn it into anything more than a 34-yard Janikowski field goal and a 10-6 deficit after Frye was sacked by Mike Adams on 3rd and 3 from the Cleveland 10-yard line.

As it was last week, the Browns used the game to further solidify a running game that has been taking shape since Jamal Lewis went down for the season. The Browns were again wildly out of balance offensively, running it 45 times against just 17 pass attempts. Harrison once again led the way with 148 yards rushing on 39 carries. Anderson was just 8-17 with one touchdown and no interceptions.

It wasn’t exactly the audition Anderson probably envisioned for new president Mike Holmgren and probably did little to ensure he’ll be back next season. Though Anderson wasn’t asked to do much, he still showed amazingly bad touch on short passes. To his credit, though, he didn’t turn the ball over, though that was more a case of luck in the form of the Raiders defenders, naturally, twice dropping potential interceptions.

For the Browns, they now stand at 4-11 heading into next week’s game against Jacksonville. A victory gives them 5 wins, which would be the first visible sign of progress over last season. But there are still many questions facing Holmgren, not the least of which starts with the quarterback slot and pushes outward from there. Where this thing is headed now is anyone’s guess.

Still, in a season that has been mostly high drama and low execution, a 3-game winning streak has proven to be a nice respite. Sunday’s game, with mistakes flying everywhere, ran nearly 3 ½ hours and yet seemed half as long as most other Browns’ games this season.

Lingering Items--Laughingstock Edition

The Cleveland Browns haven’t yet played a regular season game under new head coach Eric Mangini, but already he’s accomplished one thing as the preseason closes. The team isn’t a national laughingstock. That would be reserved for the Oakland Raiders with the Detroit Lions, Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers nipping at their heals.

Much has been written about the sorry state of the Raiders and yet it could be argued that it still isn’t enough. General partner Al Davis is either immune to the heavy dose of criticism being thrown his way for the last several years or he’s just so seriously delusional that he’s not even aware that any thing he’s done is worthy of criticism. But to this there can be no doubt: Davis has turned one of the league’s most proud franchises into the league’s worst. It’s not even a close call, despite the other worthy contenders.

The Browns have certainly had their difficulties. The combined impact of Art Modell shuffling the team off to Buffalo, a league-imposed hiatus and then a 10-year run under the Lerner family that has the fans this year just begging for the team to be mediocre has created a lost generation of Browns fans. That pain is being felt now as those lost fans come of age with no emotional connection to the team and no reason to spend their money on the team.

Despite every fumble on the field and off, being lousy isn’t itself a crime. In the context of this conversation, the actual embarrassments have been held to a relative minimum. Former general manager Phil Savage mailing a profane email to a fan who had the temerity to question his genius comes to mind. So, too, does, the bottle throwing incident. Let’s not forget the revolving door of coaches. There also was Romeo Crennel flipping a coin to determine a starting quarterback in preseason. A few other things come to mind and everyone has their own list. Still, even with all of this, the Browns look positively well run when compared with the Raiders.

Last week, for instance, the Raiders lost a preseason game to the New Orleans Saints 45-7. Do you know how hard it is to lose a preseason game by that margin? The Saints have a nice club but they aren’t the 2007 New England Patriots. The Raiders are just that bad. It’s not like head coach Tom Cable (who?) doesn’t realize it. In perhaps issuing what surely is a frontrunner for quote of the year, he said after the loss “I don’t like losing. Nobody does. But right now I am excited about the fact that we really show a lot of remorse.”

In Oakland, these days, they measure progress not by actual results on the field but by the level of sorrow they feel over each loss. Imagine how remorse the team will feel if Cable lands in jail for punching out his assistant coach.

Meanwhile, Kansas City and Tampa Bay, both with rookie coaches, have done something that if it happened once would be unimaginable. The fact that it happened within days of each other is just stupefying.

Last week, apparently irked about the progress his offense was making, Chiefs head coach Todd Haley, a rookie in every sense of the word, fired Chan Gailey as offensive coordinator. Not to be outdone, this week Jacksonville’s rookie head coach, Raheem Morris (who?) sent offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski on his way. For those following the rather weird career of Jagodzinski, remember that Boston College fired him last year when he interviewed for the job Mangini vacated in New York. Jagodzinksi didn’t get the job and now lost the job he did get instead. Talk about the chill of an early fall.

