All Giddy in Berea

For a team that just completed another year of abject futility, the Cleveland Browns seem awful giddy at the moment. Head coach Pat Shurmur had a real bounce about him at his year end press conference, in contrast to his usual dour demeanor. All the post-season stories being written focus solely on the great future this team has, according to players and staff alike. Of course, the post-season stories being written after the last several seasons said pretty much the same thing from a different but similarcrew, but why quibble?

If the Browns are happy with their direction, then why spoil the party? Would it really do any good at this point to talk about the 4 wins this season, which is one less then in either of Eric Mangini’s two miserable seasons? Is it really necessary at this juncture to talk about a team that scraped the bottom of the barrel once again on offense and approached scoring touchdowns like teenagers approach taking the SATs?

When it comes to the Browns, cynicism easily prevails. Fans have heard so many versions of the same warmed over rhetoric about new directions, building the foundation, patience, time, draft picks, development and the like that they’ve become jaded to any process.

Need proof? How many fans were at Cleveland Browns Stadium this past Sunday to watch their team play the hated Pittsburgh Steelers? Unless they were disguised as orange seats or decided to wear black and gold just to blend in, then not many.

I doubt that Randy Lerner noticed but perhaps Mike Holmgren did, but only if he has an attendance bonus clause attached to his contract. It was the most visible sign yet that the fans aren’t yet buying what he’s selling, perhaps because they still aren’t sure at this point exactly what he is selling except an amorphous concept of patience that thus far has resulted in Holmgren squandering one season in order to keep a coach he never wanted and allowing a rookie head coach to take on two jobs instead of concentrating on the one he’s never had.

As I sit here again dissecting another season, I still have no idea what this team stands for, and that's been true now for years. I understand that a new offense is still in its infancy and that there are a dearth of players on the current roster that could execute it anyway, but as practiced this season it all seemed like just such a big mess.

On defense, it’s a mixed bag. There was significant improvement when you consider the overall stats but yet this team still can’t stop even mediocre running backs from gaining huge chunks of yardage each and every game. The defense isn’t particularly physical as all the missed tackles each week will attest. And while the pass defense was fairly stout, particularly inside the red zone, they still allow way too many big plays to be considered an upper echelon unit.

But those are the details. What’s the bigger picture? What’s Mike Holmgren’s vision? What kind of team is he really looking for? What’s Pat Shurmur’s vision? What kind of team is he really looking for?

Those answers to those questions are just as mysterious today as they were the day Holmgren arrived and as near as anyone can tell, outwardly this team has made no progress in essentially two years of Holmgren’s leadership. I guess when you don't have a specific destination, any path will do.

All that said, though, perhaps we should take some solace in the words of defensive back Sheldon Brown who expounded at length Monday in a story written by the Plain Dealer’s Mary Kay Cabor on how close this team is to being significantly better. When his playing days are over, the front office should grab him if for nothing else then team spokesmen. He offered the most cogent and articulate explanation on the state of the team that I've heard in years.

Brown dispelled two related notions up front. First, this team is not a mere key draft pick or two from changing its fortunes. Second, using a first round draft pick on Heisman trophy winner Robert Griffin III with the thought that he’d be the team’s savior is “crazy.”

Brown’s right. Fans are rightly frustrated but that doesn’t mean they’re not crazy. There a fair number of them at the moment that have gone off the rails in trying to find the appropriate target(s) for their frustration. It may very well be that Colt McCoy isn’t a franchise quarterback, for whatever that means anymore, but anyone who suggests that this year provided enough evidence of that is as loopy as Michelle Bachman.

The Browns’ offensive line, particularly the entire right side, was as weak as any team in the league and perhaps the weakest of any team not the Chicago Bears. When Eric Steinbach went down, general manager Tom Heckert did an awful job of finding credible backups. Tony Pashos, as brittle as a porcelain tea cup, couldn’t block a cold at this point in his career. Shaun Lauvao? If he wasn’t false starting or holding, you wouldn’t have even noticed him on the field, except as the one with his hand on his hips as he looked at his man draped on top of a prone McCoy. As for their backups? I defy anyone to name them without looking at the Browns’ depth chart.

The weakness in the line manifested itself in poor pass protection and a poor running game, the two keys for any quarterback to be successful. And that’s before we even stop to consider that the number one receiver on the team didn’t even play his senior year in college, the number two receiver catches like Braylon Edwards and runs like Bob Golic, and the third receiver is a converted quarterback.

