Whether it qualifies as irony or just bad timing is hard to say. But on the day that the Cleveland Browns announced the hiring of Mike Holmgren to be their president of football operations came word that former general manager George Kokinis has filed for arbitration over his on-going dispute with the Browns.
The two events couldn’t represent the schizophrenic nature of this franchise any more accurately.
Meanwhile, many fans sit blissfully unaware of the things that really shape this franchise. Instead the focus is more simplistic. The team has won two straight games, which seemed impossible a month ago. There were record breaking performances by Jerome Harrison and Josh Cribbs, which likewise seemed next to impossible. At least some aspects of the team seems to be rallying, in a sense, around head coach Eric Mangini. It’s evidence of progress all around, which is apparently all Browns fans ever really want.
Giving due recognition that things aren’t quite as bleak this past Monday as most Monday’s during the season, this team is still 3-11, with two victories against teams every bit as bad as them. The progress has been incremental but started from such an embarrassingly low point that walking and chewing gum at the same time would have qualified as progress as well.
But none of that is really the point of the moment as another embarrassing chapter in Browns history has been visited upon this team even as it begins to steady itself with the hiring of Holmgren.
At issue between the Browns and Kokinis is about $4 million he claims is still owed on a contract that the Browns refuse to honor. Kokinis believes the Browns didn’t live up to certain promises made in order to induce him to leave the Baltimore Ravens. The Browns claim Kokinis was fired for cause, the crime apparently being that he wasn’t deferential enough to his key subordinate, Mangini. The demand for arbitration is standard in these kinds of disputes between members of management of a NFL franchise with Commissioner Roger Goodell or his designee serving as the arbitrator.
The probable end game for the Browns is to find a way to pay Kokinis less than what remains on his contract and still claim victory. It’s an awful goal.
What makes this incident out of character for the Browns is that to this point, Lerner has mostly been a patsy for everyone else he’s sent packing, from Butch Davis through Phil Savage. In the process Lerner has literally parted with millions of his own money as a kind of toll he’s chosen to pay for the benefit of running his franchise in such a scattered fashion.
The question is thus begged, why take a stand now against Kokinis? Parenthetically one is left to wonder what role, if any, Mangini has in Lerner’s new found if ill placed set of stones?
Of all the lousy decisions Lerner has made with respect to this franchise, probably the worst was signing off on the hiring of Kokinis and that has nothing to do with Kokinis’ competence. It has everything to do with the manner in which he was hired, which is to say ass backwards.
For reasons that Lerner won’t ever explain, he let Mangini hire his own boss. What is even less clear is why he thought this situation would work. It’s understandable that Mangini would look to someone with whom he was both familiar and could control. It’s why he went to Kokinis in the first place.
But in order to have the opportunity to hire Kokinis, who was under contract with the Baltimore Ravens at the time, Mangini/Lerner had to promise him a promotion from his previous job as the Ravens’ director of pro personnel. That meant bringing him in as general manager with final authority over football-related decisions such as the composition of the final roster.
In other words, it really was a situation that was on a collision course with itself. Mangini obviously felt that he was the final authority on any and all personnel decisions, irrespective of what Kokinis’ contract said and probably for good reason. After all, Mangini was hired first and more importantly was responsible for perhaps the biggest personnel decision of all, the hiring of the general manager.
At the very least you can attribute this implosion to incredible naïveté on behalf of each protagonist. More likely, it was the inevitable clash that comes with promising two people the same thing.
Either way, the ultimate responsibility for this mess lies at the feet of Lerner. Certainly he had the best of intentions but his decision making in this regard was clearly too simplistic and ill informed. That’s why it’s so puzzling that Lerner would have let his dirty laundry get aired even to this slight extent.
It really matters little how strongly Mangini may feel about Kokinis’ alleged non-performance as house puppet or how strongly Mangini may be pushing Lerner to take this stand. Litigation always start out as an issue of honor and always ends up as an issue of money.
But this case lacks even any issue of honor. There is no overarching principle to uphold or moral imperative to enforce. Inside the league the word already is out that Kokinis got a raw deal and rather than try and make a half-hearted attempt at turning around this perception, Lerner would be far better served by paying the money and moving forward.
The fact that the Browns already drew a line in the sand, even if they eventually erase it, comes come at the expense of the lingering ill will that stance will create. The credibility jolt they got with the Holmgren hiring will have taken another unnecessary hit and for no good reason.
Hopefully when cooler heads will prevail, Lerner’s new general counsel, Fred Nance, will explain to Lerner that at the moment is that it’s starting to look like the Browns have a problem keeping their promises. If the allegations regarding Kokinis sound similar to those being made by Josh Cribbs, perhaps that’s not an accident except that in Cribbs’ case he was relying only on verbal promises and Kokinis actually was smart enough to get his in writing.
That isn’t a good message to send to prospective hires, be they in the front office or on the field. Only those without other viable employment options will tend to take a risk on that kind of atmosphere. Is this the paradigm that the Browns really want to establish for Holmgren?
Lerner seems to now be doing his level best to establish that this is not only a credible franchise but relevant, but he should know that it is a huge mistake for anyone within the Browns organization to spend another minute busying themselves with events like this that represent a step in the exact wrong direction.
With Holmgren on board, these kinds of problems should become a thing of the past and that’s where this one belongs. Yet, until that happens, this event really is the last thing this franchise needed at the moment and yet it now seems like it’s become the most important thing it’s working on.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
Credibility. Finally.
The Cleveland Browns, ensconced in a season of historically bizarre proportions, have finally given their fans a reason to celebrate the holiday season and it has nothing to do with refunds.
Randy Lerner, apparently tiring of all the complaining his indifferent tenure has brought about, finally got something right. He said he would bring a serious, credible leader in to run his football operations and he’s done just that in the hiring of Mike Holmgren as the club’s president, according to reports. The formal introduction of Holmgren is expected to occur next week.
For those following the Lerner arc, the hiring of Holmgren serves as the equivalent of Lerner’s hiring of Martin O’Neill, one of the most credible names in soccer, to be the manager of his Aston Villa franchise. All O’Neill did was turn Lerner’s willingness to spend into money well spent and in the process transform Aston Villa from a laughingstock franchise to one of the shining stars of the English Premier League. Hopefully Holmgren will have the same impact on this side of the ocean.
Lerner has been on a little bit of a roll lately with his hires after swinging and missing so badly last offseason. The hiring of Fred Nance, ostensibly as general counsel, may be lesser known to the fan base but he’s every bit as serious and credible as Holmgren and his presence will have a similar impact.
Nance, as much as anyone, was instrumental in bringing this version of the Browns back to Cleveland after Art Modell moved his old team to Baltimore. He also was under consideration for the NFL Commissioner job that ultimately went to Roger Goodell. None of that makes him qualified to decide who the Browns should draft next June, but what it does do is make him qualified to be that serious voice on behalf of the Browns within the NFL’s inner sanctum that they currently lack. In tandem with Holmgren, the Browns will no longer lack for connections.
One of the biggest problems with Lerner’s ownership has been his extreme lack of interest in actually running the franchise. Sure, he’s a fan. He probably views himself as a super fan. But he simply has other more important interests that occupy his time these days than heading to NFL meetings and paying attention to such mundane but important issues as revenue sharing and the state of the collective bargaining agreement.
Because Lerner has been so indifferent toward all the vestiges of his ownership, he hasn’t developed the critical contacts he needs within the various NFL circles; contacts that could have kept this franchise from veering so far off track. Lerner’s been operating far too much in a vacuum when it comes to making critical decisions about the direction and future of this franchise that it’s no wonder it’s in the current state it’s in.
His hiring of both Eric Mangini and George Kokinis will turn out to be the watershed events that finally put into motion the makings of a credible franchise that culminated with the hiring of both Nance and Holmgren.
To go back a bit, Lerner was completely underserved, both on the business side and on the field, by former general manager Phil Savage. In Savage, Lerner felt he was getting the face of the franchise, someone who could represent him to the fans and inside the league and be that serious, credible voice. Savage was never comfortable in that role. He’s a scout at heart, far more comfortable watching East Carolina play Western Kentucky on a Thursday night than pushing papers at a desk and sipping Macallum 18 with Jerry Jones at the hospitality suite inside the Scottsdale Princess during league meetings.
When Savage imploded on the heels of his bungling of the Kellen Winslow situation and the ill-advised f-bomb he directed in writing to a fan, Lerner suddenly found himself pretty much alone on an island of his own making. He had no one credible inside the organization and no established inner circle within the league. Ernie Accorsi is a good contact but he’s retired and drifting further and further from the game each day. Others in the league just didn’t know him enough to take him into their confidence.
As a result Lerner, as uniquely unqualified as someone in his position could possibly be, was left on his own to basically draw up what he wanted in a new coach to replace Romeo Crennel. The key, Lerner believed, was that the new coach had to have head coaching experience. To Lerner, that was a marker for bringing credibility to the franchise.
When Mangini came available, Lerner pounced. In doing so, he never bothered to do even perfunctory due diligence with Mangini’s former employer, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson. Most places do more due diligence in hiring a mail room clerk.
Compounding the problem was that Lerner then let Mangini hire his own boss in the form of Kokinis and we’ve all seen where that ended, with Kokinis being escorted from the premises by security and filing a claim for the money he’s been denied for supposedly not fulfilling his contract. Yet this huge mistake and all it entails finally did cause a light switch of sorts to finally click on for Lerner. It led to the hiring of first Nance and now Holmgren.
Holmgren comes into the franchise at a very curious moment. Though the team has been mostly miserable and has only 3 wins thus far to show for all that’s transpired, two of those wins have come in their last two games. The players’ commitment to Mangini has vacillated all season and yet as of late, when going through the motions is usually the easiest, the team has played its most inspired football of the season.
It probably won’t be the first order of business for Holmgren but it will be close: what to do about Mangini? It’s a far more complicated question than most fans think. Mangini has never carried himself as if he were brought in simply to be the head coach, like Romeo Crennel, and for good reason. Lerner gave Mangini a pretty wide berth in which to operate and pretty much yielded all football authority to him. The dismissal of Kokinis, directly at the urging of Mangini, only solidified Mangini’s power base.
When Holmgren comes aboard, there will be no question that he’ll be the new sheriff in town. He’ll not only have the badge to prove it but a fully loaded gun and the permission to shoot at will. The real question is whether he’ll shoot in Mangini’s direction.
The answer to that depends completely on whether or not he believes Mangini will be happy accepting a demotion back to deputy. Mangini likes to say he had no problem with the set up in New York under Mike Tannebaum, but it’s interesting that Mangini made sure that he wouldn’t have to endure a similar situation in Cleveland by bringing Kokinis aboard.
Mangini also likes to talk about how he welcomes anybody joining the team that can help move it forward. It’s the right thing to say, but Holmgren isn’t coming in as another voice for Mangini to consider as he goes about his business in solitude. He’s not being brought aboard at that kind of money (reportedly $5 million a year for the next 10 years) to smile for the cameras and offer curbside opinions like Jim Brown. The franchise will be his to run.
For Mangini to stay on as coach it isn’t going to come down to the incremental progress of an otherwise miserable team over the last few weeks. It will depend solely on whether Mangini can make what amounts to the biggest adjustment in his professional career. That may mean adjusting to a much different offensive scheme that’s more to Holmgren’s liking. It could mean adjusting his coaching techniques and training regimen. It certainly will mean yielding authority over player acquisition, including the upcoming draft. In other words, Mangini will have to be satisfied simply being a head coach, like Crennel, and having head coach input, nothing more.
This all play out in the weeks and months to come. But for now, Lerner’s hiring of first, Nance, and now Holmgren finally does signify that the Browns are headed in the right direction. It’s about time.
Randy Lerner, apparently tiring of all the complaining his indifferent tenure has brought about, finally got something right. He said he would bring a serious, credible leader in to run his football operations and he’s done just that in the hiring of Mike Holmgren as the club’s president, according to reports. The formal introduction of Holmgren is expected to occur next week.
For those following the Lerner arc, the hiring of Holmgren serves as the equivalent of Lerner’s hiring of Martin O’Neill, one of the most credible names in soccer, to be the manager of his Aston Villa franchise. All O’Neill did was turn Lerner’s willingness to spend into money well spent and in the process transform Aston Villa from a laughingstock franchise to one of the shining stars of the English Premier League. Hopefully Holmgren will have the same impact on this side of the ocean.
Lerner has been on a little bit of a roll lately with his hires after swinging and missing so badly last offseason. The hiring of Fred Nance, ostensibly as general counsel, may be lesser known to the fan base but he’s every bit as serious and credible as Holmgren and his presence will have a similar impact.
Nance, as much as anyone, was instrumental in bringing this version of the Browns back to Cleveland after Art Modell moved his old team to Baltimore. He also was under consideration for the NFL Commissioner job that ultimately went to Roger Goodell. None of that makes him qualified to decide who the Browns should draft next June, but what it does do is make him qualified to be that serious voice on behalf of the Browns within the NFL’s inner sanctum that they currently lack. In tandem with Holmgren, the Browns will no longer lack for connections.
One of the biggest problems with Lerner’s ownership has been his extreme lack of interest in actually running the franchise. Sure, he’s a fan. He probably views himself as a super fan. But he simply has other more important interests that occupy his time these days than heading to NFL meetings and paying attention to such mundane but important issues as revenue sharing and the state of the collective bargaining agreement.
Because Lerner has been so indifferent toward all the vestiges of his ownership, he hasn’t developed the critical contacts he needs within the various NFL circles; contacts that could have kept this franchise from veering so far off track. Lerner’s been operating far too much in a vacuum when it comes to making critical decisions about the direction and future of this franchise that it’s no wonder it’s in the current state it’s in.
His hiring of both Eric Mangini and George Kokinis will turn out to be the watershed events that finally put into motion the makings of a credible franchise that culminated with the hiring of both Nance and Holmgren.
To go back a bit, Lerner was completely underserved, both on the business side and on the field, by former general manager Phil Savage. In Savage, Lerner felt he was getting the face of the franchise, someone who could represent him to the fans and inside the league and be that serious, credible voice. Savage was never comfortable in that role. He’s a scout at heart, far more comfortable watching East Carolina play Western Kentucky on a Thursday night than pushing papers at a desk and sipping Macallum 18 with Jerry Jones at the hospitality suite inside the Scottsdale Princess during league meetings.
When Savage imploded on the heels of his bungling of the Kellen Winslow situation and the ill-advised f-bomb he directed in writing to a fan, Lerner suddenly found himself pretty much alone on an island of his own making. He had no one credible inside the organization and no established inner circle within the league. Ernie Accorsi is a good contact but he’s retired and drifting further and further from the game each day. Others in the league just didn’t know him enough to take him into their confidence.
As a result Lerner, as uniquely unqualified as someone in his position could possibly be, was left on his own to basically draw up what he wanted in a new coach to replace Romeo Crennel. The key, Lerner believed, was that the new coach had to have head coaching experience. To Lerner, that was a marker for bringing credibility to the franchise.
When Mangini came available, Lerner pounced. In doing so, he never bothered to do even perfunctory due diligence with Mangini’s former employer, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson. Most places do more due diligence in hiring a mail room clerk.
Compounding the problem was that Lerner then let Mangini hire his own boss in the form of Kokinis and we’ve all seen where that ended, with Kokinis being escorted from the premises by security and filing a claim for the money he’s been denied for supposedly not fulfilling his contract. Yet this huge mistake and all it entails finally did cause a light switch of sorts to finally click on for Lerner. It led to the hiring of first Nance and now Holmgren.
Holmgren comes into the franchise at a very curious moment. Though the team has been mostly miserable and has only 3 wins thus far to show for all that’s transpired, two of those wins have come in their last two games. The players’ commitment to Mangini has vacillated all season and yet as of late, when going through the motions is usually the easiest, the team has played its most inspired football of the season.
It probably won’t be the first order of business for Holmgren but it will be close: what to do about Mangini? It’s a far more complicated question than most fans think. Mangini has never carried himself as if he were brought in simply to be the head coach, like Romeo Crennel, and for good reason. Lerner gave Mangini a pretty wide berth in which to operate and pretty much yielded all football authority to him. The dismissal of Kokinis, directly at the urging of Mangini, only solidified Mangini’s power base.
When Holmgren comes aboard, there will be no question that he’ll be the new sheriff in town. He’ll not only have the badge to prove it but a fully loaded gun and the permission to shoot at will. The real question is whether he’ll shoot in Mangini’s direction.
The answer to that depends completely on whether or not he believes Mangini will be happy accepting a demotion back to deputy. Mangini likes to say he had no problem with the set up in New York under Mike Tannebaum, but it’s interesting that Mangini made sure that he wouldn’t have to endure a similar situation in Cleveland by bringing Kokinis aboard.
Mangini also likes to talk about how he welcomes anybody joining the team that can help move it forward. It’s the right thing to say, but Holmgren isn’t coming in as another voice for Mangini to consider as he goes about his business in solitude. He’s not being brought aboard at that kind of money (reportedly $5 million a year for the next 10 years) to smile for the cameras and offer curbside opinions like Jim Brown. The franchise will be his to run.
For Mangini to stay on as coach it isn’t going to come down to the incremental progress of an otherwise miserable team over the last few weeks. It will depend solely on whether Mangini can make what amounts to the biggest adjustment in his professional career. That may mean adjusting to a much different offensive scheme that’s more to Holmgren’s liking. It could mean adjusting his coaching techniques and training regimen. It certainly will mean yielding authority over player acquisition, including the upcoming draft. In other words, Mangini will have to be satisfied simply being a head coach, like Crennel, and having head coach input, nothing more.
This all play out in the weeks and months to come. But for now, Lerner’s hiring of first, Nance, and now Holmgren finally does signify that the Browns are headed in the right direction. It’s about time.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Winning Historically
With nothing to play for but their futures, both the Cleveland Browns and the Kansas City Chiefs had about equal number of reasons to both mail it in and give it their best shot. They opted for the latter and the Browns, on the back of historic performances by running back Jerome Harrison and kick returner Josh Cribbs, hung on for a 41-34 victory, giving them a modest two-game win streak.
Even with Harrison setting the Browns single game rushing record and Cribbs becoming the NFL’s all time leader in kick returns for touchdown, the Browns had to survive a late scare by the Chiefs to secure the win.
After going ahead by 7 with 44 seconds remaining after Harrison’s 3rd touchdown of the day, this one a 28-yarder, Chiefs’ quarterback Matt Cassel hit receiver Mark Bradley for 34 yards and nearly a touchdown before Bradley was tripped up. He then got the Chiefs down to the Browns’ 26-yard line but his final desperation pass in the end zone was knocked down as the game ended.