Now it’s hard to say exactly what either Gailey or Jagodzinski could have done wrong in preseason. Each head coach cited the lack of progress their offenses were making, but maybe it’s just that in each case their offenses just aren’t any good. It’s also difficult for a rookie head coach to build his first staff. After all Romeo Crennel hired Maurice Carthon as his offensive coordinator, but even he last more than a season. Picking a coaching staff and then giving them only a few weeks during preseason with a roster full of players that will be out of football a few weeks later isn’t exactly a fair trial. It’s more indicative of a full scale panic attack.

But of course, you can always turn to the Buffalo Bills for perspective. Head coach Dick Jauron, hardly a rookie but not exactly John Madden, decided to essentially validate Haley and Morris by taking a similar plunge. On Friday, Jauron fired his offensive coordinator, former Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Turk Schonert. Apparently it really is easier to fire the coach instead of the players.

Maybe Lerner really was on to something when he hired Mangini instead of a rookie. At least with Mangini if he fires Brian Daboll no one will probably realize it until he just doesn’t show up for work one day.

**

In his usual jovial manner, Mangini and the Browns announced most of their roster moves Saturday, taking it right up to the 6 p.m. deadline because, well, it’s what they do. Like everything personnel related, Mangini is a reluctant discloser. Perusing the list of cuts, it’s hard to see why.

No one of great note waved goodbye. A few Phil Savage mistakes, a phrase that’s likely to be written a few more times over the years, are history. Players like Charles Ali, Isaac Sowells and Paul Hubbard are gone. Hubbard at least may be back for another year on the practice squad, although a good employment counselor might suggest that it’s time he move on to his life’s work.

There aren’t a lot of surprises in how Mangini has constructed the roster thus far, although there are likely to be more changes before the team takes on the Minnesota Vikings next week. The roster isn’t much of an upgrade from last season’s, either, but there’s only so much that can get accomplished in one off season. Still, there are some items of interest in what Mangini has done.

For example, his fascination with quarterback Brett Ratliff continues. Indeed it would be no surprise if Mangini ultimately goes into the season with just two quarterbacks on the roster, assuming he can find a good deal for Derek Anderson. Richard Bartel, who was cut, looked every bit as good as Ratliff, if not better, during the preseason and could be brought back if Anderson is moved.

Jamal Lewis is still hanging around, but for how long? Right now, the Browns have only one running back that isn’t either injured or coming back from an injury. Fortunately, that one player is James Davis, the only player not named Josh Cribbs that looked impressive during preseason.

For another season, the running back position remains unsettled. Lewis has pretty much hit the wall while Harrison missed most of the preseason with an injury. Davis has the makings of a feature back and has far more spring in his step than Lewis and will probably start. If that ends up being the case, then holding on to an aging running back like Lewis doesn’t seem like a luxury the Browns can afford. Harrison will continue to play the change-up role, but Noah Herron, who was cut Saturday, is a good candidate to be back if Lewis is eventually moved. Stay tuned.

Another interesting position on the roster is tight end. The Browns are keeping three at the moment, which makes sense in context. Steve Heiden is coming back from an injury and is in his 11th season. The fuel in his tank is limited. Robert Royal is in his 8th season and probably will see the most time at the position. Martin Rucker survived. He was a Savage pet project. The problem is that Rucker, frankly, isn’t very impressive. He doesn’t seem to block particularly well and he doesn’t run particularly good patterns. If Heiden goes down, the Browns will be exceptionally thin at this position.

And for what it’s worth, Mangini hasn’t issued a depth chart and won’t until sometime next week. But you knew that already, didn’t you?

**

Something that’s funny, but funny strange not funny ha-ha was the decision the Indians’ brain trust finally made to shut down Grady Sizemore for the rest of the season. While fans were aware of Sizemore’s sore left elbow, something that got less notice though it also will require surgery is a problem with his lower abdomen. Apparently Sizemore’s been playing with a sore groin all season and no one bothered to mention it.

