Real Fake News

If there is anything scarier than a slow news day at the Plain Dealer sports desk, it’s a bored Plain Dealer sports reporter with not much to write about.

True, that sort of sums up PD columnist Bill Livingston’s everyday existence, but it’s clear that the malaise is spreading to the rest of the staff as well. Today, we were treated to another front page non-story, this time from OSU beat reporter Doug Lesmerasis. With the kind of uncanny reporting that only comes with finally getting around to reading the fine points of head coach Jim Tressel’s contract that were reported over a month ago in the USA Today, Lesmerasis tells us that if Tressel wins the national championship, his contract will get redone. And, in paranoia that only the Plain Dealer can invent, you know what could happen? Tressel could leave. Queue the consternation.

Of course, even in spreading this kind of paranoia, Lemerasis is playing second-fiddle to colleague Tony Grossi who, several weeks ago, suggested that Tressel was seriously being considered as a replacement for the increasingly overwhelmed Browns head coach Romeo Crennel. But the fact that readers of the Plain Dealer were treated to another Tressel might be leaving story is really more of a story than what Lemerasis actually wrote about.

It wouldn’t be so bad if their fake news was meant to be funny. But the Plain Dealer is not the Daily Show and Doug Lemerasis is not Rod Corddry. If either were true, that would be a business model worth embracing by the PD brass. No question, the financial pressure on newspapers like the PD is real and significant. With increasingly more sports outlets on television and the explosion of sports information on the web, including from sites like these, the newspaper business has undergone much volatility, both locally and nationally, in the last few years. Consolidation, layoffs and decreasing ad revenues are squeezing profits like never before. While newspapers are unlikely to become extinct, ask yourself this: when was the last time you saw someone under age 35 buy a newspaper at the store?

What all this means, of course, is subject to great debate, but it seems clear that the PD sports section has responded to this downward pressure by opting, at times, to be provocative, even if falsely, in the quest for more sales. Cleveland has been essentially a one-newspaper town for so long, that the arrogance displayed by the PD as a result of this status is hardly a new development. But the fact that this arrogance has turned into abject sloth is a rather new development. Particularly on the sports side, the Plain Dealer seems beset with the kind of laziness that leads to “stories” like that from Lemerasis or the one from Grossi several weeks ago.

You can almost hear how a “story” like this comes into existence in the first place. An editor, looking at the potential Friday front page sits around scratching himself. Realizing that once he runs the Cavs game story, the obligatory Friday pre-game Browns story, something about the Indians, he’s still left with a bigger hole to fill than the one in Livingston’s head.

The only other thing happening, he surmises, is the Buckeyes national championship preparations, but the game is still a few weeks away and, besides, how many more stories can you run about practice?

Editor: Hey, Lesmerasis, anything else going on over at OSU with the football team?

Lesmerasis: Nah, not much.

Editor: Well, we need a story and we just run our 14th profile on Troy Smith and Ted Ginn, Jr. last week.

Lesmerasis: Well, then, I’m tapped out of ideas.

Editor: Didn’t I see some story or another about Tressel’s contract in USA Today a few months ago? Maybe we can do a story on that.

Lesmerasis: Do you know where I can get a copy?

Editor: I don’t know, try going to USA Today’s web site.

Twenty minutes later.

Lesmerasis: Found it.

Editor: Anything interesting?

Lesmerasis: Not really. Here take a look.

Editor: Hmm. What about this? It says that if they win the national championship game, OSU has to re-do Tressel’s contract.

Lesmerasis: So? That just means he’ll get more dough.

Editor: But what if Tressel uses that as leverage to leave?

Lesmerasis: For where? Why would he do that?

Editor: Who cares? Let’s take that angle. That will get every one talking about us.

Lesmarisis: Sounds good to me. I have some Christmas shopping to do anyway.

To say that readers deserve better from the PD is like saying fans deserve better from the Browns. It’s something we all know and it’s something we don’t expect to happen.

It may be that Tressel someday leaves Ohio State. But to periodically raise the specter without anything more than connecting dots that were never meant to be connected is simply bizarre. Tressel has neither done nor said anything since he first arrived in Columbus that even hints that his eyes are on a different prize. To the contrary, the Buckeyes job seems to have been what he desired all along.

Why then is that concept so difficult to understand? Surely the job of a good journalist is not to simply accept what he’s fed. But it’s not a case of Tressel saying one thing and doing something differently. And it’s not as if Tressel has ever pulled a Jim Mora, Jr. and openly mused about another job. In fact the only other job that Tressel has been rumored for is the Browns job and the only source of that rumor was the PD’s Tony Grossi, at least until Grossi can affirmatively establish otherwise.

It would be nice to think that newspapers have better things to do with their time than use their increasingly diminishing power to settle personal grudges, real or imagined. But with the hatchet jobs done on Tressel by Livingston recently and the phony suggestions about Tressel’s potentially limited tenure at OSU, it’s starting to look like the PD sports staff won’t be happy until they have a different coach in Columbus and a newspaper upon which no one dare rely.

The Race Card

Is there anything more tiresome than a highly-paid, high profile athlete, in the midst of a mess, playing the race card? And no, we’re not talking about O.J. Simpson this time. Instead we turn the glare of this most serious of charges to New York Knicks guard Steve Francis and NBA Players union chief Billy Hunter.

In case you missed it, the injured Francis was widely quoted as suggesting that the coverage of the Knicks-Denver Nuggest brawl was somehow racist and that race played a part in the penalties assessed. Of course Francis also strongly suggested that Nuggets head coach George Karl was essentially a coward for graphically referring to Knicks coach Isiah Thomas as a jackass because the Nuggets have no more games at Madison Square Garden this year. It seems that Francis is essentially playing into stereotypes by making such a suggestion, but that misses the larger point.

The least racist of all sports is professional basketball as practiced in the NBA. Countless franchises have African-Americans in key management positions, including ownership. The NBA’s record of inclusion at all levels far exceeds any other professional sport anywhere. Playing the race card in that context is so monumentally ridiculous that Francis risks playing into an even more common stereotype—the lunkhead jock.

The problem with guys like Francis is that they’ve grown up in an entitlement culture because of their athletic prowess. No request is too minor to make and no measure of disappointment is too small to endure. In his bubble, bad things are what happen to other people. If misfortune befalls his tender little universe it must be someone else’s fault. It’s no surprise, then, that Francis sees the chilly specter of racism lurking over the coverage of this rather ugly incident or the punishment meted out by white commissioner David Stern. Clearly, the participants, whatever their color, weren’t at fault.

We’re pretty sure that racism is carried out every day in every corner of the globe. Some of it is overt, most of it subtle. But the goal of rooting it out and eliminating it once and for all is dealt a serious blow when boneheads like Francis toss out unsupported, ridiculous allegations. Nonetheless we are all forced to reflect on such charges, even if it’s to dismiss them summarily. But in the process, we inevitably end up cheapening the next charge, which may actually be legitimate and risk the chance of actually addressing and eliminating a true instance of racism.

We listened, too, to NBA Players union head Billy Hunter essentially back Francis’s statements. Hunter said that the coverage of the Knicks brawl was more intense because of the race of the participants and that other sports, like hockey, aren’t subjected to similar treatment. Where to begin, where to begin?

While we will never understand it, there is no question that in this country at least the NBA is significantly more popular than hockey. This may change, of course, if that hockey strike ever gets settled (they’re still on strike, right?), but for now hockey gets covered in the local newspaper or television station if, and only if, your town actually has a franchise and/or there is a six-inch column space or 45-second hole to fill. If that’s the best argument in support Hunter can muster, hopefully Carmelo Anthony gets the opportunity to hire his own representative in the upcoming arbitration over his suspension.

Hunter seems to forget, too, that the brawl took place in the nation’s media capital. If that means that what happens there is likely to get more play than it otherwise might, so be it. That’s the price for playing your games in New York.

We doubt that Joe from Brunswick was more interested in the brawl because it involved black participants. More likely, what drew him in is what drew us all in—the fact that the brawl spilled into the stands and featured an increasingly image-conscious Carmelo Anthony apparently landing a sucker punch and then duck for cover.