Harrison’s performance was simply brilliant. With the kind of running backs this franchise has had, it’s nothing short of amazing that the mostly forgotten 5’9” Harrison now holds the single game rushing record. On this day he ran for 286 yards on 34 carries and shattered Jim Brown’s previous record of 237 yards set in 1961.
Cribbs was nearly as brilliant, running back two kick returns for touchdowns, the first for 100 yards and the second for 103. That gives him 8 kick returns for touchdowns for his career and placing him first in that category on the NFL’s all-time list.
With Harrison quietly running for 73 yards in the first half, the game seemed to be setting up early on as a dual between Cribbs and Chiefs’ running back Jamal Charles, who ended the day with 154 rushing yards and 1 touchdown. But Harrison got hot in the second half and was the focal point for both teams. He had a 71-yard touchdown run early in the third quarter, an 8-yarder early in the fourth quarter and then the 28-yarder as the clock was ticking down in the 4th quarter, vexing fantasy league players everywhere who kept him on their bench.
Before that final Harrison touchdown it looked like the teams were heading for overtime after Kansas City tied the game at 34-34 on a Cassel-to-Bradley 12-yard touchdown pass. Cassel was able to get the Chiefs in position for the tie after the Browns’ Phil Dawson missed a 52-yard field goal that ended up giving the Chiefs the ball at their own 42-yard line and put them in position to move quickly for the score.
Even with a 41-point outburst, early on it looked like it was going to be an offensive struggle for the Browns. Despite taking an early 3-0 lead on a 47-yard field goal by Dawson, the offense couldn’t quite find its rhythm. Indeed, if not for Cribbs’ two kick off returns, the Browns might have been left wondering how they got run over by the Chiefs.
After Charles took a simple run around the left side for a 47-yard touchdown, the kind of play that’s burned the Browns’ defense all season, the Chiefs were up 17-13. The Browns then went 3-and-out on their next drive and then couldn’t execute perhaps the one play they should have had perfected by week two, the punt.
As the Browns lined up inside their own 20 yard line, long snapper Ryan Pontbriand snapped the ball before the team was set. The ball hit up back Nick Sorenson on his right leg, bounded into the end zone and was recovered by Alex Studebaker for the Kansas City touchdown and the 24-13 lead.
The Browns were clearly out of sorts, a state that ended quickly when Cribbs took the ensuing kickoff 103 yards for the score, helping bring the Browns back to within 4 at 24-20.
That provided the springboard for Harrison’s second half heroics. He opened the scoring quickly in the second half with his 71-yard run on the Browns’ first possession. From there the Chiefs defense could never seem to find the right formula for containing Harrison as he added over 140 more yards in the half and two more touchdowns.
Despite Harrison’s historic performance, the victory was anything but easy. After taking a seemingly insurmountable 10-point lead at 34-24 off of Harrison’s second touchdown, the Chiefs quickly moved down the field but couldn’t capitalize and had to settle for a 27-yard Ryan Succop field goal.
It was a drive that easily could have yielded more for the Chiefs but also could have been disastrous as Cassel threw late over the middle near the goal line. The ball landed in and then bounced out of the hands of linebacker Kaluka Maiava. With the way Harrison was running, an interception at that moment would have given the Browns the opportunity to run out the clock. As it was, even Harrison’s 3rd touchdown didn’t provide sufficient breathing room.
With the hiring of a new grand wizard of football operations lingering over this team like a stack of dirty holiday dishes from the party the night before, the last few games of the season have turned into mostly an extended interview process for just about everyone associated with the Browns except owner Randy Lerner. But no one has more at stake than head coach Eric Mangini.
The irony now is that it may be two players with their own checkered histories with Mangini that save his job. In the case of Harrison, Mangini has basically kept him mostly buried on the bench even though he’s performed every time he’s been given the ball. In the case of Cribbs, the team’s most inspirational player, Mangini has kept him dangling all season over a new contract despite his being promised one before the season started.
Though Sunday’s victory comes against a lousy Chiefs team, it was an important win nonetheless. After beating the Steelers a week ago, a step backward in Kansas City would have taken any shine off that victory and halted the incremental progress that’s been made. Instead, the Browns were able to follow it up with a solid effort and another baby step forward.
If nothing else, the Browns are establishing themselves as a running team. While Harrison was phenomenal, credit too should go not only to the offensive line, but also to fullback Lawrence Vickers for consistently do what a good lead back should and offensive coordinator Brian Daboll for sticking with the running attack. On the day, the Browns only threw 18 times while running an astounding 49 times.
Although quarterback Brady Quinn statistically was awful, 10-17 for 66 yards and 2 interceptions, he was able to maintain his poise at critical moments. For example, on the Browns’ first scoring drive, Quinn threw to Chansi Stuckey for 11 yards. Stuckey made a very questionable catch but the Chiefs never had a chance to look at it again as Quinn hurried the team to the line and snuck it forward for 2-yards.
Then, in that wild last few minutes of the game, Quinn ran for 24 yards on a bootleg on a crucial 3rd and 1 play from the Browns’ 39-yard line. If not for that run, the Harrison touchdown might not have happened and the game may have gone to overtime and all the uncertainty that entails.
The Chiefs fighting the Browns for AFC inferiority struggled much of the day with Braylon Edwards disease, a malady in which receivers can’t seem to hold onto balls that hit them in stride. Despite what seemed like a dozen dropped balls, Cassel still went 22-40 for 331 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Cassel’s first touchdown pass came after the Browns took a 13-3 lead on a 30-yard field goal by Dawson. Charles’ ability to grind out tough yards set up the pass perfectly as Cassel, utilizing the no huddle offense twice found receiver Chris Chambers, the first for a 39-yard gain over Eric Wright and then for a 9-yard lob pass for the touchdown that helped pull the Chiefs to within 3 at 13-10.
Cassel’s second touchdown came after the Dawson missed the 52-yard field goal attempt with just over 4 minutes remaining and the Chiefs trailing by 7. After the Browns had forced the Chiefs into a 4th and 6 from the Cleveland 12-yard line, Cassel, out of the shotgun, was able to step up into the pocket and avoid the rush long enough to find wide receiver Mike Bradley coming open in the end zone. The Succop extra point tied the game at 24.
The Brown, 3-11 on the season, now have a chance to make it three straight victories with the Oakland Raiders coming in and sporting a whole host of quarterback problems. But before that takes place, it looks to be an interesting week in Berea.
Mike Holmgren appears to be on the precipice of getting the keys to the Browns’ football operations, a dubious Christmas present if ever there was one. With all the questions that raises for the future of this franchise, the best way Mangini and his staff can answer most of them is by putting together two more similar performances. And as Browns fans saw on this day in Kansas City, even when things are working nothing comes easy.
Even with Harrison setting the Browns single game rushing record and Cribbs becoming the NFL’s all time leader in kick returns for touchdown, the Browns had to survive a late scare by the Chiefs to secure the win.
After going ahead by 7 with 44 seconds remaining after Harrison’s 3rd touchdown of the day, this one a 28-yarder, Chiefs’ quarterback Matt Cassel hit receiver Mark Bradley for 34 yards and nearly a touchdown before Bradley was tripped up. He then got the Chiefs down to the Browns’ 26-yard line but his final desperation pass in the end zone was knocked down as the game ended.
Harrison’s performance was simply brilliant. With the kind of running backs this franchise has had, it’s nothing short of amazing that the mostly forgotten 5’9” Harrison now holds the single game rushing record. On this day he ran for 286 yards on 34 carries and shattered Jim Brown’s previous record of 237 yards set in 1961.
Cribbs was nearly as brilliant, running back two kick returns for touchdowns, the first for 100 yards and the second for 103. That gives him 8 kick returns for touchdowns for his career and placing him first in that category on the NFL’s all-time list.
With Harrison quietly running for 73 yards in the first half, the game seemed to be setting up early on as a dual between Cribbs and Chiefs’ running back Jamal Charles, who ended the day with 154 rushing yards and 1 touchdown. But Harrison got hot in the second half and was the focal point for both teams. He had a 71-yard touchdown run early in the third quarter, an 8-yarder early in the fourth quarter and then the 28-yarder as the clock was ticking down in the 4th quarter, vexing fantasy league players everywhere who kept him on their bench.
Before that final Harrison touchdown it looked like the teams were heading for overtime after Kansas City tied the game at 34-34 on a Cassel-to-Bradley 12-yard touchdown pass. Cassel was able to get the Chiefs in position for the tie after the Browns’ Phil Dawson missed a 52-yard field goal that ended up giving the Chiefs the ball at their own 42-yard line and put them in position to move quickly for the score.
Even with a 41-point outburst, early on it looked like it was going to be an offensive struggle for the Browns. Despite taking an early 3-0 lead on a 47-yard field goal by Dawson, the offense couldn’t quite find its rhythm. Indeed, if not for Cribbs’ two kick off returns, the Browns might have been left wondering how they got run over by the Chiefs.
After Charles took a simple run around the left side for a 47-yard touchdown, the kind of play that’s burned the Browns’ defense all season, the Chiefs were up 17-13. The Browns then went 3-and-out on their next drive and then couldn’t execute perhaps the one play they should have had perfected by week two, the punt.
As the Browns lined up inside their own 20 yard line, long snapper Ryan Pontbriand snapped the ball before the team was set. The ball hit up back Nick Sorenson on his right leg, bounded into the end zone and was recovered by Alex Studebaker for the Kansas City touchdown and the 24-13 lead.
The Browns were clearly out of sorts, a state that ended quickly when Cribbs took the ensuing kickoff 103 yards for the score, helping bring the Browns back to within 4 at 24-20.
That provided the springboard for Harrison’s second half heroics. He opened the scoring quickly in the second half with his 71-yard run on the Browns’ first possession. From there the Chiefs defense could never seem to find the right formula for containing Harrison as he added over 140 more yards in the half and two more touchdowns.
Despite Harrison’s historic performance, the victory was anything but easy. After taking a seemingly insurmountable 10-point lead at 34-24 off of Harrison’s second touchdown, the Chiefs quickly moved down the field but couldn’t capitalize and had to settle for a 27-yard Ryan Succop field goal.
It was a drive that easily could have yielded more for the Chiefs but also could have been disastrous as Cassel threw late over the middle near the goal line. The ball landed in and then bounced out of the hands of linebacker Kaluka Maiava. With the way Harrison was running, an interception at that moment would have given the Browns the opportunity to run out the clock. As it was, even Harrison’s 3rd touchdown didn’t provide sufficient breathing room.
With the hiring of a new grand wizard of football operations lingering over this team like a stack of dirty holiday dishes from the party the night before, the last few games of the season have turned into mostly an extended interview process for just about everyone associated with the Browns except owner Randy Lerner. But no one has more at stake than head coach Eric Mangini.
The irony now is that it may be two players with their own checkered histories with Mangini that save his job. In the case of Harrison, Mangini has basically kept him mostly buried on the bench even though he’s performed every time he’s been given the ball. In the case of Cribbs, the team’s most inspirational player, Mangini has kept him dangling all season over a new contract despite his being promised one before the season started.
Though Sunday’s victory comes against a lousy Chiefs team, it was an important win nonetheless. After beating the Steelers a week ago, a step backward in Kansas City would have taken any shine off that victory and halted the incremental progress that’s been made. Instead, the Browns were able to follow it up with a solid effort and another baby step forward.
If nothing else, the Browns are establishing themselves as a running team. While Harrison was phenomenal, credit too should go not only to the offensive line, but also to fullback Lawrence Vickers for consistently do what a good lead back should and offensive coordinator Brian Daboll for sticking with the running attack. On the day, the Browns only threw 18 times while running an astounding 49 times.
Although quarterback Brady Quinn statistically was awful, 10-17 for 66 yards and 2 interceptions, he was able to maintain his poise at critical moments. For example, on the Browns’ first scoring drive, Quinn threw to Chansi Stuckey for 11 yards. Stuckey made a very questionable catch but the Chiefs never had a chance to look at it again as Quinn hurried the team to the line and snuck it forward for 2-yards.
Then, in that wild last few minutes of the game, Quinn ran for 24 yards on a bootleg on a crucial 3rd and 1 play from the Browns’ 39-yard line. If not for that run, the Harrison touchdown might not have happened and the game may have gone to overtime and all the uncertainty that entails.
The Chiefs fighting the Browns for AFC inferiority struggled much of the day with Braylon Edwards disease, a malady in which receivers can’t seem to hold onto balls that hit them in stride. Despite what seemed like a dozen dropped balls, Cassel still went 22-40 for 331 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Cassel’s first touchdown pass came after the Browns took a 13-3 lead on a 30-yard field goal by Dawson. Charles’ ability to grind out tough yards set up the pass perfectly as Cassel, utilizing the no huddle offense twice found receiver Chris Chambers, the first for a 39-yard gain over Eric Wright and then for a 9-yard lob pass for the touchdown that helped pull the Chiefs to within 3 at 13-10.
Cassel’s second touchdown came after the Dawson missed the 52-yard field goal attempt with just over 4 minutes remaining and the Chiefs trailing by 7. After the Browns had forced the Chiefs into a 4th and 6 from the Cleveland 12-yard line, Cassel, out of the shotgun, was able to step up into the pocket and avoid the rush long enough to find wide receiver Mike Bradley coming open in the end zone. The Succop extra point tied the game at 24.
The Brown, 3-11 on the season, now have a chance to make it three straight victories with the Oakland Raiders coming in and sporting a whole host of quarterback problems. But before that takes place, it looks to be an interesting week in Berea.
Mike Holmgren appears to be on the precipice of getting the keys to the Browns’ football operations, a dubious Christmas present if ever there was one. With all the questions that raises for the future of this franchise, the best way Mangini and his staff can answer most of them is by putting together two more similar performances. And as Browns fans saw on this day in Kansas City, even when things are working nothing comes easy.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
A Holiday Dream
Maybe it was the rum balls.
I went to the office Christmas party the other night and while I generally refrain from sampling most of what people try to pass off as holiday treats, someone said “you just have to try Jill’s rum balls.” Which I did. Several hours later, I awoke in a cold sweat after an incredibly vivid dream.
There I was, inside the Browns’ Berea complex, attending head coach Eric Mangini’s Wednesday press conference.
“Good morning. How is everyone today?” He didn’t wait for an answer and just jumped right in. “We have Kansas City this week. They’ve struggled a bit this season just like us but I know they’re going to come in here and compete hard. We’re still a little banged up by our practices have been crisp and I think the guys are still engaged and enthused. I’m looking forward to the match-up.”
Then came the question: “Coach, can you talk a little about the fact that Randy Lerner has been meeting with Mike Holmgren about a job that would essentially make Holmgren your boss. Any concerns?”
“Look, Tony. You know I like to keep those kinds of things in-house. I met with Mike and we had a chance to have a nice talk about how the season’s going, that sort of thing.”
“But Coach, are you at all concerned that you really don’t have any connection with Holmgren? Do you think he’ll give you a fair shot at keeping your job?”
“Again, Tony, I’d rather not get into the specifics. I try to stay focused on the task at hand and ask the players to do the same. Mike and I have great mutual respect. Any questions about the Kansas City game?”
That’s when I pounced.
“Coach. Can’t you see why you have a problem with the fans in this town? Questions get asked, some difficult, some not. You just gloss over them and it makes you look like you don’t care. That’s the impression you give the fans. You act like letting them in on a little of what’s really going on is the worst thing since they moved ‘Friday Night Lights’ to DirecTV.”
“Gary, I understand your point. I really do. There’s a time and place for questions like that and this isn’t it.”
“What do you mean this isn’t it? It’s a press conference. It’s exactly the time and place.”
Then came a long pause. Mangini, gripping the podium with both hands as his knuckles whitened, looked like he just had an attack of colitis. His face scrunched. His eyes shifted left then right. Then he left out a huge sigh.
“Folks, look. I’m going to go off script here. It’s not something I like to do. It’s not something I’m comfortable doing. But maybe Gary’s right.
“Here’s the thing. This has been about the roughest year of my life. I got fired from a job I really loved. I didn’t think it was fair. Woody Johnson never brought his concerns to me about how the players felt. I didn’t get a chance to give him my side. He just said the team was going in another direction and that was that. It was devastating. It doesn’t matter how much money you make. When you get fired it’s about the worst thing that can happen to you. It sucks the breath right out of you. It makes your knees buckle. Your mind suddenly fills with a thousand thoughts. ‘What do I tell my wife and kids?’ ‘Will I find another job?’ ‘Will I have to move?’ If you’ve been through something like that then you’ll know what I mean.
“Then Mr. Lerner called and we had several nice chats. I’ve known Romeo Crennel for years and I hated to see him get fired. He’s a fine, fine man. Honestly, when Mr. Lerner finally offered me the job I wasn’t quite sure I wanted it. Not because it’s the Browns and not because it’s Cleveland. Just because I didn’t want to look like I was disrespecting Romeo.
“But a friend of mine told me that my taking the job had nothing to do with Romeo getting fired. Every coach eventually gets fired. It’s the business. So after discussing it with my wife, we felt it was a good move for us personally and professionally. I came in here very excited.
“Then I got off on the wrong foot. I don’t really know why I ignored Shaun Rogers at that banquet. He’s actually a really sweet buy. I was just being a jerk, full of myself for landing a new job so quickly. It was a mistake. It’s my job to connect with my players, not the other way around. It was stupid and I regret it.
“Then came the whole thing with hiring George Kokinis. George and I go way back. In fact, we both spent some time in Cleveland in our very early days, as I think all of you know. I love George like a brother and that’s why I wanted him here. I knew it looked awkward, like I was hiring my own boss. I read what everyone around this town wrote about it, everyone that is except Bill Livingston. I just can’t seem to get through one of his columns.”
The assembled group broke out in laughter. Then Mangini continued.
“I figured that even though it didn’t look right George and I would make it work. Yea, he was in charge of football operations, but he and I always envisioned it as a partnership. But as we got going, I wanted to accelerate the time table of getting this operation improved. George was more deliberate. That’s not a criticism, just a fact. As the days went by, I kept pushing harder and harder for more and more changes. When George wasn’t responding as quickly as I wanted, I kind of took over and pushed him aside.
“In retrospect, that was a mistake. I was the one that let George down, not the other way around. I owe George a huge apology and that’s something that I’ll be doing privately when he and I both have the time. I don’t want to just make a perfunctory phone call. I want to talk to him man-to-man, own up to my mistakes and hopefully he’ll forgive me and he and I can be friends. I also plan to talk with Mr. Lerner to make sure George gets the money he deserves. Maybe hiring him under the circumstances was a mistake, but I really screwed up his exit.”
Mangini wasn’t even close to done.