There isn’t a quarterback in the league, and I say that without any intent to exaggerate, who could have turned that chicken stuffing into chicken salad, not a one. So even if Andrew Luck somehow fell to the Browns (or they traded up), absent any other change on offense the only change you’d see next year is that the Browns would go from 30 to 32nd in the league in scoring and the team would once again be staring down the barrel of a four or five win season.

What the Browns need far more than a quarterback at the moment are receivers, offensive linemen and running backs, in that order, assuming Steinbach can play next season. If Steinbach cannot come back, then it’s a toss up between linemen and receivers as to where the need is the greatest.

Where Brown was particularly insightful, however, was in talking about the youth on the team and the need to let it mature rather than simply blow things up as the Browns tend to do every two years. Brown believes that the additional experience that the young players on defense have gotten this past year will pay huge dividends, assuming the players are willing to do what it takes to take the next step in their own development. That’s a big assumption, perhaps, but it is true that the biggest leap for most professional players is between their rookie and sophomore years.

Finally, Brown talked about Shurmur and had nothing but praise for him. It’s become popular of late to blast Shurmur, at least when fans have taken a break from blasting McCoy, for the ills of the Browns. It’s misplaced.

Shurmur, like McCoy, is very far down on the list of things that went wrong with the team this year. Mostly the top 20 spots of that list are populated by things such as a lack of credible players (blame the general manager) and the impact on the lockout on a rookie coach installing a new system.

Shurmur, like the young players on defense, has to step up his game, but to suggest that he can’t progress as a head coach or that he’s in over his head is to ignore all evidence to the contrary. As Brown noted, though he didn’t have to, the one thing you could definitely say about this team in a positive way is that it didn’t quit at any point during the season.

There were low points and blow outs but those weren’t sustained. Usually the team kept it close even as they were usually overmatched and often by a huge margin. Both Pittsburgh games provided the best example of that, particularly this past Sunday’s when it would have been far easier to have gone through the motions then to put any effort into it.

I don’t necessarily share Brown’s optimism that this team is close, mostly because it’s a mantra that I’ve heard before and partly because it’s exactly what you’d expect an aging player looking to hang on would say in order to stay in the good graces of a club he hopes will employ him again next season. I do admire his candor nonetheless.

And irrespective of whether I or anyone else share’s Brown’s optimism, it doesn’t mean he’s not speaking the truth. He is. The only way for this team to get good enough to make the playoffs on a regular basis is to pick a true course and stay it for more than a year or two.

But that’s not what the fans want to hear, mostly because they’re fed up with hearing the truth and don’t trust that anyone associated with the Browns has the ability to do anything meaningful about it anyway, as two decades of futility demonstrate.

Good Friday?

Depending on your perspective, it either was a Good Friday for the Cleveland Browns or not.

If you view it from the perspective of having to deal with the headache that Shaun Rogers delivered in the form of a loaded handgun in his carry-on bag at Hopkins Airport, it maybe wasn't so good. If you view it from the perspective of having just gained two starters and it all it cost you was an indifferent third-year player and a fourth and fifth round draft pick this year, then maybe it was very good.

Let's dispense first with the headache.

The Rogers incident isn't much of an issue unless you consider trying to bring a loaded gun on a domestic flight a big deal. Browns' general counsel Fred Nance must have loved getting that call from the local police. It probably didn't go over much better by the time that news reached club president Mike Holmgren, either.

Rogers pleaded not guilty Saturday morning to a concealed weapons charge but that's just a formality. He had the gun, it was loaded, and he tried to bring it through security at the airport. It's just a question of intent.

Doubtful Rogers intended to have the gun in his carry-on bag, certainly, and probably meant to put it instead inside whatever bag he was checking. But with the outrageous fees Continental charges these days to check your luggage maybe Rogers was trying to save himself a few bucks and carry it all on instead, which is how this whole thing ends up a crime in the first place. By the time this is over he'll wish he had just paid the baggage fees.

But maybe the better question is why he had a loaded gun with him at all.

There is something about the mentality of professional athletes (and, let's face it, a significant portion of the U.S. population) that feels a compelling need to have firearms nearby, preferably loaded. Maybe it's that sense of security that packing heat gives one, hard to say. But if Rogers needed to feel safe in Cleveland, I'd be surprised.