We all would benefit from a serious examination of racism in society and the important work that still needs to be accomplished to ensure equal opportunities. But every once in awhile we need to be jolted back to reality and understand that these kind of athletes and their representatives are so removed from the reality of every day life, it’s dangerous to even invite them to the forum.

Running in Place

“Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long.” Ogden Nash

We are on the cusp of another Cleveland Christmas and give Browns head Coach Romeo Crennel credit for one thing: he does know how to get fans in the Christmas spirit. During his latest Monday morning autopsy, Crennel offered reassurance that the Browns are making progress, even in the midst of losing their 11th game in 12 tries against their AFC North “rivals,” thereby giving everyone something to be thankful for this holiday season.

Although Crennel admitted that the Browns may not be making progress in the more tangible areas such as wins, he sees progress in the areas of “structural things” and how the Browns “want to do things.” Sure, a cynic might gently suggest, for example, that these are rather amorphous concepts that are difficult to measure. Maybe that was his point. But since it is Christmas, we’ll show some good will and assume that Crennel meant that progress is being made in the kinds of things that don’t show up in the box score, like hitting behind a runner on his way to second in baseball. Eventually, the theory goes that kind of play should translate into wins.

And that, of course, is where we find ourselves always, don’t we? Living, once again, for something good to eventually happen to a Cleveland team.

So, like Linus searching for the true meaning of Christmas, we’ll search for the true meaning of progress and hope, against hope, that it doesn’t end up like the search for the Great Pumpkin.

Given the way football schedules fluctuate each year, one decent way to measure progress is to look at the constants. In this case, that would be the six games the Browns play each year against their “rivals” in the AFC North. (Quick aside: Putting “rivals” in quotes seem appropriate because, at this point, it is more concept than reality. Frankly, the Browns are rivals with the AFC North teams in the same way that Northwestern is a rival of Ohio State.)

By now, of course, everyone knows that the Browns have gone winless in their division for the first time in their history. And in the most appropriate of honors, as they were doing so Sunday they also pitched a shutout in third down conversions as well. Thus, just on purely wins, as Crennel noted, there hasn’t been progress. In fact, there’s been slight regression since the Browns eked out a victory against Baltimore in 2005 on the last game of the year. (And no devaluing that meaningless win on the last day of the season with both teams playing out the string. A win’s a win)

But since this franchise seems more concerned with the intangibles, we’ll forget about wins and instead focus on “structural thing,” like points, yardage, turnovers, third-down conversions and the like to see whether there has been any progress evident during Crennel’s two seasons. The good news is that we found the spirit of progress, if not actual progress. Unfortunately for the Browns, as is their wont, no progress, spiritual or otherwise, goes unpunished. For every half-step forward taken, they took at least a half-step back in other ways.

In 2006, the Browns scored 75 points against their divisional rivals. In 2005, it was 77 points. Slight regression there. But the Browns gave up 157 points each of the last two years. No progress, but no regression either. Overall, they’re running in place.

This year, the Browns have gained 1624 net yards against their “rivals.” Last year, it was only 1480. Put this one in the progress column. But that success is short lived. The Browns have given up 2,498 yards this year as compared to 2,155. Definite regression. Overall, put this one, too, in the “running in place” column. See the trend?
Breaking down the yardage a bit further, this year, the Browns have rushed for 331 yards this year as compared to 418 yards last year. Not good. But by signing designated run stuffer and buffet line destroyer Ted Washington, the Browns have given up only 867 yards rushing, as compared to 980 last year. True, the Browns rivals are still averaging 144.5 yards rushing per game, but last year it was 163.3 yards per game, a 19-yard per game improvement! Put this one proudly in the “running in place” column.

Looking at the passing yardage, the Browns have had a healthy Kellen Winslow and Braylon Edwards all season. It’s not a surprise, then, that the Browns have passed for 1293 yards this year, as compared to 1061 last year. More progress. Of course and unfortunately, our friends in the North have passed for 1581 yards this year as compared to 1175 last year. More regression. Call this one “running in place” as well.

Finally, in the statistics that often tell the real story of a game, turnovers and third-down conversions, the trend is no different. On the turnover front, the Browns are only -6 in the turnover ratio this year. Last year, they were -9. Progress, or sorts. But alas, there is the third down conversion statistics. Last year the Browns were successful 33% of the time on third down while allowing their rivals to convert 39%. This year, the Browns have only been successful a scant 30% while their friends in the North have been successful a staggering 50% of the time. Consider this a very shaky running in place.

Whatever one wants to make of this, the best that can be said is that in some ways the Browns have found a way to stop some of the bleeding. Still, this is a patient that’s down two quarts of blood with only one quart left in the ‘fridge. As fans we may not be privy to the structural and other things that Crennel must see as he measures progress, but by any way measurable and discernable, we’re reminded of what Crennel’s mentor, Bill Belichick was fond of saying, “we can only go by what we see.” Or, as that more prescient of seers, Bud Carson, once noted: “we’ve progressed to the point where we’ve stopped progressing.”

Shapiro Interrupted

It’s always been apparent that Indians GM Mark Shapiro rubs some people the wrong way. Some find him arrogant and others find him to be just so much the spin master. In that regard, such folks equate Shapiro with former Browns president and part-owner, Carmen Policy. That seems unfair.

Policy, in his short time here, went from beloved to bemoaned. When the Browns first came back to the league, a guy like Policy almost seemed necessary because, like Kevin Bacon’s character in the movie “Animal House”, we needed to be told to remain calm and that all was well while the train was careening unabated off the tracks. But after the sheen of the Browns return began to wear off through one colossal personnel screw-up after another by the Policy-led Browns, most grew tired of his act. In short, he lacked credibility. But Policy at least had the moxy and insight to know that he was wearing out his welcome and thus jumped shipped before he was pushed.

Shapiro, on the other hand, is a much more substantive guy. He may come across like Policy at times, but Shapiro at least knows from where he speaks. He can talk in depth about the 38th best prospect in the Indians farm system, for example. And while he tries to put the best face on most things, you often can tell between the lines that he’s really doing the best he can with the cards being dealt by the Dolans.

The radio “interview” WTAM sports troll Mike Trivisonno “conducted” with Shapiro earlier this week was classic Shapiro. (When referencing any on-air exchange between the buffoonish Trivisonno and a team official, it is difficult to use the words “interview” and “conducted” unless it is well understood by all that such activities consist alternatively of offering up fawning praise and softball questions.) It was in-depth and substantive in a way no other team official would dare allow and yet so full of spin as to make one question, upon reflection, whether he said anything at all.

Not to continue to beat a dead horse, but the exchange regarding traded closer Bob Wickman was particularly frustrating. It satisfied our urge for more information about this failed trade in the way that cotton candy satisfies a person’s hunger for food. Shapiro said, as he has said previously, that even with Wickman the Indians would only have won 5-7 more games. The tone is dismissive in the sense that a mere 5-7 more victories this last season would hardly have mattered. While a few more wins would not have gotten the Indians into the playoffs by a long shot, it may have given the fans a bit more optimism about this season, particularly if someone with the track record of Wickman was still closing games.

But the bigger problem with Shapiro’s dismissal of this fiasco is that it only tells part of the story. The truth of the matter is that this past year’s Indians team gave the closer shockingly few closing opportunities. If anyone was underutilized it was Wickman. The Tribe was either getting blown out or blowing someone out and save opportunities were generally few and far between. We tend to think of last year in that regard as an anomaly. In a more typical year, the closer would have been called on much more often. Consider, for example, that Wickman was traded with a little over a third left in the season and yet appeared in only one less game with Atlanta than he had with Cleveland. The point is that each time Shapiro tries to massage the facts to minimize Wickman’s impact, the facts get in the way. Wickman created a hole that is just not being plugged with lesser talents.

But the more entertaining portion of the “interview” was reserved for Shapiro’s plan undertaken in 2002 to make the Indians a long-term competitive team capable of winning 88-90 games a year. According to Shapiro, what he didn’t fully factor into the equation was how good the Central Division would be and how good the American League as a whole would be. It’s as if he is shocked that the rest of the Division and the League didn’t just lay down for the next four or five years and let the Indians play catch-up.