“I know a lot of you want to know about what happened with the draft. Well, this team needs players. I think the best way to build a team, on both sides of the ball, is from the line out. That’s why I traded down to a slot where I knew I could get Alex Mack and some extra picks. Alex is making good progress. He has a great future.
“What I think most of you want to know about, though, is that second round and in particular Brian Robiskie and David Veikune. Let me start with Brian. I know this is Ohio State territory and Brian is a local kid. I should have understood that sooner and been more upfront with the fans.
“I know we need receivers and it seemed like deactivating Brian was just about trying to teach him a lesson. Actually, that’s exactly what it was. I decided to deactivate him so much this season in part to show him that just being a second rounder doesn’t guarantee playing time. To me, some things are bigger than a particular moment, a particular game. Lessons need to get learned and I thought Brian needed to learn that. Maybe that’s harsh and maybe I could have handled it differently, but I felt it was the best decision at the time.
“As for David, in truth his selection was a stretch. I think David has a chance to contribute on this team and in this league but not right now. He’s changing positions and he’s just too raw. I know a lot of you think that since this season is about development anyway why don’t I just throw him out there. To me, that would be irresponsible. I’m also trying to develop a lot of other players and they are further ahead of the curve right now.
“Since we’re talking about players, let me say a few things about Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow. When I got here one of the first players I met with was Kellen. He was brutally honest with me. He wanted out of Cleveland. This place held mostly bad memories for him and he wanted a change of scenery. He said that if he remained here he’d work hard but his heart wouldn’t be in it. I appreciated what he said and told him I’d work to accommodate the request. I understand that sometimes the situation just isn’t right.
“With Braylon, it was a much different situation. He’s a disruptive guy. I know he had the one Pro Bowl season but the trick is to follow that up. He couldn’t. When I looked at the film on him from last season, it wasn’t just the dropped passes. He gave minimal effort on his blocking assignments. If he knew the pass wasn’t coming to him he would run sloppy routes. He had Randy Moss’ attitude but not Randy Moss’ accomplishments. Then when he had that fight outside a bar after a game in which everyone on the team, Braylon included, played terribly, I just felt it was enough. He had to go. Frankly, I was surprised the Jets gave us as much as they did.
“I know a lot of you also have asked several times about all the ex-Jets players I brought in. My biggest mistake there was not explaining my thinking, which is something I need to correct in myself. All of them were just players that I felt understood my program and would help out all the new guys. A football team is like any other workplace. A lot happens when the boss isn’t around. If there are guys around that understand what you’re trying to do, it helps when players are just talking with each other. I’d do it again, but I know I would be more straightforward with you guys about it. You and the fans deserve that much.”
Now he was getting contrite.
“I know I haven’t been perfect this year. Honestly, I understand the perspective of those who think I should be fired. It’s mostly of my own making. I need to become a better person in order to become a better coach. These are changes I need to make and whether they’re here in Cleveland or somewhere else, those changes will get made.
“I also wish I would have handled Jamal Lewis differently. He leaves this league hating me, I’ll understand it. You know, teams are made up of all sorts of players. But every team has a guy like Jamal, an established veteran who works harder than the rookies. I knew Jamal had lost a step and really wasn’t in our plans going forward and I let that cloud my judgment. I should have embraced him. He deserved that much. I think that would have helped me more in the locker room.
“I also am sorry about how I’ve handled Josh Cribbs’ contract situation. Mr. Lerner told me that he and Phil Savage had promised Josh a new deal. I just felt like I wanted to see more from Josh before that got done. I should have kept my mouth shut. A person is only as good as his word and if Mr. Lerner made that commitment I should have lived with it and got that contract done. I’m getting that corrected and hope to have a new deal done with him within the next few weeks, at the latest.
“As for Brady Quinn, in truth, and I hope this doesn’t get me in trouble with the Players Association, but I did bench him because of his contract. It was a business decision and those kinds of decisions get made in the NFL every day. Truthfully, building a team isn’t just about finding guys with talent. There is still the financial side of things and that factors into every decision. I knew we weren’t going anywhere this season and we’ll probably not be going much further next season. I like Brady and he’s played better but I’m not completely sold on him as our long term answer. I want him back next year but I couldn’t see dedicating that much salary to him when I’ve got about 15 other key holes to fill as well.
As he spoke, Mangini seemed to get more and more comfortable, as if he had just passed a kidney stone the size of a grapefruit that had been stuck for the last 10 years. Confession looked to be good for his soul.
“Let’s talk about spygate and Bill Belichick. What the heck was I thinking?” And as Mangini started to get into great detail, the assembled media couldn’t believe what they were hearing. This was a new Mangini, a coach that they could embrace. Someone who could admit he wasn’t perfect, that not everything he’s done was to further some mythical process and that yes, he did make mistakes, many of them. Stories started appearing everywhere. I couldn’t wait to write about the change and tell the world that maybe I had misjudged Mangini all along. And as the next few days passed into the next few weeks, suddenly Mangini was the toast of the town.
He was a frequent guest on every radio station, sat for interviews with the local papers, could be seen joking on the sidelines with his players as the team finished out the season in style, all while still finding time to hand out new coats to the homeless bought with money he donated. And as Mangini began to blossom, the permanent fog hanging over Berea started lifting.
But just as suddenly as the dream started, it ended. I was in a cold sweat and my stomach was doing a Texas two-step. But as I laid there awake it occurred to me that if the real Mangini could be even half as candid as the dream Mangini, no one would be calling for his head and the last thing he’d have to worry about is who Lerner hires to oversee the empire and the fans could actually have something legitimate to point to as progress instead of breaking down the remaining games by the sum of their plays to find progress.
It was then I realized, too, that yea, it must have been the rum balls.
I went to the office Christmas party the other night and while I generally refrain from sampling most of what people try to pass off as holiday treats, someone said “you just have to try Jill’s rum balls.” Which I did. Several hours later, I awoke in a cold sweat after an incredibly vivid dream.
There I was, inside the Browns’ Berea complex, attending head coach Eric Mangini’s Wednesday press conference.
“Good morning. How is everyone today?” He didn’t wait for an answer and just jumped right in. “We have Kansas City this week. They’ve struggled a bit this season just like us but I know they’re going to come in here and compete hard. We’re still a little banged up by our practices have been crisp and I think the guys are still engaged and enthused. I’m looking forward to the match-up.”
Then came the question: “Coach, can you talk a little about the fact that Randy Lerner has been meeting with Mike Holmgren about a job that would essentially make Holmgren your boss. Any concerns?”
“Look, Tony. You know I like to keep those kinds of things in-house. I met with Mike and we had a chance to have a nice talk about how the season’s going, that sort of thing.”
“But Coach, are you at all concerned that you really don’t have any connection with Holmgren? Do you think he’ll give you a fair shot at keeping your job?”
“Again, Tony, I’d rather not get into the specifics. I try to stay focused on the task at hand and ask the players to do the same. Mike and I have great mutual respect. Any questions about the Kansas City game?”
That’s when I pounced.
“Coach. Can’t you see why you have a problem with the fans in this town? Questions get asked, some difficult, some not. You just gloss over them and it makes you look like you don’t care. That’s the impression you give the fans. You act like letting them in on a little of what’s really going on is the worst thing since they moved ‘Friday Night Lights’ to DirecTV.”
“Gary, I understand your point. I really do. There’s a time and place for questions like that and this isn’t it.”
“What do you mean this isn’t it? It’s a press conference. It’s exactly the time and place.”
Then came a long pause. Mangini, gripping the podium with both hands as his knuckles whitened, looked like he just had an attack of colitis. His face scrunched. His eyes shifted left then right. Then he left out a huge sigh.
“Folks, look. I’m going to go off script here. It’s not something I like to do. It’s not something I’m comfortable doing. But maybe Gary’s right.
“Here’s the thing. This has been about the roughest year of my life. I got fired from a job I really loved. I didn’t think it was fair. Woody Johnson never brought his concerns to me about how the players felt. I didn’t get a chance to give him my side. He just said the team was going in another direction and that was that. It was devastating. It doesn’t matter how much money you make. When you get fired it’s about the worst thing that can happen to you. It sucks the breath right out of you. It makes your knees buckle. Your mind suddenly fills with a thousand thoughts. ‘What do I tell my wife and kids?’ ‘Will I find another job?’ ‘Will I have to move?’ If you’ve been through something like that then you’ll know what I mean.
“Then Mr. Lerner called and we had several nice chats. I’ve known Romeo Crennel for years and I hated to see him get fired. He’s a fine, fine man. Honestly, when Mr. Lerner finally offered me the job I wasn’t quite sure I wanted it. Not because it’s the Browns and not because it’s Cleveland. Just because I didn’t want to look like I was disrespecting Romeo.
“But a friend of mine told me that my taking the job had nothing to do with Romeo getting fired. Every coach eventually gets fired. It’s the business. So after discussing it with my wife, we felt it was a good move for us personally and professionally. I came in here very excited.
“Then I got off on the wrong foot. I don’t really know why I ignored Shaun Rogers at that banquet. He’s actually a really sweet buy. I was just being a jerk, full of myself for landing a new job so quickly. It was a mistake. It’s my job to connect with my players, not the other way around. It was stupid and I regret it.
“Then came the whole thing with hiring George Kokinis. George and I go way back. In fact, we both spent some time in Cleveland in our very early days, as I think all of you know. I love George like a brother and that’s why I wanted him here. I knew it looked awkward, like I was hiring my own boss. I read what everyone around this town wrote about it, everyone that is except Bill Livingston. I just can’t seem to get through one of his columns.”
The assembled group broke out in laughter. Then Mangini continued.
“I figured that even though it didn’t look right George and I would make it work. Yea, he was in charge of football operations, but he and I always envisioned it as a partnership. But as we got going, I wanted to accelerate the time table of getting this operation improved. George was more deliberate. That’s not a criticism, just a fact. As the days went by, I kept pushing harder and harder for more and more changes. When George wasn’t responding as quickly as I wanted, I kind of took over and pushed him aside.
“In retrospect, that was a mistake. I was the one that let George down, not the other way around. I owe George a huge apology and that’s something that I’ll be doing privately when he and I both have the time. I don’t want to just make a perfunctory phone call. I want to talk to him man-to-man, own up to my mistakes and hopefully he’ll forgive me and he and I can be friends. I also plan to talk with Mr. Lerner to make sure George gets the money he deserves. Maybe hiring him under the circumstances was a mistake, but I really screwed up his exit.”
Mangini wasn’t even close to done.
“I know a lot of you want to know about what happened with the draft. Well, this team needs players. I think the best way to build a team, on both sides of the ball, is from the line out. That’s why I traded down to a slot where I knew I could get Alex Mack and some extra picks. Alex is making good progress. He has a great future.
“What I think most of you want to know about, though, is that second round and in particular Brian Robiskie and David Veikune. Let me start with Brian. I know this is Ohio State territory and Brian is a local kid. I should have understood that sooner and been more upfront with the fans.
“I know we need receivers and it seemed like deactivating Brian was just about trying to teach him a lesson. Actually, that’s exactly what it was. I decided to deactivate him so much this season in part to show him that just being a second rounder doesn’t guarantee playing time. To me, some things are bigger than a particular moment, a particular game. Lessons need to get learned and I thought Brian needed to learn that. Maybe that’s harsh and maybe I could have handled it differently, but I felt it was the best decision at the time.
“As for David, in truth his selection was a stretch. I think David has a chance to contribute on this team and in this league but not right now. He’s changing positions and he’s just too raw. I know a lot of you think that since this season is about development anyway why don’t I just throw him out there. To me, that would be irresponsible. I’m also trying to develop a lot of other players and they are further ahead of the curve right now.
“Since we’re talking about players, let me say a few things about Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow. When I got here one of the first players I met with was Kellen. He was brutally honest with me. He wanted out of Cleveland. This place held mostly bad memories for him and he wanted a change of scenery. He said that if he remained here he’d work hard but his heart wouldn’t be in it. I appreciated what he said and told him I’d work to accommodate the request. I understand that sometimes the situation just isn’t right.
“With Braylon, it was a much different situation. He’s a disruptive guy. I know he had the one Pro Bowl season but the trick is to follow that up. He couldn’t. When I looked at the film on him from last season, it wasn’t just the dropped passes. He gave minimal effort on his blocking assignments. If he knew the pass wasn’t coming to him he would run sloppy routes. He had Randy Moss’ attitude but not Randy Moss’ accomplishments. Then when he had that fight outside a bar after a game in which everyone on the team, Braylon included, played terribly, I just felt it was enough. He had to go. Frankly, I was surprised the Jets gave us as much as they did.
“I know a lot of you also have asked several times about all the ex-Jets players I brought in. My biggest mistake there was not explaining my thinking, which is something I need to correct in myself. All of them were just players that I felt understood my program and would help out all the new guys. A football team is like any other workplace. A lot happens when the boss isn’t around. If there are guys around that understand what you’re trying to do, it helps when players are just talking with each other. I’d do it again, but I know I would be more straightforward with you guys about it. You and the fans deserve that much.”
Now he was getting contrite.
“I know I haven’t been perfect this year. Honestly, I understand the perspective of those who think I should be fired. It’s mostly of my own making. I need to become a better person in order to become a better coach. These are changes I need to make and whether they’re here in Cleveland or somewhere else, those changes will get made.
“I also wish I would have handled Jamal Lewis differently. He leaves this league hating me, I’ll understand it. You know, teams are made up of all sorts of players. But every team has a guy like Jamal, an established veteran who works harder than the rookies. I knew Jamal had lost a step and really wasn’t in our plans going forward and I let that cloud my judgment. I should have embraced him. He deserved that much. I think that would have helped me more in the locker room.
“I also am sorry about how I’ve handled Josh Cribbs’ contract situation. Mr. Lerner told me that he and Phil Savage had promised Josh a new deal. I just felt like I wanted to see more from Josh before that got done. I should have kept my mouth shut. A person is only as good as his word and if Mr. Lerner made that commitment I should have lived with it and got that contract done. I’m getting that corrected and hope to have a new deal done with him within the next few weeks, at the latest.
“As for Brady Quinn, in truth, and I hope this doesn’t get me in trouble with the Players Association, but I did bench him because of his contract. It was a business decision and those kinds of decisions get made in the NFL every day. Truthfully, building a team isn’t just about finding guys with talent. There is still the financial side of things and that factors into every decision. I knew we weren’t going anywhere this season and we’ll probably not be going much further next season. I like Brady and he’s played better but I’m not completely sold on him as our long term answer. I want him back next year but I couldn’t see dedicating that much salary to him when I’ve got about 15 other key holes to fill as well.
As he spoke, Mangini seemed to get more and more comfortable, as if he had just passed a kidney stone the size of a grapefruit that had been stuck for the last 10 years. Confession looked to be good for his soul.
“Let’s talk about spygate and Bill Belichick. What the heck was I thinking?” And as Mangini started to get into great detail, the assembled media couldn’t believe what they were hearing. This was a new Mangini, a coach that they could embrace. Someone who could admit he wasn’t perfect, that not everything he’s done was to further some mythical process and that yes, he did make mistakes, many of them. Stories started appearing everywhere. I couldn’t wait to write about the change and tell the world that maybe I had misjudged Mangini all along. And as the next few days passed into the next few weeks, suddenly Mangini was the toast of the town.
He was a frequent guest on every radio station, sat for interviews with the local papers, could be seen joking on the sidelines with his players as the team finished out the season in style, all while still finding time to hand out new coats to the homeless bought with money he donated. And as Mangini began to blossom, the permanent fog hanging over Berea started lifting.
But just as suddenly as the dream started, it ended. I was in a cold sweat and my stomach was doing a Texas two-step. But as I laid there awake it occurred to me that if the real Mangini could be even half as candid as the dream Mangini, no one would be calling for his head and the last thing he’d have to worry about is who Lerner hires to oversee the empire and the fans could actually have something legitimate to point to as progress instead of breaking down the remaining games by the sum of their plays to find progress.
It was then I realized, too, that yea, it must have been the rum balls.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Eternal Sunshine
The reaction from Cleveland Browns fans over last week’s victory against the Pittsburgh Steelers has been interesting, to say the least. It may be, as Josh Cribbs said after the win, that it erases the memory of all that’s come before it. Call it the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Cleveland Browns Mind.
I’ve received more than a few emails, about half of which are wondering whether I’ve come unhitched from my moorings. Don’t you get the it, the emailers asked? This was a victory over the Steelers. It’s proof that head coach Eric Mangini’s process is working.
Maybe I don’t get it and that’s the problem. I’d stack my credentials as a Browns observer against nearly anyone reading this. I’ve watched more Browns-Steelers games for more years than many of our readers have been alive. I understand the rivalry.
What I saw on Thursday was an inspired Cleveland team, playing on a national stage it didn’t deserve, beat the defending Super Bowl champs in all three phases of the game. The Steelers didn’t lose the game. The Browns won it, from the opening series forward. It was, as I said then, one of the more improbable victories that this franchise has seen in its last 10 years.
Contextually, I understand what a victory against the Steelers means. What I don’t understand is the need for some to go overboard as if it’s the greatest victory in franchise history. It doesn’t make the top 100.
In the harsh reality of this day, the Browns are still 2-11 and will be lucky to match last year’s miserable victory total of 4. In all but a very small handful of games have they even been competitive. The Steelers also aren’t anything more than a very mediocre NFL team at the moment. A loss to Kansas City might have been a fluke. The loss to Oakland might have been another fluke. But three losses to three really bad teams in near consecutive fashion is a trend.
The Steelers, having fallen so far so fast, are a cautionary tale of how it can all disappear so quickly when there’s a few key injuries and the rest of the team gets fat and happy with previous success. It reminds me of the 2008 Browns, actually, except all they were doing was coming off a 10-6 season in which they managed not to make the playoffs.
And that’s the larger point. Beating the Steelers is great. It always will be. This victory in particular was a needed jolt for a fan base whose team had been delivering nothing but bad news week after week after week after week. Whatever else it might be worth in the collective psyche it’s still not worth getting carried away over. It’s not time to plan the parades or worship at the altar of Randy Lerner over his dumb as a fox insight in choosing Eric Mangini as his head coach.
Let’s talk perspective. In 2007, the Browns, as noted, were 10-6. Heading into 2008, they were viewed by everyone as a team on the come. Derek Anderson, Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow, Jr. had Pro Bowl seasons. Donte Stallworth was acquired in the off-season. The draft, or at least what there was of it, didn’t yield much but the team was pretty much in tact from the previous season. Thus, went the thought process of too many experts who should have known better, with another year of experience how could it not be even better?