Sure, Cleveland like any other major city has its share of crime. And sure, the Browns were miserable last season. But it's hard to believe those two factors might somehow mix in a way that would make a guy like Rogers fear for his life while he was in town for off-season conditioning.

At least he now will have a criminal record to show for his efforts, giving him the street cred he'll need if intends to embark on a career in rap when his playing days are through. Good Friday? Hardly.

As for the rest of the defense, things got decidedly better on Friday. Trading linebacker Alex Hall and two draft picks for Philadelphia Eagles' cornerback Sheldon Brown and linebacker Chris Gocong constituted a crime of a different sort. Perhaps this is the next move that Holmgren promised when the team traded perpetually under-performing linebacker Kamerion Wimbley earlier this month..

Any time a team can trade a part-timer and two mid-round picks for two starters, it's a deal worth making. Now you can get all cynical and point out that almost any players the Browns pick up are likely starters because of the team's talent deficit. But this trade in particular opens up a number of possibilities and further increases the intrigue surrounding the upcoming draft, all in a good way.

Gocong represents the further efforts by Homgren and general manager Tom Heckert to completely remake the Browns linebacking corps. It needs it, desperately. Gocong, along with the free agent signing of Scott Fujita, represents a major upgrade.

Brown fills a gaping need at cornerback. If there is one thing that had to give both Holmgren and general manager Tom Heckert the chills was the thought of entering into next season with Brandon McDonald once again in anything other than an extremely limited part time role.

McDonald was a Phil Savage project that just hasn't panned out. Wildly inconsistent, McDonald would often offset the occasional decent play with a whole lot of ugliness. He actually proved raw speed is hardly the most critical skill for a cornerback. Despite good speed the most lasting image of McDonald is that of him chasing after another team's receiver who had just passed him. His near total lack of technique and penchant for getting burned left the defense vulnerable to long gains.


The man slated to replace him, Brown, is far more accomplished. He's a former Pro Bowler who seems to still have something left in the tank. Moreover, he's durable. He hasn't missed a game since 2004. More importantly, his presence give the Browns the opportunity to either zig or zag in the upcoming draft.

It's easy to conclude, for example, that with cornerback temporarily handled the Browns can now focus on finishing off their defensive backfield by taking Tennessee safety Eric Berry with the 7th pick in the draft. There are a lot of fans enamored with Berry at the moment who all will be thrilled that picking up Brown makes the selection of Berry all the more likely.

But this trade also gives the Browns the opportunity to perhaps get very aggressive on the quarterback front. Having at least addressed the defense in a meaningful way already, there are plenty of fans that will think this is the time to reach up and try to grab Oklahoma's Sam Bradford, for example.

Both camps may actually be correct. This trade, along with everything else the Browns have done since Holmgren and Heckert arrived, gives this team far more flexibility than it looked to have when the season ended.

In the last several weeks, the Browns have obtained two new quarterbacks, two new linebackers, a new cornerback, a new offensive lineman and a new tight end. They've also re-signed their most valuable player in Josh Cribbs. All but the second quarterback, Seneca Wallace, will be starters. By any measure it's been an aggressive off season. But more than that it's been an off season of plugging as many holes as possible in what was a sinking ship without having to either overpay or part with much in the way of draft picks.

That isn't to say that Holmgren and Heckert have immediately turned the Browns into a playoff team. That still seems a long way off. But these kinds of moves do accelerate the pace.

The trade for Brown and Gocong also are interesting because of their connection with Heckert in Philadelphia. Like the trade for Wallace, this is another example of the new regime bringing in players they're comfortable with as a way of jump starting the team. Every new regime operates the same way. Head coach Eric Mangini did the same thing by bringing in a few loyal soldiers from his days with the New York Jets.

But where Holmgren and Heckert seem far more successful, at this point, than Mangini has been in their ability to bring in credible starters. Each of Mangini's refugees were either players just trying to hang on or projects. Each of Homgren's and Heckert's acquisitions are legitimate starters.

But let's not dwell on the negatives. With the draft beginning in less than 3 weeks, the Browns once again find themselves at the center of their own universe but for the right reasons. Rogers' arrest created a headache that nobody wanted or needed but at least the day wasn't a total loss. Instead it was just a distraction that was mostly forgotten when the trade was announced.

Good Friday? Mostly.