But, as we said, this is where you have to read between the lines with Shapiro. A sharp guy like Shapiro obviously knows that every other team is trying to get better. Likewise he knows that many other teams, like Detroit, Chicago and Minnesota, were spending more money than the Tribe to get and remain competitive. He can read the same statistics that we do and probably has them broken down in more ways than anyone in their right mind should. So what Shapiro is really saying is that he’s doing the best he can with the budget dollars available. And as has been well chronicled, the Indians continue to fall well short on that scale.

In the end, Shapiro basically confirmed what even the casual fan can observe: the Tribe is never likely to be that perennial competitor capable of winning 90 games every year. Because the budget dollars will always be less than optimal, the team will be in constant flux. Holes filled one year will re-open the next, only to be filled with second and third tier free agents with spotty track records and likely health problems. In other words, given how he is forced to operate, it’s almost inevitable that a year like 2005 will be followed up with a year like 2006.

But to channel our best Shapiro, to all of that we’d say that while this modus operandi may play havoc on the mental and physical health of the fans, at least it gives us all something to complain about.

Red-Faced?

We were dripping with ambivalence about the outcome or even the contest last night between the Browns and alleged rival Pittsburgh. Ambivalent mostly because it’s late in the season, it’s cold and the game means absolutely nothing to anyone outside of Romeo Crennel’s realtor.

But we were shaken from our doldrums by the headline in this morning’s Akron Beacon Journal which had to temerity to call the 27-7 pasting an “embarrassing” loss. To suffer embarrassment one must have done something incredibly stupid or ridiculous in front of someone else. In other words, there has to be an audience to witness the act. And if there is anything that’s accurate about last night’s loss is that whatever took place was not, fortunately, witnessed by anyone.

Sure, from what we could tell when we flipped over to Fox 8 during commercial breaks in “Grey’s Anatomy” there were a few people actually sitting in Heinz Field last night. But from our view it didn’t look like any of them were actually watching. Like any good Pittsburgher, they seemed more pre-occupied with the simultaneous tasks of trying to stay warm and playing “pull my finger.”

And we’re guessing that there were a handful of media types in the press box that felt compelled to occasionally check in on the score while they choked down brats or Primanti Brothers sandwiches or whatever the heck they serve in the buffet line. But outside of these pathetic souls, and the news team at Fox 8 that had to eyeball the game occasionally while they waited that extra hour or so before delivering the 10 o’clock news, certainly no one was watching the game.

We can only assume that’s what the NFL had in mind when they decided to play a Thursday night game in December in Pittsburgh between two teams going nowhere on a network that most people can’t get. Which is why, we believe, that whatever else you may call last night’s loss, it wasn’t embarrassing.

But if we can suspend reality and accept for the moment that people actually watched and were embarrassed by the Browns performance, we can only say we’re embarrassed they’re embarrassed. Surely, to anyone still paying attention the outcome of last night’s game was so predictable it hardly warranted actually being played. The Browns have now played the Steelers 14 times since the return from the Art Modell-imposed hiatus. They’ve been folded, spindled and mutilated in 13 of those games. (Actually, in the golden years of 2001-2003 the games were pretty competitive. Still, we lost 5 of those 6 games). These last two seasons have been particularly brutal.

Thus, if the outcome was predetermined, it makes no difference to us how they played. Sure, when the Browns lost earlier in the season we had folks like WTAM sports troll Mike Trivissono bootlicking owner Randy Lerner the next day on the air by saying that at least it was a good loss and that the Browns were making progress. (True compared to 2005 Christmas Eve massacre but at odds with the relative competitiveness of the games played between 2001 and 2003) But outside of munchkins like Triv whose idea of a tough question was to ask Carmen Policy what kind of wine he drank the night before, trying to differentiate between good and bad losses is so much a fool’s game for it obscures the fact that results still aren’t being achieved.

Professional sports is the ultimate meritocracy. The reward for a coach who wins is that he keeps his job. Losers become analysts. From a fan’s perspective, winning cures all ills and there is no such thing as a good loss. So excuse us if we feel no different about last night’s loss than we did about the loss two weeks earlier. The fact remains that the Browns have, once again, spent most of this season trying to convert a football town into a basketball town.

Still, if you must get embarrassed about what your team did last night in Pittsburgh, then have at it. There were plenty of moments to choose from and plenty of suspects to pick on. Braylon Edwards proved he can’t take a hit and Dennis Northcutt proved he can’t stand cold weather. The defensive line proved it can’t shed a block and Derek Anderson proved that no matter how bad the line, the best way to avoid a sack is to get rid of the ball quicker.

We’d observe that there may be a quarterback controversy brewing, but really, how much controversy exists over who is better suited as next year’s back-up to the free agent that will inevitably be signed? We’d observe that if there’s a bigger poser in football than Steelers head coach Bill Cowher we haven’t seen it, just as we’d observe that Steelers linebacker Joey Porter is giving Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis a real battle for biggest jerk in the AFC. (We’d say the league but until Terrell Owens retires, the award is his.)

But such observations, and any others we’d note like the continuing inability of this defense to stop any team on third down, would indicate a level of interest in last night’s game that we’re still having trouble mustering. But on the plus side, last night’s game gave Time Warner no reason to sign on to the NFL Network anytime soon, thus sparing us next week’s scintillating San Francisco at Seattle match up. Oh yea, and with last night’s loss this now opens up our Sunday.

The Bigger Picture

One unfortunate off-shoot of the controversy surrounding the selection of the second participant in this year’s BCS National Championship game is the intense criticism that Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel has endured from nearly every corner of the country. The knock on Tressel is that he abdicated his responsibility as a voter in the USA Today/Coaches poll by refusing to weigh in on whether Florida or Michigan deserved the nod.

It’s interesting that Michigan head coach LLLLLoyd Carr found the time to publicly criticize Tressel on his non-vote but didn’t have the time to campaign to voters on why his team was worthy of the number 2 spot. Carr claimed that such politicking was undignified, but calling out another coach, indeed your white whale, isn’t? Talk about being slick. Is there anyone left who doesn’t seriously understand exactly why Carr can’t get Michigan over the hump?

It was also interesting to note the flip-flop that the Plain Dealer’s Bill Livingston made today regarding Tressel. Livingston claims he originally supported Tressel’s call but now, when considering the bigger picture, finds much to criticize. Disregarding the more pertinent question (and, more importantly, the most obvious answers) as to why Livingston didn’t put more thought into his original column, his new opinion is just simply more of his Tressel bashing. It appears as well thought out, frankly, as his original column.

We’ve noted previously how ridiculous Livingston can be, especially when it comes to Tressel. But what caught our eye was that Livingston’s rationale for his flip-flop is really nothing more than a rehash of why he felt Tressel was ill-suited for the pro game. This convinces us that even Livingston’s editors have stopped paying attention, but we digress.

Our previous observation about Livingston remains pertinent today. Livingston’s intent is not to analyze the situation objectively but instead to try and strip away what he believes is the veneer coating Tressel. In both columns (the initial column is available here) Livingston continues to criticize Tressel for a supposedly too light suspension of linebacker Robert Reynolds in 2003! Even assuming that the penalty wasn’t stiff enough, that hardly seems like an appropriate launching pad from which to extrapolate greater meaning as to why Tressel abstained from voting last week. Hopefully, for Livingston’s sake, no one, particularly his editor, is actually tracking his body of work. We’d hate to think anyone would conclude that Livingston is even less than he appears to be.

As for the current criticism of Tressel, we think he’s being pummeled not for his actual actions but more as the tangible and convenient embodiment of the ills that underlie the BCS system. Most who have criticized Tressel have fairly noted that he exercised his vote every week, thus helping position the teams for that final, fateful vote. Having done so, the argument goes, to abdicate his responsibility because he was in a tough situation is, at best, weak and, at most, an act of cowardice.

But this criticism comes at the expense of the bigger issue: why we allow a system designed to decide the participants in the college national championship to put any coach in that position in the first place. The Tressel situation highlights the inherent conflicts of a coaches poll when it is used for anything but interesting conversation. Indeed, the whole selection system is a Gordian knot of inherent conflicts of interest.