Rather than get into the bloody detail of how that season all fell apart, let’s instead focus on the fundamentals. Going into 2007, the team had showed no real progress under former head coach Romeo Crennel, as decent of a guy as there ever has been in pro football. The problem with Crennel was that he was ill suited to be a head coach. He lacked the organizational skills and the attention to detail that’s critical to the role. As a long time former assistant coach himself, he was far too deferential to his assistants and couldn’t control their jockeying and the attendant internal politics.
But on the strength of an easy schedule and its own set of improbables, the Browns put together a season to celebrate and all of Crennel’s flaws, long on display, were suddenly forgotten by too many. Indeed both Crennel and Savage were given contract extensions because of their one good season. This was a time to celebrate indeed.
The story of the 2008 season, as much as anything else, was the story of Crennel’s failures as a head coach. There were outsized personalities on that team, just like any other team, but Crennel was never much interested in controlling the troops except in the way that a grandfather babysitting for the afternoon tries to control his daughter’s unruly brood. It didn’t go any better for the Browns, either.
When Crennel and general manager Phil Savage were fired at the end of last season, Lerner had to eat a lot of salary and a lot of crow. Caught up in the exuberance of one good season, he let it dictate his future actions without bothering to dig below the surface.
Call me once bitten, but when it comes to one victory, even against the Steelers, this franchise shouldcaution is the better approach. Remember, the 2008 season spiraled out of control, particularly late. Ensconced in controversy of its own making and being overseen by individuals incapable of dealing with it, it’s not a surprise that it ended up 4-12. But that doesn’t mean the Browns were a 4-12 team and more than the 2007 team was a 10-6 team. Both more closely resembled 8-8 teams.
Now the Browns are one more year removed and this team is every bit the 2-11 team it’s shown to be this season, despite the victory against Pittsburgh. Looking good in a handful of games (a very small handful at that) doesn’t make it a good team. It makes it a bad team that can occasionally play well, nothing more. It may be worthy of polite applause but it’s not worthy of a coronation. This team is still far beyond the outskirts of arriving.
Mangini has a number of characteristics that make him more suited as a head coach than Crennel, but that doesn’t make him suited for the job in any event. He’s more detail oriented, certainly, and far more highly organized. He’s also far more disciplined, personally and professionally. But he lacks any real semblance of a human touch to his approach. He confuses being feared with being respected. He picks petty fights with team leaders. He’s random in his decision making. He’s distrustful of nearly everyone as if he’s working on nuclear fission and not next week’s game plan.
These traits were his downfall in New York and represent his overriding approach still in Cleveland. Interestingly, there isn’t an uncorrectable trait among them but until he shows a capacity to want to make those corrections then that’s the book that must be analyzed when deciding the future of this franchise and whether or not he’s part of it.
The story of the 2009 season, as much as anything else, is the story of Mangini’s shortcomings as a head coach. He adopted an operating premise, blinding accepted by those drinking his Kool-Aid as if delivered on tablets from Mt. Sinai, that a radical housecleaning was the only path forward. It’s a ridiculous premise.
Upgrading talent and changing the culture is an iterative process and not the result of re-invention. All Mangini’s done this season is make the team even less competitive than a year ago. Instead of losing by an average of 7 points as it did last season, now it’s losing by an average of 12. How does that qualify as progress? This is the direct result of personnel decisions Mangini’s made, not just in terms of who he let go but who he brought in.
If Mangini is the right person for this franchise it won’t have anything to do with one victory over Pittsburgh. It will hinge on his ability to grow personally and professionally, which can only start with a candid admission of his failures and an earnest willingness to change something that’s been foreign to him thus far.
I understand the need to find something positive in a season full of negatives. But if this franchise is ever going to improve, it will be the result of the fans wanting more and not settling for small victories in lost season. This fan base has been forced to beat its head against a wall for years. Sure, it feels so good when it stops, even temporarily, but don’t lose sight of how much it hurt in the first place.
I’ve received more than a few emails, about half of which are wondering whether I’ve come unhitched from my moorings. Don’t you get the it, the emailers asked? This was a victory over the Steelers. It’s proof that head coach Eric Mangini’s process is working.
Maybe I don’t get it and that’s the problem. I’d stack my credentials as a Browns observer against nearly anyone reading this. I’ve watched more Browns-Steelers games for more years than many of our readers have been alive. I understand the rivalry.
What I saw on Thursday was an inspired Cleveland team, playing on a national stage it didn’t deserve, beat the defending Super Bowl champs in all three phases of the game. The Steelers didn’t lose the game. The Browns won it, from the opening series forward. It was, as I said then, one of the more improbable victories that this franchise has seen in its last 10 years.
Contextually, I understand what a victory against the Steelers means. What I don’t understand is the need for some to go overboard as if it’s the greatest victory in franchise history. It doesn’t make the top 100.
In the harsh reality of this day, the Browns are still 2-11 and will be lucky to match last year’s miserable victory total of 4. In all but a very small handful of games have they even been competitive. The Steelers also aren’t anything more than a very mediocre NFL team at the moment. A loss to Kansas City might have been a fluke. The loss to Oakland might have been another fluke. But three losses to three really bad teams in near consecutive fashion is a trend.
The Steelers, having fallen so far so fast, are a cautionary tale of how it can all disappear so quickly when there’s a few key injuries and the rest of the team gets fat and happy with previous success. It reminds me of the 2008 Browns, actually, except all they were doing was coming off a 10-6 season in which they managed not to make the playoffs.
And that’s the larger point. Beating the Steelers is great. It always will be. This victory in particular was a needed jolt for a fan base whose team had been delivering nothing but bad news week after week after week after week. Whatever else it might be worth in the collective psyche it’s still not worth getting carried away over. It’s not time to plan the parades or worship at the altar of Randy Lerner over his dumb as a fox insight in choosing Eric Mangini as his head coach.
Let’s talk perspective. In 2007, the Browns, as noted, were 10-6. Heading into 2008, they were viewed by everyone as a team on the come. Derek Anderson, Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow, Jr. had Pro Bowl seasons. Donte Stallworth was acquired in the off-season. The draft, or at least what there was of it, didn’t yield much but the team was pretty much in tact from the previous season. Thus, went the thought process of too many experts who should have known better, with another year of experience how could it not be even better?
Rather than get into the bloody detail of how that season all fell apart, let’s instead focus on the fundamentals. Going into 2007, the team had showed no real progress under former head coach Romeo Crennel, as decent of a guy as there ever has been in pro football. The problem with Crennel was that he was ill suited to be a head coach. He lacked the organizational skills and the attention to detail that’s critical to the role. As a long time former assistant coach himself, he was far too deferential to his assistants and couldn’t control their jockeying and the attendant internal politics.
But on the strength of an easy schedule and its own set of improbables, the Browns put together a season to celebrate and all of Crennel’s flaws, long on display, were suddenly forgotten by too many. Indeed both Crennel and Savage were given contract extensions because of their one good season. This was a time to celebrate indeed.
The story of the 2008 season, as much as anything else, was the story of Crennel’s failures as a head coach. There were outsized personalities on that team, just like any other team, but Crennel was never much interested in controlling the troops except in the way that a grandfather babysitting for the afternoon tries to control his daughter’s unruly brood. It didn’t go any better for the Browns, either.
When Crennel and general manager Phil Savage were fired at the end of last season, Lerner had to eat a lot of salary and a lot of crow. Caught up in the exuberance of one good season, he let it dictate his future actions without bothering to dig below the surface.
Call me once bitten, but when it comes to one victory, even against the Steelers, this franchise shouldcaution is the better approach. Remember, the 2008 season spiraled out of control, particularly late. Ensconced in controversy of its own making and being overseen by individuals incapable of dealing with it, it’s not a surprise that it ended up 4-12. But that doesn’t mean the Browns were a 4-12 team and more than the 2007 team was a 10-6 team. Both more closely resembled 8-8 teams.
Now the Browns are one more year removed and this team is every bit the 2-11 team it’s shown to be this season, despite the victory against Pittsburgh. Looking good in a handful of games (a very small handful at that) doesn’t make it a good team. It makes it a bad team that can occasionally play well, nothing more. It may be worthy of polite applause but it’s not worthy of a coronation. This team is still far beyond the outskirts of arriving.
Mangini has a number of characteristics that make him more suited as a head coach than Crennel, but that doesn’t make him suited for the job in any event. He’s more detail oriented, certainly, and far more highly organized. He’s also far more disciplined, personally and professionally. But he lacks any real semblance of a human touch to his approach. He confuses being feared with being respected. He picks petty fights with team leaders. He’s random in his decision making. He’s distrustful of nearly everyone as if he’s working on nuclear fission and not next week’s game plan.
These traits were his downfall in New York and represent his overriding approach still in Cleveland. Interestingly, there isn’t an uncorrectable trait among them but until he shows a capacity to want to make those corrections then that’s the book that must be analyzed when deciding the future of this franchise and whether or not he’s part of it.
The story of the 2009 season, as much as anything else, is the story of Mangini’s shortcomings as a head coach. He adopted an operating premise, blinding accepted by those drinking his Kool-Aid as if delivered on tablets from Mt. Sinai, that a radical housecleaning was the only path forward. It’s a ridiculous premise.
Upgrading talent and changing the culture is an iterative process and not the result of re-invention. All Mangini’s done this season is make the team even less competitive than a year ago. Instead of losing by an average of 7 points as it did last season, now it’s losing by an average of 12. How does that qualify as progress? This is the direct result of personnel decisions Mangini’s made, not just in terms of who he let go but who he brought in.
If Mangini is the right person for this franchise it won’t have anything to do with one victory over Pittsburgh. It will hinge on his ability to grow personally and professionally, which can only start with a candid admission of his failures and an earnest willingness to change something that’s been foreign to him thus far.
I understand the need to find something positive in a season full of negatives. But if this franchise is ever going to improve, it will be the result of the fans wanting more and not settling for small victories in lost season. This fan base has been forced to beat its head against a wall for years. Sure, it feels so good when it stops, even temporarily, but don’t lose sight of how much it hurt in the first place.
Friday, December 11, 2009
The Reprieve
Of all the good news that Thursday night’s victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers brought to the Cleveland Browns and their fans, perhaps the best of all was the realization that their most hated rival has turned soft.
And not just soft as in fat, happy and successful as it sits perched upon the NFL’s highest mountain but soft as in easily intimated and unable to cope.
The Steelers of earlier this season, when they beat the Browns 27-14 with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger throwing for more than 400 yards and receiver Hines Ward smirking his way to 159 receiving yards looked to the Browns like the Steelers of any other season, which is to say unbeatable. But somewhere between then and now, the Steelers have become not just beatable but beaten and not just by others but by the Browns. The Steelers, all primp and polish just a month ago have turned into a bunch of weak nancies that can’t even cope with a little cold weather.
Well, they can get their jammies ready now. The offseason starts for them, just like the Browns, in a mere three weeks.
The victory, in retrospect, was set up by a number of factors coalescing at once. Although the game against the Chargers wasn’t particularly competitive as the game’s outcome was never in doubt, the Browns did stage a mini-rally in the fourth quarter to give the offense some needed momentum. With a short week and no time to unlearn what they had just memorized, the game on Thursday came at the right moment.
On the Steelers’ side of the field, it was almost the exact opposite. Playing at home last Sunday against the woeful Oakland Raiders, the Steelers lost a late lead, were forced into overtime and then dropped the game. A short week, with no time to decompress over the magnitude of that failure, was the last thing that team needed.
Then there was the weather. In the storied history of a rivalry seemingly played in virtually every kind of weather, Thursday night’s game represented the coldest temperature ever in the series. For the Browns, it just became another element to rally around. This is a team, after all, that’s had far bigger obstacles thrown in its way this season, usually by its own coaching staff. For the Steelers, it was another reason to bitch. As the game started, it was the Steelers players, not the Browns, who were huddled together under parkas and cozied up to the heaters on the sidelines.
The Steelers weren’t just out of their game plan from that first series forward, they were out of the game. They couldn’t fight through their own demons, their own injuries, the weather and a small but vocal crowd long enough to prove that they are worthy defending Super Bowl champions. Instead they demonstrated themselves to be a shadow of their former selves, unable to handle the collective weight of the kinds of things that better and stronger teams typically fight through on their way to championships.
The Browns have an emotional leader in defensive coordinator Rob Ryan. It was his victory as much as anyone’s. He speaks his mind, plainly and doesn’t hesitate to call himself out as well as his players. He’s emerging as the glue that’s actually holding this team together. But emotion can only go so far when playing a team with far more talent as the Browns have seen over and over again this season.
For all the good Ryan can do with a defensive unit, he’s not a miracle worker. Brandon McDonald is still Brandon McDonald. Hank Poteat is still Hank Poteat. Yet Ryan could tell from that first sack of Roethlisberger that these Steelers were indeed soft and as a result kept the pressure on, challenging their offensive line to make a play. It never did. Instead it was Ryan’s usually overmatched unit that pushed the Steelers’ offensive line around like a blocking sled on the practice field.
When the Steelers are sitting at home this off-season they will look back at Thursday’s game and be left to ponder how they let it all slip away like this and whether they have what it takes to get it all back. It’s about time that someone else in the division enters an offseason with a head full of doubts.
Exactly when and where the Steelers turned soft, it’s hard to say. At one point in the season they were 6-2. Maybe it was the loss to Kansas City. Certainly last week’s lost to Oakland contributed to the skid. But somewhere between last Sunday and this past Thursday night, the Steelers turned into something they probably thought would never happen to them. They’ve become the bullied.
In actuality, the Steelers are just following suit with the rest of the AFC North. The Baltimore Ravens, entering the weekend at 6-6, are just a bunch of posers and loudmouths at this point without enough bite to scare anyone. The Bengals, despite the record, are going to need a few seasons of success before anyone takes them seriously. For now they are a run-first, plodding offense and a defense that is quietly effective but hardly brutish.
The Browns, of course, are still firmly entrenched at the bottom of what’s become a weak division pecking order but they are no longer singular in their despair. There’s plenty of company, meaning that even small improvements in the off season have a chance to be noticed more quickly in the coming year.
Though any Browns victory is big news in these parts, the only reason to get particularly excited about this one is the fact that it came against the Steelers. Had this victory come against a team with a record similar to that of the Steelers, the Miami Dolphins for example, it would be more quickly dismissed.
Having been pushed around for the better part of the last 10 years by the Steelers, it was a necessary mountain that this Browns team had to climb. Having scaled the mountain once, though, doesn’t signal the end of any sort of journey. This team won’t have arrived until it can prove it’s not soft by staying competitive with the Steelers year in and year out.
The Browns are still 2-11 and the problems brought on by Mangini don’t just get swept under the rug because of one victory, even if it’s a victory against the Steelers. In reality, that’s why this franchise has been such a mess. Under the Lerner ownership it has an amazing capacity for naïveté. It tends to operate in best-case scenario mode all the time, assuming that great things naturally flow from small victories such as these. It’s what’s led to all of the incredibly poor decision making over the years.
This is not the time to lose perspective. Indeed it’s when keeping perspective is most crucial. The Browns’ victory on Thursday was as complete a victory as this team has had in 10 years. All three phases were working. And though players like Josh Cribbs like to say that a victory against the Steelers erases the memory of everything else about the season, the truth is that in the light of the next day it doesn’t.
As this season has worn on and Mangini has become more embattled, he’s been increasingly vocal about pleading his case for more time. One victory against the Steelers doesn’t in and of itself, make that case. What does is the ability to channel that sense of accomplishment of Thursday into an on-going operational imperative.
To this point in his career, Mangini has demonstrated he’s not up to that task. Given a reprieve on Thursday night, in all likelihood he’s down to his last chance. If he wants to continue to be a head coach in the NFL, it’s a chance he can’t squander.
The Browns don’t need to win any of their remaining games for Mangini to save his job so long as he and his team can demonstrate that Thursday’s victory turned into something to build upon. But if the Browns lay the kinds of eggs they’ve laid for most of the season in the upcoming games against Kansas City, Oakland and Jacksonville, then the Steelers victory and Mangini’s subsequent firing will be seen as nothing more than a pleasant little memory in a season filled with despair.
And not just soft as in fat, happy and successful as it sits perched upon the NFL’s highest mountain but soft as in easily intimated and unable to cope.
The Steelers of earlier this season, when they beat the Browns 27-14 with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger throwing for more than 400 yards and receiver Hines Ward smirking his way to 159 receiving yards looked to the Browns like the Steelers of any other season, which is to say unbeatable. But somewhere between then and now, the Steelers have become not just beatable but beaten and not just by others but by the Browns. The Steelers, all primp and polish just a month ago have turned into a bunch of weak nancies that can’t even cope with a little cold weather.
Well, they can get their jammies ready now. The offseason starts for them, just like the Browns, in a mere three weeks.
The victory, in retrospect, was set up by a number of factors coalescing at once. Although the game against the Chargers wasn’t particularly competitive as the game’s outcome was never in doubt, the Browns did stage a mini-rally in the fourth quarter to give the offense some needed momentum. With a short week and no time to unlearn what they had just memorized, the game on Thursday came at the right moment.
On the Steelers’ side of the field, it was almost the exact opposite. Playing at home last Sunday against the woeful Oakland Raiders, the Steelers lost a late lead, were forced into overtime and then dropped the game. A short week, with no time to decompress over the magnitude of that failure, was the last thing that team needed.
Then there was the weather. In the storied history of a rivalry seemingly played in virtually every kind of weather, Thursday night’s game represented the coldest temperature ever in the series. For the Browns, it just became another element to rally around. This is a team, after all, that’s had far bigger obstacles thrown in its way this season, usually by its own coaching staff. For the Steelers, it was another reason to bitch. As the game started, it was the Steelers players, not the Browns, who were huddled together under parkas and cozied up to the heaters on the sidelines.
The Steelers weren’t just out of their game plan from that first series forward, they were out of the game. They couldn’t fight through their own demons, their own injuries, the weather and a small but vocal crowd long enough to prove that they are worthy defending Super Bowl champions. Instead they demonstrated themselves to be a shadow of their former selves, unable to handle the collective weight of the kinds of things that better and stronger teams typically fight through on their way to championships.
The Browns have an emotional leader in defensive coordinator Rob Ryan. It was his victory as much as anyone’s. He speaks his mind, plainly and doesn’t hesitate to call himself out as well as his players. He’s emerging as the glue that’s actually holding this team together. But emotion can only go so far when playing a team with far more talent as the Browns have seen over and over again this season.
For all the good Ryan can do with a defensive unit, he’s not a miracle worker. Brandon McDonald is still Brandon McDonald. Hank Poteat is still Hank Poteat. Yet Ryan could tell from that first sack of Roethlisberger that these Steelers were indeed soft and as a result kept the pressure on, challenging their offensive line to make a play. It never did. Instead it was Ryan’s usually overmatched unit that pushed the Steelers’ offensive line around like a blocking sled on the practice field.