Now I know what you’re thinking and the answer is “yes.” Mangini and Browns general manager Mark Shapiro are brothers-in-law. That begins to explain why Shapiro, again, has been less than candid with the fans and the press about an injury by a player. But that’s only part of the problem.

The bigger issue, just like with both Travis Hafner and Victor Martinez last year, is why Shapiro didn’t order manager Eric Wedge to shut down Sizemore earlier or why Wedge didn’t step in and do it himself. Sizemore hasn’t played particularly well all season and yet the team marched him out there game after game even after being out of the pennant race for months.

Maybe it matters little in terms of Sizemore’s preparation for next year when he had these surgeries, but common sense suggests that more time to recover is always better than less. Common sense also suggests that continuing to play someone whose injured increases the chances that the injury, or in this case, injuries will become more severe.

When the Dolans get around to really evaluating this past season, I wonder whether it will occur to them how big of a chance both Shapiro and Wedge took with one of their few remaining assets, and if it does what they’ll do about it. As these things usually play out, likely Wedge will be made to pay for this sin as well.

**

Word came down on Saturday that another national joke, former major league pitcher Roger Clemens, has had his lawsuit against Brian McNamee completely dismissed. What makes this particularly rich is that Clemens was done in by a judge in Houston.

Clemens, utilizing offense as his best defense, sued McNamee after he spilled the beans about his steroids use to George Mitchell and his merry band of investigators. Figuring that no one in Texas would dare cross Clemens, his attorney, Rusty Hardin, filed the perfunctory defamation lawsuit in Houston. The judge basically told Clemens almost from the beginning that the case had no legs, as we like to say in the legal business. Clemens didn’t listen. The judge dismissed most of the case in February and finished off the job last week. Clemens can appeal, of course, but if he’s smart he’ll save his money and lick his wounds.

Meanwhile McNamee has his own defamation suit against Clements, this one taking place in New York. While McNamee’s suit has a better chance, legally, it’s really the difference between slim and none. McNamee isn’t going to prevail, either, and eventually this whole matter will crawl back under the carpet. If that means that’s the last we ever have to hear about Clemens, then the whole thing was worth it.

**

With college football having kicked off this weekend and pro football next weekend, this week’s question to ponder: Why does the NFL need four preseason games but college doesn’t need any?

One Step Up, Two Steps Back

If the Browns team that opened the season against the Pittsburgh Steelers wasn’t the best barometer by which to judge them, then neither was the game last week against Cincinnati. Instead, the true measure of this team seems to be the jumbled ball of confusion and contradictions that lost against Oakland Sunday afternoon.

With a chance to “string” together consecutive victories for the first time in four years, the Browns instead gave their fans just enough hope and just enough pain to remind them of the difference between fantasy and reality.

The last drive was the most instructive. With just over a minute left, no time outs and 91 yards between them and the goal line, the Browns and quarterback Derek Anderson stumbled, stuttered and yet somehow found a way to move the ball within relatively easy field goal range with just three seconds remaining. But, of course, the prospect of the first two-game winning streak in four years was too much weight to bear. The line collapsed up the middle and Phil Dawson’s kick barely got three feet off the ground before it was blocked, giving the Raiders their first win of the season. You’re welcome. Glad to oblige.

And if the last drive wasn’t the most instructive, then surely it was the play of Anderson generally. He wasn’t Charlie Frye vs. Pittsburgh awful, but he wasn’t Anderson vs. Cincinnati good, either. Instead he showed he’s every bit the project that almost found himself on the outside looking in when the final cuts were announced at the end of the pre-season.

Anderson threw two interceptions on Sunday that were every bit as bad as Cleveland fans have come to expect from their quarterbacks in the last several years. On the other hand, he threw one touchdown, ran for another (in a drive in which he was 6-7) to bring the Browns within two points late in the fourth quarter, and ultimately put the team in position to win the game at the end. But in the end, what really matters, at least for Anderson, is that he survived for another week against the only measure being applied to him these days: playing just well enough so that GM Phil Savage isn’t forced to pop the cork too early on Brady Quinn.

If the loss to Oakland wasn’t necessarily unexpected, it was nevertheless disappointing for the same reason that virtually every loss is disappointing. Once again, the team, particularly early, simply seem unprepared. And if lack of preparation wasn’t the issue, then it was lack of focus. In either case, why is it that much more often than not, that’s the aftertaste that lingers with this team?