Personally, we have no major problem with Tressel’s actions. Vote for Florida and risk giving an emotional edge to that Team Up North for the next hundred years. Vote for Michigan and risk giving bulletin board material to the Florida team he knew he was likely to face. It’s easy for others, like LLLLLoyd Carr, to weigh in because, of course, they weren’t faced with the dilemma. We would have done the same thing and, we suspect so too would most other coaches looking down the barrel of that gun.

Another point that most critics have glossed over is the fact that Tressel’s vote, either way, would have had no impact on the outcome. While that may not excuse what he did, it is a fact. More importantly, it is a fact that Tressel well knew when he made the decision. We’re pretty sure, too, that Tressel knew that the outcome in Florida’s favor was already secured. Put it this way, if he didn’t then Athletic Director Gene Smith isn’t doing his job very well.

What we do think, though, is that there probably was a slightly better way to handle all of this. Tressel should not have just abstained, he should have resigned as a voter and publicly proclaimed that the system is broke and should be reformed and that he’ll lead that charge. This at least would have blunted most of the criticism being tossed his way. But this is just arguing on the margins anyway.

Tressel is not, of course, perfect and never claimed to be. But knocking him in this instance as an excuse to not attack the bigger issues is like blaming the radio for playing a Brittany Spears song.

Save the Tears

It’s tempting to write about the Browns improbable victory yesterday against a decent Kansas City team. But if we did so, we’re afraid we’d find a way to cheapen the win by, for example, noting that Kansas City head coach Herm Edwards is at least a little nutty for not blitzing the rawest of rookie quarterbacks. Either that or note that the Browns defense is having an awful time getting off the field lately. In the last two games, the defense has been on the field for 9 very lengthy touchdown drives that look like this:

14 plays—69 yards
10 plays—82 yards
6 plays—56 yards
10 plays—70 yards
4 plays—25 yards (following turnover)
10 plays—85 yards
11 plays—80 yards
9 plays—77 yards
14 plays—99 yards

So we don’t want to cheapen yesterday’s win with any facts that might paint us as a cynic and instead we’ll rejoice in the kind of victory beleaguered head coach Romeo Crennel has been waiting for since he took over this moribund franchise.

Instead we took a look around all the controversy surrounding Florida’s selection to play in the BCS Championship game and ask: what’s the big deal? You can take a tour around the internet at all manner of websites and find somebody playing the contrarian and complaining about how Michigan was robbed.

Exhibit A is Gene Wojciechowksi at ESPN.com. In an ill-considered piece (available here) Wojciechowski attempts to lay out the better case for Michigan playing in a rematch against Ohio State. He can’t complaint about strength of schedule because, well, technically that favors Florida. So he whines that, basically, Michigan didn’t get any worse in the last two weeks and yet teams were able to jump over them, first Southern Cal and then Florida.

But that logic, which you’ll hear repeated from many sources, starts from a faulty premise: whatever happened after the OSU/Michigan game is irrelevant. If that was the case, why even play out the rest of the season?

As things stood two weeks ago, in the view of the voters (media and coaches) Michigan was the second best team even after being dispatched by the Buckeyes. But while the season may have been over for the Wolverines, it wasn’t for the Trojans or the Gators and to judge their merits on a less than complete schedule seems pretty unfair as well. Each team still had signature games left on their schedule and thus had the opportunity to convince voters of their merits as the nation’s second best team. And that’s exactly what happened.

Southern Cal’s handling of vastly overrated near-fraud Notre Dame essentially took the gloss off of Michigan’s victory in South Bend earlier in the season. At that point, voters could rightly notice that Michigan has only one other decent victory to claim as its own—Wisconsin—and a relatively close loss to the Buckeyes. With Michigan thus exposed, it wasn’t a surprise that Southern Cal overtook them following the Notre Dame Victory. Michigan no longer looked like the second best team to most voters. In other words, what happened that week wasn’t irrelevant.

This past weekend was basically a replay, only with Florida in the starring role. We all know what happened to Southern Cal, of course, and Florida’s impressive win in the SEC title game over a strong Arkansas team, one of several strong teams Florida played this season, convinced most that they, too, were better than Michigan.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that Michigan got worse. It’s just that two other teams, given the opportunity to actually complete their schedule, the same opportunity Michigan had, presented a body of work that was slightly more impressive. That hardly sounds unfair, let alone robbery.

Wojciechowski’s other main theme is that no one wanted to see a rematch, particularly Buckeye coach Jim Tressel. But that is so much a red herring. As for Tressel, why wouldn’t he want to see a rematch? He practically owns LLLLLoyd Carr at this point. If there is anyone who shouldn’t want to see a rematch it would be Carr, not Tressel. But more to the point, Michigan had its opportunity and came up short. People may look at the final score and diminish the Buckeye’s victory because it was only “three points.” But only a poor interference call kept a late Wolverines drive alive and allowed them to score that final touchdown. There wasn’t any point in that game where the Buckeyes weren’t in complete control.

We won’t debate the merits of the BCS system. It certainly has its flaws. But save us the tears for Michigan. In our mind, their claim for the National Championship Game isn’t even as good as the Louisville Cardinals. One could argue, for example, that but for an unfortunate offside penalty against Rutgers, the Louisville Cardinals would be undefeated and playing against the Buckeyes. In fact, we’d argue the point that this year the Big East was a tougher league than the Big Ten and Louisville nearly came through unscathed, save for that offside penalty that nullified a missed field goal by Rutgers. Given that reprieve Rutgers then made the kick sending Louisville to the most bitter of defeats for a team that has been pretty impressive itself.

The bottom line is that when Michigan had a chance to take matters into its own hands, it did not. Having thus put the decision to others, it seems disingenuous now to complain that the others blew it.

Groundhog Day, Again

It’s early Sunday morning, a crisp 28 degrees. The first Sunday of December. And in the Cleveland sports world, not much has changed, again.

The Indians signed two free agent pitchers. There was a time when this kind of signing would make the front page of the Plain Dealer sports page. Indeed, there was a time it would make the front page of the Plain Dealer news section. But that in a day when the Indians actually went out and signed premier free agents to large contracts.

When Larry Dolan decided to empty his bank account and overpay Richard Jacobs for the privilege of owning the Indians, those days essentially came to a crashing halt. John Hart saw the writing on the wall before most and headed to “retirement” which ended, not surprisingly, when another big-time spender, in the form of Thomas O. Hicks, thought he needed more help in spending his millions. Hart packed for Texas taking with him his calculator, his laptop and his six cellphones.

Since then, the Indians have been reduced to losing their top players via free agency and forced, by frugal ownership, to sign re-treads. That’s why the signings of Roberto Hernandez and Aaron Fultz have been greeted with a large shrug and relegated to page C11 in our section of the PD sports page.

We heard the spin: Hernandez is an “ageless wonder.” Fultz has a knack of getting out lefties. But the truth, as everyone knows by now, is that both are stretches that may or may not stabilize a shaky bullpen. Hernandez has a decent track record, but he is, for God’s sake, 42 years of age. When you think about it, the only surprise is that GM Mark Shapiro didn’t sign him for three years. And Fultz, well, he has exactly the kind of spotty track record, particularly of late, that makes him a perfect fit for a GM who, through necessity, is forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

We’ve complained at least as much as most about the lack of activity by Shapiro in addressing the team’s needs. So from that perspective, we give Shapiro an E for Effort in at least appearing to get some bullpen help. But in terms of actual help, these signings are closer in comparison to the Browns signing, say, Hank Fraley then to their signing of Dave Zastudil. In other words, there is nothing here to be excited about and, fortunately, no one seems to be. We are well deep into the Dolan ownership phase of this franchise and as fans we now understand how they operate. In other words, if either Shapiro or the Dolans thought these signings would sell more tickets then they are more clueless than Brittany Spears at a Fellini movie. Heck, they’re more clueless than Brittan Spears at a Disney movie for that matter.