When the Steelers are sitting at home this off-season they will look back at Thursday’s game and be left to ponder how they let it all slip away like this and whether they have what it takes to get it all back. It’s about time that someone else in the division enters an offseason with a head full of doubts.
Exactly when and where the Steelers turned soft, it’s hard to say. At one point in the season they were 6-2. Maybe it was the loss to Kansas City. Certainly last week’s lost to Oakland contributed to the skid. But somewhere between last Sunday and this past Thursday night, the Steelers turned into something they probably thought would never happen to them. They’ve become the bullied.
In actuality, the Steelers are just following suit with the rest of the AFC North. The Baltimore Ravens, entering the weekend at 6-6, are just a bunch of posers and loudmouths at this point without enough bite to scare anyone. The Bengals, despite the record, are going to need a few seasons of success before anyone takes them seriously. For now they are a run-first, plodding offense and a defense that is quietly effective but hardly brutish.
The Browns, of course, are still firmly entrenched at the bottom of what’s become a weak division pecking order but they are no longer singular in their despair. There’s plenty of company, meaning that even small improvements in the off season have a chance to be noticed more quickly in the coming year.
Though any Browns victory is big news in these parts, the only reason to get particularly excited about this one is the fact that it came against the Steelers. Had this victory come against a team with a record similar to that of the Steelers, the Miami Dolphins for example, it would be more quickly dismissed.
Having been pushed around for the better part of the last 10 years by the Steelers, it was a necessary mountain that this Browns team had to climb. Having scaled the mountain once, though, doesn’t signal the end of any sort of journey. This team won’t have arrived until it can prove it’s not soft by staying competitive with the Steelers year in and year out.
The Browns are still 2-11 and the problems brought on by Mangini don’t just get swept under the rug because of one victory, even if it’s a victory against the Steelers. In reality, that’s why this franchise has been such a mess. Under the Lerner ownership it has an amazing capacity for naïveté. It tends to operate in best-case scenario mode all the time, assuming that great things naturally flow from small victories such as these. It’s what’s led to all of the incredibly poor decision making over the years.
This is not the time to lose perspective. Indeed it’s when keeping perspective is most crucial. The Browns’ victory on Thursday was as complete a victory as this team has had in 10 years. All three phases were working. And though players like Josh Cribbs like to say that a victory against the Steelers erases the memory of everything else about the season, the truth is that in the light of the next day it doesn’t.
As this season has worn on and Mangini has become more embattled, he’s been increasingly vocal about pleading his case for more time. One victory against the Steelers doesn’t in and of itself, make that case. What does is the ability to channel that sense of accomplishment of Thursday into an on-going operational imperative.
To this point in his career, Mangini has demonstrated he’s not up to that task. Given a reprieve on Thursday night, in all likelihood he’s down to his last chance. If he wants to continue to be a head coach in the NFL, it’s a chance he can’t squander.
The Browns don’t need to win any of their remaining games for Mangini to save his job so long as he and his team can demonstrate that Thursday’s victory turned into something to build upon. But if the Browns lay the kinds of eggs they’ve laid for most of the season in the upcoming games against Kansas City, Oakland and Jacksonville, then the Steelers victory and Mangini’s subsequent firing will be seen as nothing more than a pleasant little memory in a season filled with despair.
A Night Worth Celebrating
Pittsburgh Steelers, welcome to the dark side.
The Cleveland Browns, their season long since over, brought a little company along for the rest of the ride into the offseason, simultaneously stunning and embarrassing the Steelers and the thousands watching all around the world Thursday night, 13-6. Making the victory even sweeter for the Browns was the fact that the loss all but ended any chance that the Steelers’, last year’s Super Bowl champs, have of making the playoffs.
For the Browns, a team of modest talent and more injuries and a team that doesn’t look to sniff the playoffs for years, it was a chance to experience what a meaningful victory tastes like as they sent the Steelers to their 5th straight loss and, more importantly, stopped both a 7-game losing streak of their own and a 12-game losing streak to the Steelers.
When the final words on this season are written, no matter what happens next this will serve as the high water mark, and well it should.
Though the Browns offense did enough to win the game, it was a game that most assuredly belonged to the Browns’ defense. Disguising coverages all night, the Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger seemed confused and unable to ever fully get into a rhythm. He repeatedly had trouble finding open receivers, except underneath, and was sacked an astounding 7 times.
Really, there was no negative in the game. Brady Quinn showed good leadership and remained in charge, his relatively modest statistics notwithstanding. But Josh Cribbs, as he’s been most of the season, was the player the Steelers really couldn’t control. His 54-yard punt return set up the Browns’ first score and he was almost unstoppable for the Steelers’ defense out of the “wildcat” formation. Although Cribbs only had 8 carries, it seemed like far more since he covered 87 yards. Rookie Chris Jennings was effective in his own right, adding 73 yards on 20 carries.
This was the game that the dwindling supporters of head coach Eric Mangini had been waiting for all year. The win against the Buffalo Bills didn’t register because the Bills are like the Browns, just a little further east. But the Steelers, they have cache. And for this night Mangini can finally legitimately celebrate something. The complete game that his team played against a team that needed the win far more than them is probably going to give Mangini something more to celebrate than just the win. Owner Randy Lerner, who looks to take the easy way out of everything, can use this game as the reason to continue the Mangini experiment for another year. Maybe that was the Steelers’ game plan all along.
From the outset, the Steelers seemed far more bothered by the cold, windy weather than the Browns, repeatedly huddling under parkas and around heaters. Indeed it wasn’t until very late in the first half that the Steelers showed any signs of life.
With the elements almost guaranteeing that it would be a game of field position, the ability to control the ball and get first downs would be critical.
The Browns did just that when it mattered most. Their first score, a 30-yard field goal by Phil Dawson, was the culmination of a field position chess match, aided greatly by an inspired defense that sacked Roethlisberger on third down on consecutive series. The 54-yard punt return by Cribbs put the ball at the Steelers’ 8-yard line but a holding penalty pushed the ball back to the 17-yard line and Quinn and the offense couldn’t convert the red zone opportunity into a touchdown.
The Browns got to the red zone again after taking over at their own 49-yard line thanks to a Quinn to Mohammad Massaquoi pass that went for 37 yards. But the Browns again couldn’t convert the opportunity into a touchdown and again had to settle for another 30-yard Dawson field goal.
As much as they were dominating the game to this point, call it the long shadow of 12 consecutive losses to their most hated rival but there was a feeling that the Browns’ two red zone failures would come back to haunt them later.
But as the game wore on it became increasingly apparent that these aren’t the Steelers of old, or even the Steelers of earlier this season. Their next drive, as much as any, laid it out in stark terms.
After starting from his own 26-yard line, Roethlisberger mishandled a snap and lost two yards. He was then sacked on consecutive plays and the Steelers again forced to punt. For good measure, on the punt the Steelers were flagged for holding which negated a fumble recovery that would have given them the ball at the Browns’ 42-yard line and perhaps turned the tide. Daniel Sepulvada’s next punt was down at the Cleveland 40 but a personal foul pushed the ball back to the 26-yard line.
But that changed quickly as Cribbs, already having a big game, ran 37 yards on a direct snap that took the ball to the Pittsburgh 30-yard line. Quinn then connected with running back Chris Jennings for 8-yards and snuck it up the middle for another first down giving them the ball at the Steelers’ 19-yard line, their third trip in the red zone. It was a charm.
Jennings ran straight up the middle for 9 yards and then finished off the drive with a 10-yard touchdown run giving the Browns their first rushing touchdown by a running back this season. Dawson’s extra point gave the Browns a 13-0 lead with just 41 seconds in the half.
For the moment anyway, the Steelers looked cold, tentative and beaten.
But looks were deceiving as the Steelers didn’t just fold for the half. Taking over at their own 33-yard line, Roethlisberger quickly moved the Steelers down the field and had a chance for a touchdown but threw behind tight end Heath Miller at the goal line, forcing the Steelers to settle for a 27-yard field goal by Jeff Reed that closed the gap to 13-3 at the half.
That bit of success seemed to inspire the Steelers out of the gate in the second half. Moving with a crispness that was missing for most of the first 30 minutes of the game, the Steelers quickly went from their own 12-yard line to the 50. But Roethlisberger’s pass to Holmes on 3rd and 5 was low and a promising drive halted.
It’s at these points that games like these are often won or lost. With the ball sitting on their 13-yard line and plenty of game left to play, the Browns didn’t necessarily need to score but they did need to hold on to the ball long enough to let the Steelers’ defense know that they weren’t going to succumb to the pressure of holding a lead.
And that’s more or less what they did, mostly on the back of Jennings who was running often and hard. As a result the Browns were able to change field position, getting the ball to their 45-yard line before being forced to punt. Hodges punt, though, traveled only 27 yards against the wind and Pittsburgh started their next drive at their 28-yard line.
But the Steelers again went 3-and-out with Roethlisberger again being sacked, this time by linebacker David Bowens. It was the Browns’ 6th sack of Roethlisberger in the game and there was still over 5 minutes left in the third quarter. It also represented the first time this season that the Browns were ever in the heads of an opponent. The Steelers were effectively done.
Or so it would have seemed. The Steelers began to pressure the Browns on both sides of the ball, holding the offense to consecutive 3-and-outs while moving the ball down the field themselves. But when Roethlisberger missed badly on a pass to Hines Ward (and in fairness to Ward, he looked like he was held though there was no flag), the Steelers had to again settle for a field goal. They didn’t get any closer.
About the only questionable moment in the game occurred after the Steelers took over at their own 39 and appeared stalled at the Cleveland 34-yard line when Roethlisberger’s pass to Miller was short of the mark. The Steelers were flagged for holding on the play and were going to keep their offense on the field on 4th and 8. But instead of declining the penalty, which even the officials figured would occurred, Mangini oddly took the penalty pushing the Steelers back further but giving them two more chances to get the first down.
Like most everything else on this night, it worked. Rashard Mendenhall dropped Roethlisberger’s 3rd-down pass, forcing the Steelers to punt.
The Browns, using both Jennings and Cribbs effectively, were then able to take a little more than 5 more minutes off the clock before punting. With 6:24 to play and the Steelers starting at their own 21-yard line, there was the sense that this would be the Steelers’ last real chance.
And the Steelers looked for awhile like they were going to make it a classic late season drive by a playoff-caliber team. But after moving the ball into Cleveland territory with just over two minutes left in the game, Roethlisberger was sacked for the 7th time. With the Steelers facing 2nd and 19, Matt Roth nearly picked off Roethlisberger but the ball it the turf. After the two-minute warning, Miller picked up 13 of the 19 yards needed on 3rd down but on 4th down Roethlisberger missed badly and almost had it picked off by Bowens. With 1:43 left and the Steelers down to 1 time out, the celebration was on.
In a season in which so much has gone wrong, most of it self-inflicted, this was the night for a little redemption. It’s hard to figure, really, how that could happen. Statistically the game shaped up as an incredible mismatch. The Steelers were gaining an average of 130 yards more a game on offense and outscoring the Browns by an average of 10 points a game. On defense, the Browns were giving up a staggering 400 yards a game while the Steelers, sporting an unusually weak defense themselves, were still giving up 100 yards less a game. And as bad as the Steelers’ defense had been playing, they still were only giving up 78 yards a game on the ground while the Browns were giving up 155 yards a game.
But the actual game turned these statistics on their collective ears. It was the Browns dominating on the ground with 171 yards to the Steelers 75. It was the Browns that outgained the Steelers in total yards, 255-216. Finally, it was the Browns that beat the Steelers, a sentence I haven’t been able to write in 6 years.
For this game to be the actual start of the vaunted Mangini process and not a late season mirage, the Browns need to use it as a spring board, particularly since they play Kansas City and Oakland the next two weeks. If they’re able to start a modest win streak, then the off season won’t seem as dismal. If past be prologue, though, the one thing we know for sure is it won’t come easy.
The Cleveland Browns, their season long since over, brought a little company along for the rest of the ride into the offseason, simultaneously stunning and embarrassing the Steelers and the thousands watching all around the world Thursday night, 13-6. Making the victory even sweeter for the Browns was the fact that the loss all but ended any chance that the Steelers’, last year’s Super Bowl champs, have of making the playoffs.
For the Browns, a team of modest talent and more injuries and a team that doesn’t look to sniff the playoffs for years, it was a chance to experience what a meaningful victory tastes like as they sent the Steelers to their 5th straight loss and, more importantly, stopped both a 7-game losing streak of their own and a 12-game losing streak to the Steelers.
When the final words on this season are written, no matter what happens next this will serve as the high water mark, and well it should.
Though the Browns offense did enough to win the game, it was a game that most assuredly belonged to the Browns’ defense. Disguising coverages all night, the Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger seemed confused and unable to ever fully get into a rhythm. He repeatedly had trouble finding open receivers, except underneath, and was sacked an astounding 7 times.
Really, there was no negative in the game. Brady Quinn showed good leadership and remained in charge, his relatively modest statistics notwithstanding. But Josh Cribbs, as he’s been most of the season, was the player the Steelers really couldn’t control. His 54-yard punt return set up the Browns’ first score and he was almost unstoppable for the Steelers’ defense out of the “wildcat” formation. Although Cribbs only had 8 carries, it seemed like far more since he covered 87 yards. Rookie Chris Jennings was effective in his own right, adding 73 yards on 20 carries.
This was the game that the dwindling supporters of head coach Eric Mangini had been waiting for all year. The win against the Buffalo Bills didn’t register because the Bills are like the Browns, just a little further east. But the Steelers, they have cache. And for this night Mangini can finally legitimately celebrate something. The complete game that his team played against a team that needed the win far more than them is probably going to give Mangini something more to celebrate than just the win. Owner Randy Lerner, who looks to take the easy way out of everything, can use this game as the reason to continue the Mangini experiment for another year. Maybe that was the Steelers’ game plan all along.
From the outset, the Steelers seemed far more bothered by the cold, windy weather than the Browns, repeatedly huddling under parkas and around heaters. Indeed it wasn’t until very late in the first half that the Steelers showed any signs of life.
With the elements almost guaranteeing that it would be a game of field position, the ability to control the ball and get first downs would be critical.
The Browns did just that when it mattered most. Their first score, a 30-yard field goal by Phil Dawson, was the culmination of a field position chess match, aided greatly by an inspired defense that sacked Roethlisberger on third down on consecutive series. The 54-yard punt return by Cribbs put the ball at the Steelers’ 8-yard line but a holding penalty pushed the ball back to the 17-yard line and Quinn and the offense couldn’t convert the red zone opportunity into a touchdown.
The Browns got to the red zone again after taking over at their own 49-yard line thanks to a Quinn to Mohammad Massaquoi pass that went for 37 yards. But the Browns again couldn’t convert the opportunity into a touchdown and again had to settle for another 30-yard Dawson field goal.
As much as they were dominating the game to this point, call it the long shadow of 12 consecutive losses to their most hated rival but there was a feeling that the Browns’ two red zone failures would come back to haunt them later.
But as the game wore on it became increasingly apparent that these aren’t the Steelers of old, or even the Steelers of earlier this season. Their next drive, as much as any, laid it out in stark terms.
After starting from his own 26-yard line, Roethlisberger mishandled a snap and lost two yards. He was then sacked on consecutive plays and the Steelers again forced to punt. For good measure, on the punt the Steelers were flagged for holding which negated a fumble recovery that would have given them the ball at the Browns’ 42-yard line and perhaps turned the tide. Daniel Sepulvada’s next punt was down at the Cleveland 40 but a personal foul pushed the ball back to the 26-yard line.
But that changed quickly as Cribbs, already having a big game, ran 37 yards on a direct snap that took the ball to the Pittsburgh 30-yard line. Quinn then connected with running back Chris Jennings for 8-yards and snuck it up the middle for another first down giving them the ball at the Steelers’ 19-yard line, their third trip in the red zone. It was a charm.
Jennings ran straight up the middle for 9 yards and then finished off the drive with a 10-yard touchdown run giving the Browns their first rushing touchdown by a running back this season. Dawson’s extra point gave the Browns a 13-0 lead with just 41 seconds in the half.
For the moment anyway, the Steelers looked cold, tentative and beaten.
But looks were deceiving as the Steelers didn’t just fold for the half. Taking over at their own 33-yard line, Roethlisberger quickly moved the Steelers down the field and had a chance for a touchdown but threw behind tight end Heath Miller at the goal line, forcing the Steelers to settle for a 27-yard field goal by Jeff Reed that closed the gap to 13-3 at the half.
That bit of success seemed to inspire the Steelers out of the gate in the second half. Moving with a crispness that was missing for most of the first 30 minutes of the game, the Steelers quickly went from their own 12-yard line to the 50. But Roethlisberger’s pass to Holmes on 3rd and 5 was low and a promising drive halted.
It’s at these points that games like these are often won or lost. With the ball sitting on their 13-yard line and plenty of game left to play, the Browns didn’t necessarily need to score but they did need to hold on to the ball long enough to let the Steelers’ defense know that they weren’t going to succumb to the pressure of holding a lead.
And that’s more or less what they did, mostly on the back of Jennings who was running often and hard. As a result the Browns were able to change field position, getting the ball to their 45-yard line before being forced to punt. Hodges punt, though, traveled only 27 yards against the wind and Pittsburgh started their next drive at their 28-yard line.
But the Steelers again went 3-and-out with Roethlisberger again being sacked, this time by linebacker David Bowens. It was the Browns’ 6th sack of Roethlisberger in the game and there was still over 5 minutes left in the third quarter. It also represented the first time this season that the Browns were ever in the heads of an opponent. The Steelers were effectively done.
Or so it would have seemed. The Steelers began to pressure the Browns on both sides of the ball, holding the offense to consecutive 3-and-outs while moving the ball down the field themselves. But when Roethlisberger missed badly on a pass to Hines Ward (and in fairness to Ward, he looked like he was held though there was no flag), the Steelers had to again settle for a field goal. They didn’t get any closer.
About the only questionable moment in the game occurred after the Steelers took over at their own 39 and appeared stalled at the Cleveland 34-yard line when Roethlisberger’s pass to Miller was short of the mark. The Steelers were flagged for holding on the play and were going to keep their offense on the field on 4th and 8. But instead of declining the penalty, which even the officials figured would occurred, Mangini oddly took the penalty pushing the Steelers back further but giving them two more chances to get the first down.
Like most everything else on this night, it worked. Rashard Mendenhall dropped Roethlisberger’s 3rd-down pass, forcing the Steelers to punt.