Head coach Romeo Crennel may scratch his head over this and even may own up to the fact that it’s his responsibility, but it just doesn’t seem like this preparation thing ranks very high on his priority list.

Exhibit A was the Browns’ first possession. On the very first play from scrimmage, tight end Kellen Winslow committed pass interference that immediately put the team in a hole. After temporarily digging themselves out of that jam, Anderson then was sacked and fumbled backward, ultimately losing 24 yards. A delay of game penalty, a false start penalty and the Browns were just as quickly facing third and 40 (yes, 40!) from their own 20 yard-line, exactly where the drive started. One drive, three penalties, one fumble. Only an optimist would call it bad luck.

Exhibit B was the drive in the second quarter that led to Sebastian Janikowski’s third field goal in the first half. With 4:45 left in the first half, the Browns started their drive at their own 27 and immediately found themselves first and 10 at their 42 following a Raiders pass interference penalty. On first down, Anderson missed badly to tight end Steve Heiden. On second down, Anderson’s short pass to Tim Carter was complete but was called back because of an illegal formation. That pushed the Browns back to second and 15 and ultimately third and fifteen because of another poorly thrown pass by Anderson to Heiden. Finally, put in a hole by players who can’t seem to line up correctly, Anderson completed the trifecta of lousy passes by throwing to Kirk Morrison of the Raiders as if he was the intended receiver. Morrison took it back to the Cleveland seven, setting up the field goal.

The fact that the Browns found themselves within striking distance at that point is a tribute mostly to the fact that the Raiders suffer from the same sort of issues that plague the Browns: penalties, fumbles and a general inability to capitalize on the poor play of the other team by scoring touchdowns when they need them most. And the fact that the Browns were able to actually put themselves back into it was due mostly to kick returner Josh Cribbs. His 99-yard kick return following the Janikowski field goal provided just enough of a spark and a wake-up call to remind the Browns that they were playing the Raiders and not the Patriots. A Lamont Jordan fumble a few minutes later allowed the Browns to get a late second-quarter field goal by Dawson and suddenly what should have been a Raiders blow-out was only a 16-10 game.

Despite the contradictions and conundrum that the Browns offense presents, the one constant this season has been the defense. It’s been awful in every way you’d care to define the word. And at every critical juncture Sunday, save perhaps for the last drive when the Raiders didn’t seem all that interested in getting a first down anyway, it allowed a mostly inept Oakland offense to make the play it needed to in order to, ultimately, eek out its first victory of the season, even if they had to survive a makeable Browns field goal to get there.

This is a defense, folks, that has huge problems. The backs couldn’t even hang with the mostly mediocre Oakland receivers. The convenient, though correct, excuse is that it is banged up. But it’s been banged up since the start of training camp, which means that Savage hasn’t done enough to find sufficient reinforcements. Again, as in last week and the week before and probably next week too, Eric Wright was outclassed, getting badly burned on Oakland’s first touchdown. And it could have been worse. Though the Oakland quarterbacks, combined, were only 14-26 for 226 yards, they were done in several times by dropped balls, with Mike Williams being the main culprit.

Certainly we’ll hear all week how there was still much to build on in the loss and some of that may be true. Cribbs, for example, continues his march toward the Pro Bowl and Braylon Edwards again played particularly well. But ultimately the few positives were once again undercut by too many negatives—dropped passes, missed receivers, fumbles, penalties and blown coverages. The team you saw is, unfortunately, exactly what you thought.

With this loss, it won’t be so much back to the drawing board for the Browns as it will be back to the wishing well, as in wishing that they could find a way to continue enough momentum from week to week to actually convince its fans that progress is being made. It was nice to hear that Savage refused to call last week’s victory against the Bengals a signature win, mostly because of the defense. But this wasn’t necessarily a signature loss, just typical. More’s the pity.

So while Oakland fans are celebrating the Raiders return to the win column, for however brief that may be, Cleveland fans can at least say that in the other Cleveland/Oakland game that also took place Sunday, their team was on the right side of that one. And when you think about it, that was the much more meaningful game anyway.