The actual bigger news for the Tribe is that they continue to be snubbed by most free agents, even when the Tribe offers appear to be better. We had kind of gotten used to the fact that the premier free agents don’t even consider a viable option. That’s an obvious byproduct of the Dolans reputation. But now even the second and third tier free agents are staying away. Craig Counsell stayed with Milwaukee (!) despite a supposedly better offer from Cleveland. Moises Alou, who, if signed, would have joined Shapiro’s ageless wonder club, took less money to sign with the Mets.

This is probably the development most worth watching because it truly is a “man bites dog” story when a free agent starts taking less money. And while there is a stated reason in each case (Counsell’s agent, said, for example, that Counsell wanted to be closer to his young children), it’s all spin. The truth is that neither these free agents nor their agents see Cleveland as a first tier club willing to do and spend what it takes to get back to the World Series. The agents are more than happy to dump reclamation projects on the Tribe’s doorstep for a year of career rehab, but that’s no way to build and sustain contender, the Dolans oft-stated goal.

We’ve said it before and we’ll continue to say it until it comes to fruition: the only real hope for this franchise in the long-term is for the Dolans to sell. They simply lack the financial wherewithal to build a winner. And when they luck into one, which they did in 2005, they lack the style and class to live up to their commitments to spend enough to put the club over the top. That’s why the Indians in 2006 fell faster than the price on a Braylon Edwards’ jersey last week at the Browns team shop.

We’ll remain ever hopeful, of course, because that’s what we do. But as we’ve also said many times and will continue to say with respect to the Indians business plan: hope is not a strategy.

Staying the Course

When we called for Browns head coach, Romeo Crennel, to be axed, we noted that the most likely scenario, unfortunately, was that the Browns would favor theoretical stability and continuity over doing the right thing. That was on full display today as General Manager Phil Savage, channeling his best George W. Bush, downplayed any problems or turmoil in Berea and proclaimed that we’ll stay the course.

We’re certain that the Savage press conference won’t go over well with most fans. But rather than simply knee-jerk a reaction, let’s breakdown his major theme: stability.

Savage invoked several examples of stability or lack thereof to make his point. He said that Frank Beamer, the head coach at Virginia Tech, was nearly fired after his first two seasons. By being patient, Virginia Tech has supposedly gone on to become a top college program because it practiced patience when it wasn’t popular.

Savage invoked his former employer, the Baltimore Ravens. He noted that a year ago people were calling for Brian Billick’s oversized head. But the Ravens stuck with Billick and now look at ‘em, will ya?

Savage invoked the Pittsburgh Steelers and Bill Cowher, presumably for the purpose of demonstrating that good things can happen when you keep a good coach in place for a long period of time.

Although the examples are hardly comparable to what is fast becoming a Superfund waste site in Berea, we’ll except Savage’s premise if he accepts ours: you have to have the right person in place in the first instance.

When Beamer was hired by Virginia Tech, he had already had extensive head coaching experience and had been fairly successful in the process. We’ll give Savage the benefit of the doubt for having a better memory than us because we don’t recall any great hue and cry to replace Beamer early in his tenure. But assuming that such did exist, at least Virginia Tech had some track record to look back to for counseling such patience. The only track record Savage has with respect to Crennel is his work as an assistant. To this day Crennel has yet to prove he can make the transition from lifelong assistant to head coach and nothing in his background even speaks to that issue. Toss aside the Beamer comparison.

Regarding the world’s best offensive mind, just ask him, Brian Billick, at least he has a Super Bowl ring. Until they start playing the Super Bowl three or four times a year, there will be a finite number of coaches who have climbed that mountain. More to the point, what Savage forgets is that Billick was not hired by current Ravens owner Steve Biscotti in the first place. There’s always a tendency for the owner to want his own guy in place. The fact that Biscotti gave Billick the benefit of the doubt after last year’s Ravens meltdown while simultaneously putting Billick on a short leash. Crennel may have been a top assistant with a Super Bowl ring, but he didn’t win it as the man in charge so the situation is hardly comparable.

But the Billick comparison is useful if only to point out the differences. As we noted Biscotti put Billick on a short leash this year, meaning win or else. When Billick saw his offense struggling under offensive coordinator Jim Fassel, Billick moved quickly and canned his good friend. Crennel, under no similar urgency or threat, allowed the offense to founder under overmatched and underqualified offensive coordinator Maurice Carthon. It wasn’t until the players essentially threatened to personally buy Carthon a one-way ticket to the Arena League that Crennel took action. Thus, the better thought is to toss aside the Billick comparison. But if you must use it, then see it for how poorly Savage and the Browns fare in relation.

Let’s pause for a moment on the last example, Bill Cowher. To my knowledge, Cowher’s job has never been in jeopardy, even once. This despite the fact that until last season Cowher’s career was essentially a mirror of his former coach, Marty Schottenheimer. He knows how to make and keep a team competitive, he just couldn’t push it over the top. Only various meltdowns, including the career-threatening miss by former Colts and Cowboys kicker Mike Vanderjagt, allowed the Steelers to win their first Super Bowl in 26 years. But Cowher didn’t experience his first losing season until 7 full years into his 15-year career. While that losing season was followed by another, he at least had an impressive track record as a head coach on which to inform any decision regarding his future. Crennel, again, has no such track record so toss aside the Cowher example as well.

Usually the vote of confidence by the general manager or owner is the kiss of death. More often than not, a firing is often only days away. But in this case we think Savage is sincere, which is too bad. Savage went ahead in his press conference and cited the usual litany of reasons the Browns haven’t met expectations, such as injuries and the like. But every team suffers injuries so to our ears this sounded like so much more excuse making.

In our view, the measure of a person is not necessarily defined by the mistakes he makes but by how he responds to those mistakes. With Crennel, that’s all we really have to go on and that’s where he consistently falls short. He looked weak and impotent in dealing with Carthon’s repeated failures. He’s proven that he can’t control strong personalities like Kellen Winslow, Jr. and especially Braylon Edwards. No matter what he’s telling them “internally”, they still pop off, throw other coaches and players under the bus, and generally play the kind of undisciplined football that will keep sustained success elusive.

We understand that you can’t let transient emotions of the fans be the sole basis for making any team decisions. But neither can you ignore their feelings entirely. Savage and owner Randy Lerner are calculating that their own gut feelings, unjustified by any objective evidence, are correct. In doing so, hopefully they’ve taken into account that they stand on the precipice of alienating a dwindling base with their head-in-the-sand approach to management of their civic asset.

Pulling Punches

Having at least helped start the bonfire, we’re glad to note that others in the media are dumping, appropriately, on Browns head coach Romeo Crennel and receiver Braylon Edwards.

Just last evening, for example, Fox 8 sports director Tony Rizzo joined the chorus screaming in unison that Crennel must go. In this morning’s Plain Dealer, columnist Bud Shaw, while stopping short of calling for Crennel’s dismissal, at least sought to hold him responsible for what he called the “slow crawl of progress out of Berea.” Likewise, in the Beacon Journal, columnist Terry Pluto basically tells Edwards to just shut up.

We liked both columns, of course, mainly because we agreed with them. But in each case we can’t help but get the feeling that punches were pulled, which is why we liked Rizzo’s commentary so much. Both Shaw and Pluto were rightly critical of Crennel’s many and varied shortcomings. But why, then, stop short of making the final point: that Crennel is ill-suited to lead the team of the abyss that his management style has helped create?

And this isn’t just about, as Shaw suggests, publicly hanging Edwards out to dry just to placate the public. It is about the fact that Crennel can’t even demonstrate sufficient public leadership to make anyone believe that he’ll find a way to clamp down on Edwards, thereby giving both the fans and the team reasons to believe that Crennel really is in charge.

Normally, we’re firm believers in handling these kinds of matters behind closed doors. Generally, you don’t discipline an employee in front of his co-workers and you don’t criticize one of your players to the media. But these are hardly normal or general times. Edwards transgressions have been very public. The first was his open suggestion that his gratitude could be bought (or lost) depending on whether the head coach allowed him to attend the Ohio State/Michigan game in Columbus. When the Crennel laughed off the incident by telling the media that indeed Edwards had rethought the request, it was Crennel who ended up with egg on his face when Edwards was perched prominently on the Michigan sideline at The ‘Shoe. Crennel, of course, did nothing. Edwards had a decent game against Pittsburgh the next day but who’s to say that his getting run down on the 19-yard line wasn’t the result of being tired from the previous day.