The Browns, using both Jennings and Cribbs effectively, were then able to take a little more than 5 more minutes off the clock before punting. With 6:24 to play and the Steelers starting at their own 21-yard line, there was the sense that this would be the Steelers’ last real chance.
And the Steelers looked for awhile like they were going to make it a classic late season drive by a playoff-caliber team. But after moving the ball into Cleveland territory with just over two minutes left in the game, Roethlisberger was sacked for the 7th time. With the Steelers facing 2nd and 19, Matt Roth nearly picked off Roethlisberger but the ball it the turf. After the two-minute warning, Miller picked up 13 of the 19 yards needed on 3rd down but on 4th down Roethlisberger missed badly and almost had it picked off by Bowens. With 1:43 left and the Steelers down to 1 time out, the celebration was on.
In a season in which so much has gone wrong, most of it self-inflicted, this was the night for a little redemption. It’s hard to figure, really, how that could happen. Statistically the game shaped up as an incredible mismatch. The Steelers were gaining an average of 130 yards more a game on offense and outscoring the Browns by an average of 10 points a game. On defense, the Browns were giving up a staggering 400 yards a game while the Steelers, sporting an unusually weak defense themselves, were still giving up 100 yards less a game. And as bad as the Steelers’ defense had been playing, they still were only giving up 78 yards a game on the ground while the Browns were giving up 155 yards a game.
But the actual game turned these statistics on their collective ears. It was the Browns dominating on the ground with 171 yards to the Steelers 75. It was the Browns that outgained the Steelers in total yards, 255-216. Finally, it was the Browns that beat the Steelers, a sentence I haven’t been able to write in 6 years.
For this game to be the actual start of the vaunted Mangini process and not a late season mirage, the Browns need to use it as a spring board, particularly since they play Kansas City and Oakland the next two weeks. If they’re able to start a modest win streak, then the off season won’t seem as dismal. If past be prologue, though, the one thing we know for sure is it won’t come easy.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Lingering Items--Annual Traditions Edition
Let’s see, it’s the second week of December and that can only mean one thing: the various BCS bowl matchups have been announced. Actually, it also means another thing: time for my yearly rant about the BCS.
To recap for those just joining our programming, everything that’s right about college football played at the highest level is undercut by the ridiculous thinking behind the Bowl Championship Series, from it’s completing misleading nameplate to it’s completing misleading mission. Ostensibly designed to yield an undisputed national champion, all it does is create more disputes than it resolves.
It may be that the BCS more or less got the match ups right this season, but that does nothing to justify its ill-conceived existence. The fact is that both TCU and Boise State, paired against each other coincidentally enough in the Fiesta Bowl, were essentially bought off with millions of dollars in order to keep their big mouths shut. It’s what the BCS does when it has a problem—papers over it with money. If that doesn’t work, it hires a consultant.
The BCS is on a slow but steady trip toward obsolescence. Congress is now involved and despite public perception that the only thing Congress ever does is spend your tax money unwisely, institutions tend to get their panties in a twist every time Congress sticks its nose in their business.
BCS defenders will do their best to fend off Congressional inquiries with the argument that Congress should have better things to worry about ignoring the fact that this little recreational diversion is a multi-multi million dollar business.
This is all well and good but what ultimately will do the BCS in is the convergence of greed and stupidity. I can’t wait.
The greed involved comes in many forms, nearly most of which do nothing for the actual players involved save for the little trinkets they get for participating. As you’d expect, there’s a NCAA rule on it which limits the value of those trinkets to $500. Of course, if you’re not in any sort of bowl game, like a Michigan player for example, getting those same sorts of trinkets from a booster will cause you to lose your eligibility.
The BCS is about the money, but not for the also-rans. The de facto Super Conference made up of the 15 or so programs (at most) that can actually compete for a championship get the spoils; the rest of Division I, not so much. This money helps fill the increasingly larger holes in the college budgets, holes that were there because of the cost of the programs in the first place but deepened because of the economic crisis.
In a perfect world the riches the BCS promises would incent more colleges to make themselves BCS-bowl worthy. And in some sense that’s worked. But the cost of fielding a program that can legitimately compete for a national championship in Division I football has grown, for most schools, far more quickly than the revenue side of their operations.
Indeed, the rising tide of BCS bowls has actually had the inverse affect on non-BCS participants. The “other” bowls became even more irrelevant, substantively and financially. There is less advertising dollars dedicated to those bowls, particularly now, and the crowds are dwindling. The BCS, designed supposedly to respect the integrity of the existing bowls, has basically protected the integrity of a handful of bowls and thrown the rest under the proverbial bus. Let me know how that Eaglebank Bowl works out.
Sooner or later an uprising of college presidents on the short end of the BCS stick will get wise to the suckers they’ve been played for by those dining on caviar. That tide will turn soon enough.
Also giving it a rather big push will be the incredibly flawed way that BCS participants are chosen. This may be the even bigger con. Each year the system gets tweaked but ultimately it’s weighted heavily toward human opinion in the form of various polls voted on either by coaches or the media. The underlying assumption in these polls is that the underlying task will be taken seriously by its participants. Says who?
How many media members or coaches have actually seen enough games played by either TCU or Boise State to have an informed opinion on their body of work or have an understanding of the relative weakness of their competition each week? Miami is in the top 20 but how many have really watched them play? Not to pick on the Cincinnati Bearcats, but they gave up 44 points to Pittsburgh and have given up an average of nearly 40 points in each of their last 4 games and they are in the top 5. Is it simply because they’ve won irrespective of the weakness of its conference or its defense this year? And that’s just four teams off the top of my head.
If you want an illustration of what really happens, consider the outcome of the final week of the USA Today’s coaches poll. On Steve Spurrier’s ballot this past week, he or the sports information director at South Carolina on his behalf, voted Penn State 9th, Iowa 10th and Ohio State 11th. That just proves they either aren’t paying attention or just aren’t taking it seriously. Other similar flaws can be found throughout.
While Spurrier’s vote was mostly irrelevant to the outcome it underscores an incredible problem. If one supposedly highly-respected coach or his sports information director can’t even be relied upon to get the big things right how can anyone have any trust that the little things are right? I put it to you, Dean Wormer, doesn’t that in turn undermine the integrity of the entire system?
If the goal in this country is to have an undisputed national champion then of course a playoff system is the only alternative. First things first, let’s reach consensus that establishing an undisputed champion is even a worthy goal. College presidents can’t claim that a playoff system isn’t in the academic best interests of the players but somehow justify the BCS as a worthy pursuit.
But if the BCS is to persist it ultimately can’t exist in its present form but must be the culmination of an actual, credible playoff system. And it’s not that hard to figure out despite what the BCS-hired twitter gurus will try to tell you. Put it this way, every college involve prides itself first on its research capabilities. Certainly an institution able to make headway in the field of molecular biology can find some frat kid with a little time on his hands to draw up a bracket using Google Docs.
**
What’s turning into another annual holiday tradition is the voting results of the Baseball Hall of Fame’s veteran’s committee. Revamped last year, the purpose is to honor veterans whom the media did not otherwise feel were Hall worthy during their initial period of eligibility.
This year the Veterans Committee elected former St. Louis Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog and former umpire Doug Harvey. That’s all well and good. Even better, though, is that once again Marvin Miller is on the outside looking in, though he’s inching closer.
Miller fell two short votes for election and if Hall voting has proven anything it’s that just having your name hang around for enough years eventually gets you in. It’s as if these borderline candidates are being rewarded for their persistence, even in retirement.
Let’s hope Miller proves to be the exception to the rule. The passage of time will never adequately erase the memory of how his strident views and Oz-like persona combined to nearly ruin the game. His is a legacy that continues today.
It’s because of Miller that baseball still doesn’t have a salary cap and is divided into haves and have nots. The economic problems facing baseball are so vast and the union’s contributions under Miller and his progeny to solving them so slim that baseball remains on the brink of killing its own golden goose.
I’ll give Miller credit for being a tough advocate on behalf of his clients but that singular skill doesn’t erase the fact that he never worked for the betterment of the game itself. He always saw baseball in relative terms and could have cared less about its long term health.
Miller certainly had a profound impact on the game, but then so too did the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and as far as I know the Veterans Committee hasn’t ever once considered enshrining former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo into the Hall of Fame. The same should go for Miller.
**
Speaking of baseball’s annual pre-holiday “winter” meetings, the news on Tuesday that the Indians are shopping closer Kerry Wood may have been expected but that has nothing to do with general manager Mark Shapiro’s talent judgments. The issues are larger and relate, as most things economic do, to the aforementioned Miller.
Ostensibly the Indians are shopping Wood because he doesn’t fit into their plans. It’s the same half-truth that accompanies the phrase “I’m not looking to get into a relationship right now.” Since when doesn’t a closer figure into any team’s plans?
Of course, what Shapiro really means is that this particular closer with his particular salary, like that particular girl with that particular mole on his nose, doesn’t fit into his plans. That’s a very loud and truthful statement on the state of baseball economics.
The Indians don’t have another established closer on their roster but are more than willing to go it without one because it’s far cheaper. They know there is no realistic chance for this team to be competitive so why not be uncompetitive at a cheaper price? If you or I were paying the bills you can be damn sure we’d think the same way.
There is always the potential that someone like Jensen Lewis, given the opportunity without having to worry about Wood sitting in the bullpen, can establish himself. That’s the pie-in-the-sky upside. But this move isn’t about Lewis, it’s about a payroll the Indians can no longer afford.
This illustrates precisely why baseball is such a mess. With no salary cap and no meaningful revenue sharing, teams like the Indians do not have any meaningful chance to compete with teams like New York and Boston on a yearly basis. They must rely solely on luck, as in most of their young roster getting good at around the same time and before they’re eligible for either arbitration or free agency. Once in awhile it works. But year in and year out it doesn’t.
Wood, like Victor Martinez, C.C. Sabathia and Cliff Lee before him, is a “luxury” that bottom feeder teams like Cleveland can’t afford. It’s fun to have champagne tastes but the Indians have a beer budget and with that even a slightly lesser label like Wood is out of their reach.
**
Nothing on the Cleveland Browns? Ha. This week’s question to ponder: Did the NFL purposely schedule this week’s game against Pittsburgh on Thursday knowing that the NFL Network is still unavailable to a large part of the country?
To recap for those just joining our programming, everything that’s right about college football played at the highest level is undercut by the ridiculous thinking behind the Bowl Championship Series, from it’s completing misleading nameplate to it’s completing misleading mission. Ostensibly designed to yield an undisputed national champion, all it does is create more disputes than it resolves.
It may be that the BCS more or less got the match ups right this season, but that does nothing to justify its ill-conceived existence. The fact is that both TCU and Boise State, paired against each other coincidentally enough in the Fiesta Bowl, were essentially bought off with millions of dollars in order to keep their big mouths shut. It’s what the BCS does when it has a problem—papers over it with money. If that doesn’t work, it hires a consultant.
The BCS is on a slow but steady trip toward obsolescence. Congress is now involved and despite public perception that the only thing Congress ever does is spend your tax money unwisely, institutions tend to get their panties in a twist every time Congress sticks its nose in their business.
BCS defenders will do their best to fend off Congressional inquiries with the argument that Congress should have better things to worry about ignoring the fact that this little recreational diversion is a multi-multi million dollar business.
This is all well and good but what ultimately will do the BCS in is the convergence of greed and stupidity. I can’t wait.
The greed involved comes in many forms, nearly most of which do nothing for the actual players involved save for the little trinkets they get for participating. As you’d expect, there’s a NCAA rule on it which limits the value of those trinkets to $500. Of course, if you’re not in any sort of bowl game, like a Michigan player for example, getting those same sorts of trinkets from a booster will cause you to lose your eligibility.
The BCS is about the money, but not for the also-rans. The de facto Super Conference made up of the 15 or so programs (at most) that can actually compete for a championship get the spoils; the rest of Division I, not so much. This money helps fill the increasingly larger holes in the college budgets, holes that were there because of the cost of the programs in the first place but deepened because of the economic crisis.
In a perfect world the riches the BCS promises would incent more colleges to make themselves BCS-bowl worthy. And in some sense that’s worked. But the cost of fielding a program that can legitimately compete for a national championship in Division I football has grown, for most schools, far more quickly than the revenue side of their operations.
Indeed, the rising tide of BCS bowls has actually had the inverse affect on non-BCS participants. The “other” bowls became even more irrelevant, substantively and financially. There is less advertising dollars dedicated to those bowls, particularly now, and the crowds are dwindling. The BCS, designed supposedly to respect the integrity of the existing bowls, has basically protected the integrity of a handful of bowls and thrown the rest under the proverbial bus. Let me know how that Eaglebank Bowl works out.
Sooner or later an uprising of college presidents on the short end of the BCS stick will get wise to the suckers they’ve been played for by those dining on caviar. That tide will turn soon enough.
Also giving it a rather big push will be the incredibly flawed way that BCS participants are chosen. This may be the even bigger con. Each year the system gets tweaked but ultimately it’s weighted heavily toward human opinion in the form of various polls voted on either by coaches or the media. The underlying assumption in these polls is that the underlying task will be taken seriously by its participants. Says who?
How many media members or coaches have actually seen enough games played by either TCU or Boise State to have an informed opinion on their body of work or have an understanding of the relative weakness of their competition each week? Miami is in the top 20 but how many have really watched them play? Not to pick on the Cincinnati Bearcats, but they gave up 44 points to Pittsburgh and have given up an average of nearly 40 points in each of their last 4 games and they are in the top 5. Is it simply because they’ve won irrespective of the weakness of its conference or its defense this year? And that’s just four teams off the top of my head.
If you want an illustration of what really happens, consider the outcome of the final week of the USA Today’s coaches poll. On Steve Spurrier’s ballot this past week, he or the sports information director at South Carolina on his behalf, voted Penn State 9th, Iowa 10th and Ohio State 11th. That just proves they either aren’t paying attention or just aren’t taking it seriously. Other similar flaws can be found throughout.
While Spurrier’s vote was mostly irrelevant to the outcome it underscores an incredible problem. If one supposedly highly-respected coach or his sports information director can’t even be relied upon to get the big things right how can anyone have any trust that the little things are right? I put it to you, Dean Wormer, doesn’t that in turn undermine the integrity of the entire system?
If the goal in this country is to have an undisputed national champion then of course a playoff system is the only alternative. First things first, let’s reach consensus that establishing an undisputed champion is even a worthy goal. College presidents can’t claim that a playoff system isn’t in the academic best interests of the players but somehow justify the BCS as a worthy pursuit.
But if the BCS is to persist it ultimately can’t exist in its present form but must be the culmination of an actual, credible playoff system. And it’s not that hard to figure out despite what the BCS-hired twitter gurus will try to tell you. Put it this way, every college involve prides itself first on its research capabilities. Certainly an institution able to make headway in the field of molecular biology can find some frat kid with a little time on his hands to draw up a bracket using Google Docs.
**
What’s turning into another annual holiday tradition is the voting results of the Baseball Hall of Fame’s veteran’s committee. Revamped last year, the purpose is to honor veterans whom the media did not otherwise feel were Hall worthy during their initial period of eligibility.
This year the Veterans Committee elected former St. Louis Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog and former umpire Doug Harvey. That’s all well and good. Even better, though, is that once again Marvin Miller is on the outside looking in, though he’s inching closer.
Miller fell two short votes for election and if Hall voting has proven anything it’s that just having your name hang around for enough years eventually gets you in. It’s as if these borderline candidates are being rewarded for their persistence, even in retirement.
Let’s hope Miller proves to be the exception to the rule. The passage of time will never adequately erase the memory of how his strident views and Oz-like persona combined to nearly ruin the game. His is a legacy that continues today.
It’s because of Miller that baseball still doesn’t have a salary cap and is divided into haves and have nots. The economic problems facing baseball are so vast and the union’s contributions under Miller and his progeny to solving them so slim that baseball remains on the brink of killing its own golden goose.
I’ll give Miller credit for being a tough advocate on behalf of his clients but that singular skill doesn’t erase the fact that he never worked for the betterment of the game itself. He always saw baseball in relative terms and could have cared less about its long term health.
Miller certainly had a profound impact on the game, but then so too did the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and as far as I know the Veterans Committee hasn’t ever once considered enshrining former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo into the Hall of Fame. The same should go for Miller.
**
Speaking of baseball’s annual pre-holiday “winter” meetings, the news on Tuesday that the Indians are shopping closer Kerry Wood may have been expected but that has nothing to do with general manager Mark Shapiro’s talent judgments. The issues are larger and relate, as most things economic do, to the aforementioned Miller.
Ostensibly the Indians are shopping Wood because he doesn’t fit into their plans. It’s the same half-truth that accompanies the phrase “I’m not looking to get into a relationship right now.” Since when doesn’t a closer figure into any team’s plans?
Of course, what Shapiro really means is that this particular closer with his particular salary, like that particular girl with that particular mole on his nose, doesn’t fit into his plans. That’s a very loud and truthful statement on the state of baseball economics.
The Indians don’t have another established closer on their roster but are more than willing to go it without one because it’s far cheaper. They know there is no realistic chance for this team to be competitive so why not be uncompetitive at a cheaper price? If you or I were paying the bills you can be damn sure we’d think the same way.
There is always the potential that someone like Jensen Lewis, given the opportunity without having to worry about Wood sitting in the bullpen, can establish himself. That’s the pie-in-the-sky upside. But this move isn’t about Lewis, it’s about a payroll the Indians can no longer afford.
This illustrates precisely why baseball is such a mess. With no salary cap and no meaningful revenue sharing, teams like the Indians do not have any meaningful chance to compete with teams like New York and Boston on a yearly basis. They must rely solely on luck, as in most of their young roster getting good at around the same time and before they’re eligible for either arbitration or free agency. Once in awhile it works. But year in and year out it doesn’t.
Wood, like Victor Martinez, C.C. Sabathia and Cliff Lee before him, is a “luxury” that bottom feeder teams like Cleveland can’t afford. It’s fun to have champagne tastes but the Indians have a beer budget and with that even a slightly lesser label like Wood is out of their reach.
**
Nothing on the Cleveland Browns? Ha. This week’s question to ponder: Did the NFL purposely schedule this week’s game against Pittsburgh on Thursday knowing that the NFL Network is still unavailable to a large part of the country?
Monday, December 07, 2009
Choking on Sawdust
Does a fourth quarter rally against a team that was already half packed for its trip back to the West Coast constitute being competitive? If it does, then Cleveland Browns head coach Eric Mangini can use it as some evidence, scant as it is, that his mystical process is now working. If it doesn’t, then, well, nothing’s changed after Sunday’s loss to the San Diego Chargers except the number on the loss column.
In actuality the loss represents neither much of a step back or forward. In but a few days it will just be another forgotten loss in a season where everything’s been forgettable in a season painfully memorable.
Quarterback Brady Quinn actually represents this polemic well. Quinn ran a text book, opening drive on Sunday that resulted in the team’s first opening drive touchdown in over two years. He also had two late touchdown passes and seemed composed and in charge throughout. But then he also had a critical fumble in the second quarter inside the Chargers’ 5-yard line when the outcome of the game was sort of in doubt.
Call it growing pains or a growing pain but all that took place it as much as anything else represents the yin and yang of his season and that of the entire team, particularly the offense.
Apart, though, from the numbing insignificance of Sunday’s game fans at least got an object lesson in exactly why this offense is failing. While it has everything to do with the offensive line, the running backs, the receivers and the quarterbacks, at the same time it has nothing to do with them at all. They are but mere witnesses really to what is surely the most random and bizarre offense in the NFL this season.
Fans on Sunday got to witness Brian Robiskie actually catch a pass. He probably showed enough, actually, to get himself de-activated for next week, which is really the point.
The fact that Robiskie was even on the field is interesting in a Mangini-sort of way. Maybe he was there Sunday because he really did practice well on the scout team this past week, as offensive coordinator Brian Daboll suggested. Or maybe he was there because something clicked in his mind after 11 games, as Mangini suggested.
But after a season of living under the Mangini process and all it entails, what’s more likely than either is that Daboll and Mangini realized they looked positively ridiculous for burying their second round pick on the bench on a team going nowhere and facing a glaring need at the very position that Robiskie plays.
But put aside Robiskie for a moment and consider the case of Josh Cribbs. Pulled in every direction accept the one toward a new contract, Cribbs has been forced to learn new skills that he doesn’t get to apply nearly enough.
On Sunday he ran out of the “wildcat” formation 3 times and ran one other time on an end around. Against Cincinnati, he didn’t get any direct snaps. The “wildcat” isn’t a panacea for anything but at the same time it’s shown enough this season to be far more than just a mere gimmick, to be trotted out roughly as much as a flea-flicker.
Just as Quinn’s Sunday was a marker for his season, so too was Cribbs’ Sunday a nice overview of the nonsense that is this offense’s guiding principles. Every time either Daboll or Mangini is asked about the herky-jerky nature of the offensive game plan, the response is prototypically non-responsive. It’s the result of circumstances and what was happening in the game.
Actually, circumstances and what’s happening in the game are perfectly acceptable answers for adjustments that must get made, assuming those answers are followed by an explanation as to the exact circumstances being referenced. But that kind of information apparently is what passes for competitive business intelligence in Berea and thus a cloying media and a nosy fan base are just going to have to be satisfied that there is something more to it than a “let’s try this” approach.
But put aside Cribbs for a moment as well and consider if you will one Evan Moore, the tight end du jour. Signed off the practice squad on Friday, he became Quinn’s favorite target in the span of two days. Moore looked like he can catch, certainly, raising the question of what he’d been doing on the practice squad for so long. But then again Michael Gaines looks like he can catch as well and he didn’t see a ball thrown in his direction all day.
Meanwhile all but forgotten free agent acquisition Robert Royal has morphed into the offensive version of Hank Poteat, a player of such limited ability that it makes one wonder how he even remains on this roster.
The glass half full contingent can say that this is exactly what a team in transition looks like but that’s just a convenient excuse. A team in transition is one that has uneven results with a plan carefully laid out. This is a team with uneven results on a plan that changes by the minute, just because.
It’s these kinds of things, large and small, that make whatever Mangini does come under the heavy weight of suspicion.
I get a lot of email every week and at least 90% is negative toward Mangini for all the reasons you’d imagine. Other than the occasional outlier who contends that Mangini is actually some sort of mad genius working on a level that mere mortals can’t understand, most of the rest of the emailers just want this God forsaken season to end and wake up on the Monday after the Super Bowl to the headline that Mangini has been relieved of his duties and the club is going in a different direction.
Actually, the club going in any direction would be the real news peg to that headline. Even with Mangini in charge and with all he promised, this club still isn’t heading anywhere in particular as it glides through the season as if it was a Sunday drive to nowhere special in Barney’s new car, with Andy riding shotgun and Gomer with his head out the window to keep from getting car sick.
The analogy of this season to the creampuff car Barney thought he bought from Mrs. Lesh really is quite apropos to this offense. During his interview with owner Randy Lerner, Mangini essentially spread enough verbal sawdust in the gearbox to make it appear to Lerner as though Mangini could get this thing up and running smoothly in no time.
Instead, after Lerner gave him the keys fans learned that with Mangini as chief mechanic and driver this car of a season turned out to need a lot more than a mere tune up. It needed something on the order of plugs, points, bearings, valves, rings, fuel pump, starter switch, ignition wires, water pump, oil pump, clutch, clutch bearings, clutchplate, brake lining, brake shoes, and a radiator hose. And it could stand a good wash, too.
In actuality the loss represents neither much of a step back or forward. In but a few days it will just be another forgotten loss in a season where everything’s been forgettable in a season painfully memorable.
Quarterback Brady Quinn actually represents this polemic well. Quinn ran a text book, opening drive on Sunday that resulted in the team’s first opening drive touchdown in over two years. He also had two late touchdown passes and seemed composed and in charge throughout. But then he also had a critical fumble in the second quarter inside the Chargers’ 5-yard line when the outcome of the game was sort of in doubt.
Call it growing pains or a growing pain but all that took place it as much as anything else represents the yin and yang of his season and that of the entire team, particularly the offense.
Apart, though, from the numbing insignificance of Sunday’s game fans at least got an object lesson in exactly why this offense is failing. While it has everything to do with the offensive line, the running backs, the receivers and the quarterbacks, at the same time it has nothing to do with them at all. They are but mere witnesses really to what is surely the most random and bizarre offense in the NFL this season.
Fans on Sunday got to witness Brian Robiskie actually catch a pass. He probably showed enough, actually, to get himself de-activated for next week, which is really the point.
The fact that Robiskie was even on the field is interesting in a Mangini-sort of way. Maybe he was there Sunday because he really did practice well on the scout team this past week, as offensive coordinator Brian Daboll suggested. Or maybe he was there because something clicked in his mind after 11 games, as Mangini suggested.
But after a season of living under the Mangini process and all it entails, what’s more likely than either is that Daboll and Mangini realized they looked positively ridiculous for burying their second round pick on the bench on a team going nowhere and facing a glaring need at the very position that Robiskie plays.
But put aside Robiskie for a moment and consider the case of Josh Cribbs. Pulled in every direction accept the one toward a new contract, Cribbs has been forced to learn new skills that he doesn’t get to apply nearly enough.
On Sunday he ran out of the “wildcat” formation 3 times and ran one other time on an end around. Against Cincinnati, he didn’t get any direct snaps. The “wildcat” isn’t a panacea for anything but at the same time it’s shown enough this season to be far more than just a mere gimmick, to be trotted out roughly as much as a flea-flicker.
Just as Quinn’s Sunday was a marker for his season, so too was Cribbs’ Sunday a nice overview of the nonsense that is this offense’s guiding principles. Every time either Daboll or Mangini is asked about the herky-jerky nature of the offensive game plan, the response is prototypically non-responsive. It’s the result of circumstances and what was happening in the game.
Actually, circumstances and what’s happening in the game are perfectly acceptable answers for adjustments that must get made, assuming those answers are followed by an explanation as to the exact circumstances being referenced. But that kind of information apparently is what passes for competitive business intelligence in Berea and thus a cloying media and a nosy fan base are just going to have to be satisfied that there is something more to it than a “let’s try this” approach.
But put aside Cribbs for a moment as well and consider if you will one Evan Moore, the tight end du jour. Signed off the practice squad on Friday, he became Quinn’s favorite target in the span of two days. Moore looked like he can catch, certainly, raising the question of what he’d been doing on the practice squad for so long. But then again Michael Gaines looks like he can catch as well and he didn’t see a ball thrown in his direction all day.
Meanwhile all but forgotten free agent acquisition Robert Royal has morphed into the offensive version of Hank Poteat, a player of such limited ability that it makes one wonder how he even remains on this roster.
The glass half full contingent can say that this is exactly what a team in transition looks like but that’s just a convenient excuse. A team in transition is one that has uneven results with a plan carefully laid out. This is a team with uneven results on a plan that changes by the minute, just because.
It’s these kinds of things, large and small, that make whatever Mangini does come under the heavy weight of suspicion.
I get a lot of email every week and at least 90% is negative toward Mangini for all the reasons you’d imagine. Other than the occasional outlier who contends that Mangini is actually some sort of mad genius working on a level that mere mortals can’t understand, most of the rest of the emailers just want this God forsaken season to end and wake up on the Monday after the Super Bowl to the headline that Mangini has been relieved of his duties and the club is going in a different direction.
Actually, the club going in any direction would be the real news peg to that headline. Even with Mangini in charge and with all he promised, this club still isn’t heading anywhere in particular as it glides through the season as if it was a Sunday drive to nowhere special in Barney’s new car, with Andy riding shotgun and Gomer with his head out the window to keep from getting car sick.
The analogy of this season to the creampuff car Barney thought he bought from Mrs. Lesh really is quite apropos to this offense. During his interview with owner Randy Lerner, Mangini essentially spread enough verbal sawdust in the gearbox to make it appear to Lerner as though Mangini could get this thing up and running smoothly in no time.
Instead, after Lerner gave him the keys fans learned that with Mangini as chief mechanic and driver this car of a season turned out to need a lot more than a mere tune up. It needed something on the order of plugs, points, bearings, valves, rings, fuel pump, starter switch, ignition wires, water pump, oil pump, clutch, clutch bearings, clutchplate, brake lining, brake shoes, and a radiator hose. And it could stand a good wash, too.
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Lingering Items--Injury Edition
Cleveland Browns running back Jamal Lewis has played his last football game in the NFL and all I can think about at the moment is his comments from a few weeks ago about how his head coach, Eric Mangini, conducts practice sessions. According to Lewis, Mangini works his players too hard during the week, leading to a team that’s dead tired by the time it takes the field on Sundays. The natural consequence of course is that tired players become injured players.
Mangini defended his practice by suggesting, through creative calculation, that after you discount the ½ hour walk-through at the beginning of practice and ignore the post-practice opportunity sessions, practice is only 2 ½ hours long, the same as every other team. It reminds me of Barney on The Simpsons panicking at the weekly card game because after this case of beer, that case of beer and that other case of beer, there’s only one case of beer left.
It’s hard to know, really, if the Browns’ spate of injuries is the result of a tough preseason training camp and a tough in-season practice session. It is instructive that the injuries are now stacking up like planes over LaGuardia and it’s near the end of the season, but there may be another explanation all together.
The only players that don’t get injured during a typical NFL season are those that spend the season in street clothes. Brian Robiskie and David Veikune, you’re probably safe, although I’d have said the same thing about James Davis and he resides on the injured reserve list at the moment. But players on teams that are fighting for playoff teams tend to find ways to get themselves back on the field. Players on teams fighting for the number one pick in the draft tend to call it a season as early as possible.
Don’t misinterpret. There is no question in my mind that the injuries suffered by every Browns player are legitimate. Football played at any level but particularly at the pro level is incredibly violent. The fastest and strongest crashing into each other 90 some times a game can’t be good for anyone’s body. There will be blood. It’s just that when there is nothing left to fight for, it is far better to take your time with an injury get completely healthy and don’t risk losing another season in what is typically a very short career. That’s not criticism, that’s just reality.
The Browns of last season had a similar rash of late season injuries and it’s pretty clear those couldn’t have been the result of practices being either too long or too difficult under Camp Country Club being led by Chief Counselor Crennel. Every one of those injuries was likewise legitimate, yet there they were several.
Maybe it’s all just bad luck or the curse of the franchise that calls itself the Browns. More likely, though, it’s just a function of a team going nowhere under a coach the players can’t stand.
**
It’s good to see the NFL finally taking concussions more seriously. This week it announced new guidelines for when a player can return in a game after suffering from a concussion or concussion-like symptoms. In the past a team was prevented from putting a player back in only if he lost consciousness during that game.
The timing of these new guidelines reminded me why Hines Ward of the Pittsburgh Steelers may be my least favorite player of all time. Perennially called out by his fellow players as the league’s dirtiest player, Ward is a cheap shot artist whose blindside chop blocks on unsuspecting defensive backs are a weekly occurrence. Browns’ quarterback Brady Quinn was called on the carpet by Ray Lewis for a dirty hit on Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs, but Hines has made a career of doing the same thing.
But perhaps Ward’s most detestable act to date was calling out his very own quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, for not playing against the Baltimore Ravens last week because he was still suffering from the effects of his latest concussion.
Ward essentially questioned both Roethlisberger’s manhood and loyalty by telling Bob Costas that Roethlisberger could have gotten around the doctor’s orders if he really wanted to by essentially lying about his condition. Future, what future? There was a game to be won right now, dammit, and you don’t get that back.
Ward has since backed off his comments, but as is typical with a guy like Ward he did so not because he didn’t believe them but because he verbalized them publicly. The truth is that Ward doesn’t care any more about Roethlisberger’s long-term health than he does about the economy in Detroit. Ward is first and foremost concerned about Ward and what the plans he has for the playoff money he’ll earn if he can just get Roethlisberger’s butt back on the field.
This is exactly why the NFL needs stronger rules regarding concussions. Teams are for more interested in short-term goals than the long-term concerns of the players that help them reach those short-term goals.
The Browns put two players on the injured reserve list this week with concussions, Lewis and defensive back Brodney Pool. In Pool’s case this was either his fourth or fifth concussion. In actuality he’s probably suffered far more than that. Mangini did the right thing by immediately relegating both to injured reserve, but neither probably would have been healthy enough to play anyway. Pool, like Lewis, may be done as a professional anyway. The chances of suffering the next concussion are exponentially higher for each one you’ve previously suffered. Pool has a real chance of doing permanent damage that he’ll never overcome if he gets back on that field again.
I don’t wish ill of any player. But maybe just once Ward needs to walk in the shoes of players like Roethlisberger, Lewis or Pool to understand that often times there’s something far more important at stake than another game against the Ravens.
**
With all the Browns injuries, the chances are increasing that they’ll be used as a reason by owner Randy Lerner to give Mangini another year he hardly deserves. After all, it’s hardly Mangini’s fault that the team wasn’t competitive, look at all the injuries, of so the theory goes.
As theories, it’s as faulty as “the process.” The Browns already were the worst team in the league before the injuries really started to strike and it’s not as if the loss of more players will make this team any worse. It’s not as if the Browns will now be 33rd in the league.
If Lerner goes down that road, a road he didn’t go down with Crennel at the end of last season, it would just be another grave mistake on an ever expanding list. This team hasn’t been competitive all season. It won one game against a bad Buffalo team because of a crucial special teams mistake at the end of the game that allowed them to kick a winning field goal. It played one other team well, the Cincinnati Bengals, in an overtime loss. But every other game, from week one to last week’s rematch against the Bengals, has been an exercise in futility.
The Browns under Mangini have basically not stood a legitimate chance all season. That’s his legacy and that’s where the judgment comes. But given Lerner’s penchant for trying to find the easy and convenient way out of making the hard decision, the injury plague in Cleveland stands as ready-made.
**
Whether Browns’ defensive coordinator Rob Ryan is head coach material or not isn’t exactly clear, but the same can’t be said for his candor. Ryan in front of a microphone is everything that Mangini is not. He’s passionate, honest and outspoken. Frankly, he reflects far better on the psyche of the typical Browns fan than a guy like Mangini ever could. He’s a guy that Browns fans can and will rally around given the right circumstances.
In Friday’s press conference Ryan stood up for Mangini in a very direct fashion, which was admirable, but what was even more refreshing was the unabashed way he stood up for himself. He told the media that a better defensive coordinator did not exist, allowing for perhaps only his father, Buddy Ryan. Even then, the younger Ryan said that was just a “maybe.”
Ryan can be brutally honest while being brutally humorous, as in his statement about getting reinforcements for his injured troops from one of the high schools in the state championships or in how he described his defense as a “house of cards.”
Ryan has clearly been dealt only half a hand this year by the leader he praised. But rather than offer excuses, he just keeps plugging away, pumping up his dispirited troops as best he can. Given the lack of talent on this team, there was never much chance of it being anything but the worst defense in the league. Neither Ryan nor Jesus could raise it from the dead. But Ryan is a bright spot nonetheless and if he at all has the qualities for being a head coach, letting him get away even if Mangini is purged would be a mistake, kind of like Art Modell letting Bill Cowher get to Pittsburgh because he thought Cowher was too young to be a head coach.
**
The blackout’s been lifted and it leads to this week’s question to ponder: How many disenfranchised Browns fans do you think will actually change their plans this Sunday now that the game is being televised locally?
Mangini defended his practice by suggesting, through creative calculation, that after you discount the ½ hour walk-through at the beginning of practice and ignore the post-practice opportunity sessions, practice is only 2 ½ hours long, the same as every other team. It reminds me of Barney on The Simpsons panicking at the weekly card game because after this case of beer, that case of beer and that other case of beer, there’s only one case of beer left.
It’s hard to know, really, if the Browns’ spate of injuries is the result of a tough preseason training camp and a tough in-season practice session. It is instructive that the injuries are now stacking up like planes over LaGuardia and it’s near the end of the season, but there may be another explanation all together.
The only players that don’t get injured during a typical NFL season are those that spend the season in street clothes. Brian Robiskie and David Veikune, you’re probably safe, although I’d have said the same thing about James Davis and he resides on the injured reserve list at the moment. But players on teams that are fighting for playoff teams tend to find ways to get themselves back on the field. Players on teams fighting for the number one pick in the draft tend to call it a season as early as possible.
Don’t misinterpret. There is no question in my mind that the injuries suffered by every Browns player are legitimate. Football played at any level but particularly at the pro level is incredibly violent. The fastest and strongest crashing into each other 90 some times a game can’t be good for anyone’s body. There will be blood. It’s just that when there is nothing left to fight for, it is far better to take your time with an injury get completely healthy and don’t risk losing another season in what is typically a very short career. That’s not criticism, that’s just reality.
The Browns of last season had a similar rash of late season injuries and it’s pretty clear those couldn’t have been the result of practices being either too long or too difficult under Camp Country Club being led by Chief Counselor Crennel. Every one of those injuries was likewise legitimate, yet there they were several.
Maybe it’s all just bad luck or the curse of the franchise that calls itself the Browns. More likely, though, it’s just a function of a team going nowhere under a coach the players can’t stand.