The second and third transgressions occurred last week when, in the course of one media session, Edwards trashed safety Brian Russell and play caller Jeff Davidson. Crennel, as is his wont, again laughed off the incidents by suggesting that Edwards is just young and doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. But wasn’t it Crennel, again, who ended up with egg on his face when Edwards publicly embarrassed his teammates on Sunday?

The point, we think, is that Edwards very public disrespect and “me first” attitude deserves and equally public dressing down by the head coach. It is incumbent upon Crennel to discard his avuncular favorite uncle approach to dealing with problems, if just this one time, to show that if the ship is going down, and it is, he’s still the captain.

Instead, we get what we always get from Crennel: we’ll handle it internally. The first person that doesn’t believe that’s code for “hopefully this will blow over and I won’t get any more questions about it” please raise your hand.

At this point it’s beyond cliché that the fans deserve better. But phrases become clichés because they are so true it’s hardly necessary to continue to say the obvious. And that’s certainly the case here. The bottom line is that this franchise, since its return and except for one brief moment when they miraculously made the playoffs, has been embarrassment of epic proportions. The Browns, from top to bottom, continue to find new and insidious ways of alienating their fan base. It’s about time, someone, anyone, step forward, proclaim himself in charge and actually take responsibility for fixing this mess. Which reminds us of another cliché: if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Questions and More Questions

It's probably appropriate to give some credit to the Cleveland Browns and their webmaster for allowing their staff writer, Jeff Walcoff, to write somewhat objectively about yesterday's disastrous display against the mediocre Cincinnati Bengals.

But for whatever credit the Browns and Walcoff deserve, the story published raises many more questions than it answers. Head coach Romeo Crennel proclaims, defiantly, that his team won't quit with five games left. That's true, but only technically. One has to actually start something to quit and there was no point in yesterday's game where it looked like the team actually came to play. So we ask, what is their to quit?

On a related note, Crennel claims that his team is made up of competitors and that's their nature. As a description of professional athletes, Crennel's statement is accurate. But it's not as if the Browns players have any choice but to compete in the last five games. The tenure of a typical NFL player is so short and the recycling of players so prevalent, taking the field without at least the intention of demonstrating that you belong in the league is a cardinal sin. It's just not done. So we ask, the players are competitors, what does that prove?

Crennel felt the display was embarrassing and was the fault of many not few. Hard to disagree there, but to that we'd add "unprofessional." In fact, the lack of professionalism so permeated yesterday's performance that before anyone starts dishing out individual blame, one must look to the top first and foremost. The missed assignments on the offensive line and by the running backs was on full display. That's embarrassing. But the lack of effort, the lack of passion, and the fighting on the sidelines was unprofessional. Crennel says he'll deal with it "in house." So we ask, what will that accomplish?

The fact is, this team is a whirling set of questions without any easy or definitive answers. The Browns, as currently configured, lack talent, depth, character, passion and professionalism. This is not a situation that gets turned around in a hurry. And if none of this actually developed under Crennel's watch, he's allowed it to both grow and fester.

GM Phil Savage has tacitly and repeatedly acknowledged these shortcomings and has counseled patience. And to that we ask, what's our choice?

Crennel Must Go

If there is one thing we can tell by now, it's when a coach is on the verge of getting canned. The results are clear on the field and in the locker room. Players fighting, airing grievances in public, playing without passion or inspiration. Those are the telltale signs of a coach who's lost control. The signs were there long before the University of Miami finally pulled the plug on head coach Larry Coker just as they were there long before Ohio State pulled the plug on John Cooper. And only a fool would try to deny the signs on this Cleveland Browns team.

It's hard to tell exactly when head coach Romeo Crennel lost the team. The smart money says it began with his steadfast support of deposed offensive coordinator Maurice Carthon, despite the putrid state of the offense. Others, we suspect, will argue that he never really had the team in the first place. To our eye, we tend to share that view.

As we've previously noted, Crennel's hiring went against the grain of what most teams look for these days. He's been a long-time assistant who had been interviewed and passed over many times before the Browns finally took a chance. Don't think the players didn't notice. And when Crennel got his chance, he acted less like a head coach and more like a coordinator when he turned his offense over to an untested and ultimately overmatched Carthon. In doing so, Crennel admittedly abdicated any role in the offense and instead paid more attention to the defense. It showed and the players noticed.

But what shows the most is the utter lack of leadership by Crennel. He didn't say much publicly when Kellen Winslow, Jr. put his Evel Knievel dreams ahead of the team and, in the process, blew out his knee in a motorcycle accident. He said little publicly when Trent Dilfer went toe-to-toe with Carthon, except to wave goodbye to a servicable starter/backup. And when it came to finally dumping Carthon, Crennel was worried more about protecting Carthon's thin skin then acting like a leader by proclaiming publicly that Carthon resigned when everyone knew the truth. Don't think the players didn't notice.

But the signs these days are coming ever more frequently and the poster child is the increasingly childlike Braylon Edwards. We previously noted how Edwards wanted to attend the Ohio State/Michigan game and suggested loudly how grateful he would be if Crennel afforded him that privilege on the day before the Pittsburgh game. Crennel suggested, publicly, that Edwards wouldn't be going but, lo and behold, Edwards was there, defying both his coach and the other players who privately told Edwards that his first loyalty was now with the folks signing his paychecks.

In the run-up to this week's match-up with Cincinnati, there was Edwards again throwing safety Brian Russell under the bus for a clean but physical hit on Chad Johnson in the last Cincinnati game. To add even more fuel to a fire already at full blaze, Edwards blasted new play caller Jeff Davidson for being too conservative in the red zone. Crennel, for all his leadership skills, was dismissive to these outbursts except to say that Edwards wouldn't be fined.

It will be interesting, then, to see how Crennel will respond to Edwards after today's debacle against Cincinnati, that is, if Crennel still has a job. On display for anyone to see was Edwards publicly embarrassing his beleaguered quarterback, Charlie Frye. Edwards clearly went after Frye on the sidelines following another interception. Apaprently Edwards was incensed that Frye was too busy running for his life to see Edwards running open. In his only effective play of the game, running back Rueben Droughns stepped into to stop Edwards visible abuse of Frye.

It's not a surprise, of course, that Crennel ignored the mini-drama unfolding on the sidelines. We've come to expect that from Crennel. But more telling, really, is the fact that Edwards feels so emboldened to act as he does in the first place. This is exactly what it looks like when the coach is no longer in control and the players feel free to challenge authority and service their own needs rather than to place any emphasis on the team or the game itself. It's what happened to Coker at Miami and Cooper at OSU. And it's what's unfolding in Cleveland right now.

If Crennel survives this season or even this week, we'll be amazed and disappointed. The Browns under his leadership, have clearly regressed. The last time we witnessed such an uninspired beat down like today's game against the mediocre Bengals was last year against Pittsburgh. But here the Browns sit, nearly a year later, still getting the stuffing beat out of them by a divisional rival.

When a coach gets fired, there will always be some players who will blame themselves. After all, the conventional wisdom goes, they are the ones not making the tackles or catching or throwing the balls. That's true at a basic level but at an even more basic level it's also true that these Browns don't respond to Crennel. We'd like stability and continuity just as much as anyone but another year of Crennel will just set this franchise back further.

If the Browns want to do something bold, now, they should fire Crennel and replace him with defensive coordinator Todd Grantham. Grantham is the exact kind of young coach that teams are hiring these days. He's been the one coaching bright spot on an otherwise dismal staff assembled by Crennel. Though the defense has let the team down the last two weeks, the truth is that it still plays with emotion, which we attribute directly to Grantham.

But given how the Browns operate, they'll stand pat, valuing stability over results. In the process, they'll lose Grantham to Michigan State just like they lost Bill Cowher to Pittsburgh. And when Grantham finally does make it back to the NFL as a head coach, which he will, as fans we can sit back, again and say "I remember when he used to coach here" as we put the finishing touch on still another losing season.

A Bad Win, A Good Loss

When it comes to the NBA, we think, as Tom Robbins' character Andy Dufresne told the court in "The Shawshank Redemption" that we've been quite clear on this point: most of what happens in the regular season is irrelevant. And in that vein we don't think there was much relevance in last night's Cleveland Cavaliers victory over the Memphis Grizzlies.

But what did catch our eye was Terry Pluto's column about the game in this morning's Akron Beacon Journal. Essentially Pluto complains because the Cavs lacked a certain amount of intensity once they got up by 21 points in the second quarter. As a result, they barely hung on for the victory. In other words, in Pluto's view, it was a bad loss.

The reason this intrigued us so much was that we inadvertently tuned to WTAM 1100 on Monday night and had a chance to listen to sports troll Mike Trivisonno, an opinionated, intellectually-limited bigot, interview Browns owner Randy Lerner and GM Phil Savage. The most interesting aspect of Trivisonno is the fact that he doesn't just not bite the hand that feeds him, he goes out of his way to lick the plate clean for them. Anytime he has a Browns, Indians, or Cavs "official" on his show for an interview, Trivisonno immediately becomes house apologist, finding all manner of good with nary a negative take on any aspect of their operations.

And the interview with Lerner and Savage were Trivisonno at his best or worst, depending on your perspective. (Here is a link to the podcasts.) As listeners we learned that the Browns loss to the Steelers was, in Trivisonno's words, a good loss. Lerner readily agreed, citing the alleged progress the team is making. Savage likewise agreed and then proceeded to tell us that he has gone back to review the first-year starter statistics of quarterbacks like Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, Peyton Manning and a few others and compared them with Browns quarterback Charlie Frye. According to Savage (and we're not making this quote up), Frye is "virtually in the same ball park" as these others. "Not the best, but not the worst either."

So this is what we've been reduced to: With the Cavs we find much to fault about their win. With the Browns we find much to love about their loss. That, friends, is the essence of why it is so difficult to be a fan of Cleveland sports. The only thing worse than failure is success. More in love with pretty losses than ugly wins.

The last time we checked, the object of each of our professional sports teams was to win ball games. If you win and win consistently, good things tend to happen, like championships. When you lose and lose consistently, bad things ten to happen, like relocation.

We'd argue that we deserve better from a radio station like WTAM. But at this juncture the only ones that listen to it for reasons other than game broadcasts are shut-ins, family members of its employees, and a few saps who mistakenly hit the wrong button on the car radio. We'd argue that we deserve better from a columnist like Terry Pluto. But the one thing we know is that Pluto writes so often and changes his mind so frequently, the chance of anything he says anymore lingering is minimal.

What we would argue, though, is that the teams you get you deserve. We expect the teams, through paid shills like Trivisonno, to try to convince us that losses are good. But as fans, if we buy into that concept, then we don't deserve success. Which is convenient since its not likely to come anytime soon anyway.

Pilgrim's Progress

We've noted this phenomena before and will note it again: fans read too much into both every Browns win and every Browns loss. That's why we're not surprised at the level of anger being directed at Berea right now.

The easy analysis of yesterday's Browns/Steelers game is to say that, like the Baltimore game, the Browns found a way to snatch a loss from the jaws of victory. It's easy to say that because, for the most part, it's true. The harder analysis is to figure out what, exactly, yesterday's loss means in the grand picture.

To gain some perspective we were inspired by tight end Kellen Winslow, Jr., who told Steelers linebacker Joey Porter before the game that the 41-0 drubbing last Christmas Eve came with he and receiver Braylon Edwards out of the lineup. That made us go back and check the team's progress over these last two seasons.

Here's where the picture doesn't get pretty. At the same point last year, the Browns were the same 3-6 as they found themselves this season. But they went on to win three of their last seven to finish 6-10. Last year, their sixth loss was against Pittsburgh, a not too competitive 34-21 drubbing. But the Browns responded by playing one of their best games, a 22-0 shut out of Miami and responded to that 41-0 beat down by Pittsburgh with an impressive win against Baltimore.

The conventional take on last year's team was that they were young but competitive for the most part. They had other chances to win but couldn't quite finish, which is typical of a young team. That's what we were left with entering into this season.

And as we entered the season, we were buoyed by the fact that both Edwards and Winslow would return as would safety Sean Jones. Throw in a decent draft and some free agent acquisitions and 7 to 8 wins was not supposed to be out of the questions.

But what we're left with is, at best, a rehash of last year's season, a team still unable to finish games. The fact that 10 games into this season we have a team incapable of finishing off a reeling opponent is the most telling and obvious sign that this has been a lost season. While there have been several injuries, that is hardly an excuse in today's NFL. Everyone has injuries. The bottom line is that even with their playmakers in tact, the Browns have simply not progressed by the only stat that counts--winning.

We're glad that quarterback Charlie Frye has another season under his belt. We're even more glad that he's been able to answer the bell each week given the inept play of the offensive line. But this additional experience has been of questionable value. The Browns still aren't winning and the difficulty of their remaining schedule strongly suggests that their win total will be less than last year's.

We're sure that the Crennel apologists will be out in full force, just as we're sure that neither GM Phil Savage nor Owner Randy Lerner have any appetite to fire Crennel. But in terms of the ultimate assessment, we'll again turn to Joey Porter of the Steelers. When asked about all the jawing with Winslow yesterday, Porter summed it us thusly: different people, same result.

Divided Loyalties

We didn't see much of a need to comment on the Browns strange victory against Atlanta except to say that we hope it's that key victory that Head Coach Romeo Crennel has talked about all year. We like the way they played in the first half, hated the third quarter and admired the fact that, for once, someone other than quarterback Charlie Frye made a huge fourth quarter turnover.

We saw slightly more need to comment on last Friday's Cleveland Cavaliers victory over the Boston Celtics if only to say that they showed some incredible grit in coming from 18 down late to gut out the win. But that, ultimately, would violate our tacit understanding that most of what happens during the regular season is meaningless. But if you happen to find yourself looking for signature victories by Cleveland teams in 2006, forget about the Browns vs. Falcons game and look instead at the Cavs vs. Celtics. It provided still another exhibit in the growing bottom of evidence that LeBron James is in that very rare category of player, like Tiger Woods, who sees victory as the ultimate goal, no matter how small the stakes.

But what we saw most worthy of comment came today in the form of Browns receiver Braylon Edwards plea that he be able to attend the OSU/Michigan game on Saturday, the day before the Cleveland version of that game in the form of Browns/Steelers. According to the story in today's Plain Dealer, Edwards is quoted as saying: "It's a once in a lifetime opportunity for me. I've never been a selfish guy, and I would never do anything to have my teammates look at me in a negative way or have my coach think I wasn't worried about the Steelers game first and foremost. But if he does give me the opportunity, I'd definitely take it and be very appreciative."

This is essentially code for Edward saying, basically, that his team isn't going anywhere anyway so what's the big deal if he misses a day of preparation, even if it's for a game against the Browns' biggest rival.

What really caught our eye about this story is the contrast with Tony Grossi's main story detailing how seriously the Browns players take this rivalry, particularly given the 41-0 beat down they suffered last Christmas Eve. Apparently Braylon hasn't gotten the message.

There has been very, very little to cheer about since the Browns returned from their Art Modell-imposed hiatus. But irrespective of the records, the Cleveland fans still get hyped, overly hyped, for the games against the Steelers. That's because they understand the rivalry. The only reasons it lacks the intensity of the OSU/Michigan game are that there are two such games with the Steelers each year, the dates of the games vary, and the expanded playoff system in the NFL rarely makes any particular game the key to the season. But the hate that Browns fans have for Steeler fans and vice versa is every bit as intense. Most importantly, the fans of both teams expect the players to take it just as seriously.

And in this regard, that's where the Browns in all their various forms since their return have come up short, year after year. The Braylon Edwards comment just cement that fact, notwithstanding whatever else you might read to the contrary.