**
It’s good to see the NFL finally taking concussions more seriously. This week it announced new guidelines for when a player can return in a game after suffering from a concussion or concussion-like symptoms. In the past a team was prevented from putting a player back in only if he lost consciousness during that game.
The timing of these new guidelines reminded me why Hines Ward of the Pittsburgh Steelers may be my least favorite player of all time. Perennially called out by his fellow players as the league’s dirtiest player, Ward is a cheap shot artist whose blindside chop blocks on unsuspecting defensive backs are a weekly occurrence. Browns’ quarterback Brady Quinn was called on the carpet by Ray Lewis for a dirty hit on Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs, but Hines has made a career of doing the same thing.
But perhaps Ward’s most detestable act to date was calling out his very own quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, for not playing against the Baltimore Ravens last week because he was still suffering from the effects of his latest concussion.
Ward essentially questioned both Roethlisberger’s manhood and loyalty by telling Bob Costas that Roethlisberger could have gotten around the doctor’s orders if he really wanted to by essentially lying about his condition. Future, what future? There was a game to be won right now, dammit, and you don’t get that back.
Ward has since backed off his comments, but as is typical with a guy like Ward he did so not because he didn’t believe them but because he verbalized them publicly. The truth is that Ward doesn’t care any more about Roethlisberger’s long-term health than he does about the economy in Detroit. Ward is first and foremost concerned about Ward and what the plans he has for the playoff money he’ll earn if he can just get Roethlisberger’s butt back on the field.
This is exactly why the NFL needs stronger rules regarding concussions. Teams are for more interested in short-term goals than the long-term concerns of the players that help them reach those short-term goals.
The Browns put two players on the injured reserve list this week with concussions, Lewis and defensive back Brodney Pool. In Pool’s case this was either his fourth or fifth concussion. In actuality he’s probably suffered far more than that. Mangini did the right thing by immediately relegating both to injured reserve, but neither probably would have been healthy enough to play anyway. Pool, like Lewis, may be done as a professional anyway. The chances of suffering the next concussion are exponentially higher for each one you’ve previously suffered. Pool has a real chance of doing permanent damage that he’ll never overcome if he gets back on that field again.
I don’t wish ill of any player. But maybe just once Ward needs to walk in the shoes of players like Roethlisberger, Lewis or Pool to understand that often times there’s something far more important at stake than another game against the Ravens.
**
With all the Browns injuries, the chances are increasing that they’ll be used as a reason by owner Randy Lerner to give Mangini another year he hardly deserves. After all, it’s hardly Mangini’s fault that the team wasn’t competitive, look at all the injuries, of so the theory goes.
As theories, it’s as faulty as “the process.” The Browns already were the worst team in the league before the injuries really started to strike and it’s not as if the loss of more players will make this team any worse. It’s not as if the Browns will now be 33rd in the league.
If Lerner goes down that road, a road he didn’t go down with Crennel at the end of last season, it would just be another grave mistake on an ever expanding list. This team hasn’t been competitive all season. It won one game against a bad Buffalo team because of a crucial special teams mistake at the end of the game that allowed them to kick a winning field goal. It played one other team well, the Cincinnati Bengals, in an overtime loss. But every other game, from week one to last week’s rematch against the Bengals, has been an exercise in futility.
The Browns under Mangini have basically not stood a legitimate chance all season. That’s his legacy and that’s where the judgment comes. But given Lerner’s penchant for trying to find the easy and convenient way out of making the hard decision, the injury plague in Cleveland stands as ready-made.
**
Whether Browns’ defensive coordinator Rob Ryan is head coach material or not isn’t exactly clear, but the same can’t be said for his candor. Ryan in front of a microphone is everything that Mangini is not. He’s passionate, honest and outspoken. Frankly, he reflects far better on the psyche of the typical Browns fan than a guy like Mangini ever could. He’s a guy that Browns fans can and will rally around given the right circumstances.
In Friday’s press conference Ryan stood up for Mangini in a very direct fashion, which was admirable, but what was even more refreshing was the unabashed way he stood up for himself. He told the media that a better defensive coordinator did not exist, allowing for perhaps only his father, Buddy Ryan. Even then, the younger Ryan said that was just a “maybe.”
Ryan can be brutally honest while being brutally humorous, as in his statement about getting reinforcements for his injured troops from one of the high schools in the state championships or in how he described his defense as a “house of cards.”
Ryan has clearly been dealt only half a hand this year by the leader he praised. But rather than offer excuses, he just keeps plugging away, pumping up his dispirited troops as best he can. Given the lack of talent on this team, there was never much chance of it being anything but the worst defense in the league. Neither Ryan nor Jesus could raise it from the dead. But Ryan is a bright spot nonetheless and if he at all has the qualities for being a head coach, letting him get away even if Mangini is purged would be a mistake, kind of like Art Modell letting Bill Cowher get to Pittsburgh because he thought Cowher was too young to be a head coach.
**
The blackout’s been lifted and it leads to this week’s question to ponder: How many disenfranchised Browns fans do you think will actually change their plans this Sunday now that the game is being televised locally?
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Football in the Kingdom
For months now, Cleveland Browns fans have been sold an almost mystical vision of a process supposedly underway in Berea. With no visible progress in any aspect of its operations being apparent to the naked eye, fans are essentially told to trust the greater forces at work that they can’t see.
In this fantasy taking place under the direction of owner Randy Lerner, head coach Eric Mangini has assumed the role of Shivas Irons and a yet-unnamed football czar looking to arise from a ravine near Berea taking the form of football’s version of Seamus MacDuff. Welcome to Golf in the Kingdom, NFL-style.
One imagines a night of whiskey during the interview process that led to Mangini’s hiring, with Mangini explaining to a drunken and gullible Lerner how true gravity is only achieved through losing, then winning. Mangini’s a shaman all right.
But in this version of Football in the Kingdom, the end doesn’t result in any greater understanding and certainly doesn’t bring inner peace, not to the Lerner and certainly not to the fans. All it does is make you long for 1999.
Forget the mysticism. Forget the whiskey. Getting to the heart of the matter requires no such enhancements. After 10 years of trying, this franchise is now in worse shape than when it re-entered the league in 1999. Way to go O-hi-o.
I know, I know, people say that calling this team worse than the 1999 team is hyperbole in order to make a point about Mangini. Actually, it’s not. It’s just fact. Indeed, it’s hard to fathom that the 1999 team and the 2009 team being in the same conversation except as contrasts. And actually, that is the case but in reverse with the 2009 team being compared unfavorably with its 1999 cousin.
With probably better personnel, the 2009 Browns likely wouldn’t be favored in a matchup with their 1999 cousin. The line in Vegas would probably be 1999 Browns -5 points and an over/under of 28 points. Call Strat-O-Matic.
Here’s the proof. Compare, for example, Tim Couch with the combined efforts of Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson. Couch started 14 games and went 223-399 for 2,447 yards, 15 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. He also had 267 yards rushing and 1 touchdown. That means Couch was completing 56% of his passes, averaged slightly more than 6 yards per pass and had, relatively speaking, a respectable rating of 73.167.
Through 11 games this season, Quinn and Anderson are a combined 161-329 for 1593 yards, 7 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. Projecting that over 14 games, which is the number of games Couch started, the pair will have completed 205 passes in 419 attempts for 2028 yards with 9 touchdowns and 18 interceptions. That translates to a completion percentage of around 49%, an average of just over 4 yards per pass and a quarterback rating of 52.282.
Now, you can argue that it’s not fair to combine Quinn and Anderson because Anderson’s unparalleled awfulness is dragging down Quinn. Fair point. Using just Quinn’s numbers and projecting them over 14 games looks like this: 205-378 for 1964 yards, 11 touchdowns, 11 interceptions. It boosts the completion percentage to just over 54%, his yards per pass average is now just over 5 and his rating is 66.5. Across the board, though, he’s still worse than Couch.
This isn’t really to compare Quinn and Couch. It’s to illustrate that this offense is worse, far worse, than the 1999 version and for it you can thank Mangini and his rookie offensive coordinator, Brian Daboll.
Where this really shows up is in the receivers. There has been much talk this season that the offense really hasn’t stood a chance since trading away players like Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow. Maybe it was addition by subtraction for intangible reasons, but it’s hardly the reason for the apologists to give Mangini a pass on the miserable product he’s constructed.
The 1999 team started two rookies in Kevin Johnson and Darrin Chiaverini. The third receiver was Leslie Shepherd, who was in his 5th season, although Shepherd did start several games as well. Johnson, did I mention he was a rookie, had 66 catches for nearly 1000 yards and 8 touchdowns. Chiaverini had 44 catches for almost 500 yards and 4 touchdowns and Shepherd added 23 more for nearly 300 yards. The tight end on that team was the memorable Irv Smith, who was in his 6th season. At least he had 24 catches for 222 yards and 1 touchdown.
If you want to understand the lack of depth on that roster, consider the rest of the receivers on it: Damon Dunn, David Dunn, Damon Gibson and Ronnie Powell, a group arguably more pitiful than the current roster. Yet on an aggregate basis the receivers then far exceeded this year’s model.
Mangini’s team starts one rookie, Mohammed Massaquoi and, essentially a rookie wide receiver in the form of Josh Cribbs. Singularly or combined, they aren’t likely to surpass Johnson in either receptions or yards, let alone touchdowns. Combined the two have 43 receptions, which translates to about 63 for the season, and 602 yards, which translates into around 822 yards for the season. They have two touchdowns among them and that translates to 3 for the season.
At tight end, the Browns have used Robert Royal, Michael Gaines, Greg Estandia and Steve Heiden. None of them will surpass the relatively limited production of Smith in 1999. The rest of the Browns receivers, with the exception of Brian Robiskie, aren’t likely to be any more known than those who filled out the 199 roster; Ray Ventrone, Jake Allen and Mike Furrey.
What’s also worth noting is that despite being better than this year’s team, the Browns’ 1999 offense was still objectively awful. Like this year’s group, it was last in the league in virtually every meaningful metric. Yet it still averaged 2 points per game more than this year’s group. This just proves that there actually are subtle levels of awfulness.
Want to turn to the defense? The apologists can protect Mangini by pointing to the injuries the Browns have suffered on defense this year but in doing so it’s instructive to remember they already were the worst defense in the league before Shaun Rogers was lost. They were also the worst defense in the league before D’Qwell Jackson went down. They already were the worst defense before Brodney Pool came down with another concussion. In fact, they started off the year as the worst defense in the league and haven’t improved since irrespective of the combination.
The Cleveland Browns of 1999 were likewise the league’s worst defense. They were, in a sense, technically worse than the 2009 model but by a fraction, giving up 27 points per game, two more than this year. But as a measure of how offense and defense work together, note that the point differential between the Browns and its weekly competition is actually worse this year. Right now the Browns are losing games by just over 14 points a game. In 1999, it was by 13 points a game. Overall, call it at most a draw.
Again, though, the far larger point is the fact that 10 years later the Browns haven’t escaped their past despite huge advantages that the 1999 Browns didn’t have. Recall, for example, that the 1999 Browns were officially re-born in 1998 when Al Lerner was awarded the franchise. That means it had just 1 year to put in an infrastructure capable of putting some semblance of a team on the field. The consensus then is the same as now: the NFL seemed to deliberately stack the odds against the Browns in the early years of its rebirth.
That can hardly be used as an excuse any more. This year’s Browns have had a full 10 years under their belts. They’ve had all manner of advantage in those 10 years, from high draft picks to a well financed owner who could supply the cash for nearly any free agent the team coveted. And yet, 10 years later as a franchise they are in worse shape than 1999.
This franchise doesn’t need holy water or some international man of mystery to solve it’s problems nor is it going to turnaround over night, not with this owner and not with this coach anyway. What it needs is for this owner to get one decision right: his next hire. It needn’t be a closer version Shivas Irons or Seamus MacDuff then he currently has. It just needs to a competent, credible football mind who can walk in and get things done. And if his first move is to close the book on the hoodoo and voodoo of a fraud like Mangini, so much the better.
In this fantasy taking place under the direction of owner Randy Lerner, head coach Eric Mangini has assumed the role of Shivas Irons and a yet-unnamed football czar looking to arise from a ravine near Berea taking the form of football’s version of Seamus MacDuff. Welcome to Golf in the Kingdom, NFL-style.
One imagines a night of whiskey during the interview process that led to Mangini’s hiring, with Mangini explaining to a drunken and gullible Lerner how true gravity is only achieved through losing, then winning. Mangini’s a shaman all right.
But in this version of Football in the Kingdom, the end doesn’t result in any greater understanding and certainly doesn’t bring inner peace, not to the Lerner and certainly not to the fans. All it does is make you long for 1999.
Forget the mysticism. Forget the whiskey. Getting to the heart of the matter requires no such enhancements. After 10 years of trying, this franchise is now in worse shape than when it re-entered the league in 1999. Way to go O-hi-o.
I know, I know, people say that calling this team worse than the 1999 team is hyperbole in order to make a point about Mangini. Actually, it’s not. It’s just fact. Indeed, it’s hard to fathom that the 1999 team and the 2009 team being in the same conversation except as contrasts. And actually, that is the case but in reverse with the 2009 team being compared unfavorably with its 1999 cousin.
With probably better personnel, the 2009 Browns likely wouldn’t be favored in a matchup with their 1999 cousin. The line in Vegas would probably be 1999 Browns -5 points and an over/under of 28 points. Call Strat-O-Matic.
Here’s the proof. Compare, for example, Tim Couch with the combined efforts of Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson. Couch started 14 games and went 223-399 for 2,447 yards, 15 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. He also had 267 yards rushing and 1 touchdown. That means Couch was completing 56% of his passes, averaged slightly more than 6 yards per pass and had, relatively speaking, a respectable rating of 73.167.
Through 11 games this season, Quinn and Anderson are a combined 161-329 for 1593 yards, 7 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. Projecting that over 14 games, which is the number of games Couch started, the pair will have completed 205 passes in 419 attempts for 2028 yards with 9 touchdowns and 18 interceptions. That translates to a completion percentage of around 49%, an average of just over 4 yards per pass and a quarterback rating of 52.282.
Now, you can argue that it’s not fair to combine Quinn and Anderson because Anderson’s unparalleled awfulness is dragging down Quinn. Fair point. Using just Quinn’s numbers and projecting them over 14 games looks like this: 205-378 for 1964 yards, 11 touchdowns, 11 interceptions. It boosts the completion percentage to just over 54%, his yards per pass average is now just over 5 and his rating is 66.5. Across the board, though, he’s still worse than Couch.
This isn’t really to compare Quinn and Couch. It’s to illustrate that this offense is worse, far worse, than the 1999 version and for it you can thank Mangini and his rookie offensive coordinator, Brian Daboll.
Where this really shows up is in the receivers. There has been much talk this season that the offense really hasn’t stood a chance since trading away players like Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow. Maybe it was addition by subtraction for intangible reasons, but it’s hardly the reason for the apologists to give Mangini a pass on the miserable product he’s constructed.
The 1999 team started two rookies in Kevin Johnson and Darrin Chiaverini. The third receiver was Leslie Shepherd, who was in his 5th season, although Shepherd did start several games as well. Johnson, did I mention he was a rookie, had 66 catches for nearly 1000 yards and 8 touchdowns. Chiaverini had 44 catches for almost 500 yards and 4 touchdowns and Shepherd added 23 more for nearly 300 yards. The tight end on that team was the memorable Irv Smith, who was in his 6th season. At least he had 24 catches for 222 yards and 1 touchdown.
If you want to understand the lack of depth on that roster, consider the rest of the receivers on it: Damon Dunn, David Dunn, Damon Gibson and Ronnie Powell, a group arguably more pitiful than the current roster. Yet on an aggregate basis the receivers then far exceeded this year’s model.
Mangini’s team starts one rookie, Mohammed Massaquoi and, essentially a rookie wide receiver in the form of Josh Cribbs. Singularly or combined, they aren’t likely to surpass Johnson in either receptions or yards, let alone touchdowns. Combined the two have 43 receptions, which translates to about 63 for the season, and 602 yards, which translates into around 822 yards for the season. They have two touchdowns among them and that translates to 3 for the season.
At tight end, the Browns have used Robert Royal, Michael Gaines, Greg Estandia and Steve Heiden. None of them will surpass the relatively limited production of Smith in 1999. The rest of the Browns receivers, with the exception of Brian Robiskie, aren’t likely to be any more known than those who filled out the 199 roster; Ray Ventrone, Jake Allen and Mike Furrey.
What’s also worth noting is that despite being better than this year’s team, the Browns’ 1999 offense was still objectively awful. Like this year’s group, it was last in the league in virtually every meaningful metric. Yet it still averaged 2 points per game more than this year’s group. This just proves that there actually are subtle levels of awfulness.
Want to turn to the defense? The apologists can protect Mangini by pointing to the injuries the Browns have suffered on defense this year but in doing so it’s instructive to remember they already were the worst defense in the league before Shaun Rogers was lost. They were also the worst defense in the league before D’Qwell Jackson went down. They already were the worst defense before Brodney Pool came down with another concussion. In fact, they started off the year as the worst defense in the league and haven’t improved since irrespective of the combination.
The Cleveland Browns of 1999 were likewise the league’s worst defense. They were, in a sense, technically worse than the 2009 model but by a fraction, giving up 27 points per game, two more than this year. But as a measure of how offense and defense work together, note that the point differential between the Browns and its weekly competition is actually worse this year. Right now the Browns are losing games by just over 14 points a game. In 1999, it was by 13 points a game. Overall, call it at most a draw.
Again, though, the far larger point is the fact that 10 years later the Browns haven’t escaped their past despite huge advantages that the 1999 Browns didn’t have. Recall, for example, that the 1999 Browns were officially re-born in 1998 when Al Lerner was awarded the franchise. That means it had just 1 year to put in an infrastructure capable of putting some semblance of a team on the field. The consensus then is the same as now: the NFL seemed to deliberately stack the odds against the Browns in the early years of its rebirth.
That can hardly be used as an excuse any more. This year’s Browns have had a full 10 years under their belts. They’ve had all manner of advantage in those 10 years, from high draft picks to a well financed owner who could supply the cash for nearly any free agent the team coveted. And yet, 10 years later as a franchise they are in worse shape than 1999.
This franchise doesn’t need holy water or some international man of mystery to solve it’s problems nor is it going to turnaround over night, not with this owner and not with this coach anyway. What it needs is for this owner to get one decision right: his next hire. It needn’t be a closer version Shivas Irons or Seamus MacDuff then he currently has. It just needs to a competent, credible football mind who can walk in and get things done. And if his first move is to close the book on the hoodoo and voodoo of a fraud like Mangini, so much the better.
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