We like Edwards well enough, even though he's a Wolverine. But it's one thing to reminisce and wish you could attend the game and a whole other matter to actually ask and imply how disappointed you'll be with your coach if you're denied that opportunity. In short, Edwards' loyalty to his new fans and his new employer will be forever suspect. We surely doubt that Head Coach Romeo Crennel will give in to such childish demands. But if he does, to us that's tantamount to sending a message to the rest of the team and to the fans that this game is not all that important. It's the kind of thing that ultimately got John Cooper fired from Ohio State and will be just the kind of thing that ultimately will get Crennel fired as well.

Open Season

With the baseball free agent season set to open next week, the lack of noise thus far from the Cleveland Indians is deafening. At least it was until earlier today when the Indians traded prospects Kevin Kouzmanoff and Andrew Brown to San Diego for rookie second baseman Josh Barfield.

On the one hand, GM Mark Shapiro can now cross one item off his "to do" list. On the other hand, was this the deal to make?

We've chronicled many times our displeasure with the Indians with respect to free agents. They are underfinanced by cheapskate owners and adhere to a corporate strategy in which the level of success is almost exactly equal to their level of luck.

Last year, GM Mark Shapiro was unlucky. Saddled with an uncompetitive budge and a game plan built oddly around replacing closer Bob Wickman, the Indians mostly whiffed on their off-season acquisitions last year and as a result took a step, maybe two, backward. They went from a team with 93 wins in 2005 and poised for a playoff run to a team that has several major holes to fill before they can even return to competitiveness.

One of those holes most definitely is at second base. There was screaming all season when the Indians traded infielder Brandon Phillips to the Cincinnati Reds. And when Ronnie Belliard was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals, the Tribe was left with utility players like Joe Inglett to fill the void. But for those still bemoaning those losses and trying to put the Barfield trade in context, a recent posting in "The Baseball Analysts" should be of great interest.

In Rich Lederer's November 8 column he lists his most Overrated Offensive Players for this last season. Essentially, this is a list of players who are generally perceived to be decent offensively but who statistically don't really measure up. The criteria is simple. To make the list a player has to have a batting average that is greater than the league norm but an on base percentage and slugging average below the league norm.

Interesting, both Belliard and Phillips garner an honorable mention. Belliard had a decent .272 batting average but his on base percentage was only .322 and his slugging average only .403. Phillips had remarkably similar statistics: .276/.325/.427. And, while he didn't have enough plate appearances to qualify, Joe Inglett was essentially a mirror image: .283/.332/.383 Not to take this too far, but Inglett actually had the higher fielding percentage of the three (.984 to Belliard's .981 to Phillips' .977) Barfield is basically a mirror image as well. He hit .280 last year with .318 on base percentage and a .423 slugging average. His fielding percentage was .987.

The trade for Barfield relegates Inglett and Hector Luna to utility status, where both are probably better suited and does ostensibly fill the hole at second base. But the larger point is that the hole that existed wasn't necessarily created by the trading of Belliard or Phillips. It was created by the fact that Shapiro hasn't adequately addressed it in the last few years, satisified instead with the underachieving Belliard.

On the positive side, though, Barfield has a full year of major league experience to draw on and appears to have, in Shapiro speak, a "huge upside." But to get Barfield he also gave up a player in Kouzmanoff who also has a"huge upside." From that angle, it's an interesting trade made even more interesting since they are both infielders. Clearly the Padres think Kouzmanoff will hit for higher average and power in the years to come. His performance in the minors suggests as much. But this is the kind of trade that does keep the hot stove going and the kind of trade that rarely gets made these days. Players of similar age and abilities going to teams that obviously like slightly better the guy the other team had.

And while on the subject of free agents, we also noticed the story in today's USA Today in which they handicapped the derby for the high-priced free agent pitchers. (A similar article appears with respect to the top hitters as well) In the article, the various writers predict where the top free agents will land and what kind of contract they'll get.

In a surprise roughly on the scale of the either the news of John Daly's fourth divorce or Brittany Spears' split from serial breeder, Vanilla Ice wannabe Kevin Federline, no one predicted the Indians would make a pitch for any of the first tier free agents. Long gone are the days when owner Richard Jacobs would unveil his free agent Christmas presents to the fans in the form of Dennis Martinez or Orel Hersheiser or Eddie Murray. And, not coincidentally, long gone are the days when the Tribe would sell out the season before it opened.

In short, don't expect much this off-season. The Tribe, under the ownership of the Dolans, has gone from market setters to bottom feeders. And in that role we know what we'll get: some second or third level free agent with a career that features more down side than not.

Crenneled

A question still lurking in the background for this year's Cleveland Browns is whether head coach Romeo Crennel will get to fulfill the final year of his contract. To the objective eye, the safe bet would be against that happening. But this is Cleveland and this is the Browns and if there is one constant it's their unpredictability.

We've chronicled, several times, Romeo's shortcomings, all of which were on full display in the Maurice Carthon debacle. So, as Jim Leyland might say, we won't re-chew our breakfast on that one. And while we see a better organized offense since Jeff Davidson took over the play calling, the overall product is still woeful and showing little evidence of progress. That would seem to spell doom.

But putting all of that insignificant on-the-field evidence screaming that the head coach is overmatched, we'll instead consider Crennel's press conference yesterday.

Crennel has been praised for his relative candor in such settings. And compared to automatons like New England's Bill Belichick, Crennel looks positively chatty most times. But his discussion about quarterback Charlie Frye smacked of a coach who knows he's on his way out and just doesn't care anymore.

Crennel, clearly not on the same playbook as his boss, GM Phil Savage, openly questioned whether Frye is the long-term answer at quarterback. Sure, Crennel talked about Frye's intangibles: "He's got good talent, good ability, good leadership ability, got some toughness. The guys rally around him. At that position you've got to have that," Crennel said. But Crennel also sounded just a bit exasperated that Frye, like the rest of the team, hasn't made much progress. Crennel said that Frye was under "pretty good duress" early on in the season, making it tough to make a valid evaluation but, "going forward, we'll see that he's a capable quarterback."

Reading between the lines, Crennel has given Frye the benefit of the doubt for the early mistakes because of the offensive line. But now, not so much. Crennel seemed to attribute Frye's continued problems to his desire to "make a play." Translated: Frye still hasn't made much progress in learning when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

The fact that Crennel was unwilling to give Frye a solid endorsement, while intellectually honest, suggests that Crennel and Savage are not in sync on Frye's future. The fact that Savage didn't initially bring in a credible back-up and has since made no overt gestures in that direction strongly suggests that Savage sees things much differently when it comes to Frye's future.

If you are handicapping Crennel's chances of returning, this is the key development that bears watching. Yesterday's press conference was an subtle throwdown by Crennel to Savage that quarterback is another hole that may need to be filled. If Savage disagrees with this assessment, it will become the foundation upon which Crennel's departure is built as we can easily see the scenario developing where Crennel overtly puts his job on the line by demanding a change. However that scenario plays out will surely determine the future of the Browns. Here's hoping that owner Randy Lerner once again sides with his general manager against an overmatched and underachieving counterpoint.

Fried

There are many conclusions you could probably draw from yesterday's Cleveland Browns/San Diego Chargers game, but the one we'll stick with is that the Browns better start looking for another quarterback, quickly.

It's not that we're necessarily down on Charlie Frye, although we are, it's just that he can't possibly survive this season in tact. Just looking at the official statistics, he's been sacked an astounding 29 times in 8 games. That translates to 58 times over the season, a figure he'll never reach because, again, he can't possibly survive this season in tact. And the 29 sacks doesn't even begin to measure how many times he's been knocked down and thrown about, which is probably double the sack total.

Frye is big and strong and seems to move around well. But he makes incredibly poor decisions each and every game, which is contributing to the abuse he's taking. We understand that the Browns have a poor offensive line. But this poor line is only part of the problem. While Frye has been sacked 29 times in 8 starts this year, he also was sacked another 21 times in 5 starts last year. Meanwhile, Reuben Droughns was on his way to rushing for 1200 yards last year, meaning it's not the worst line of all time. If anything, the Browns relative ability to run the ball last year should have resulted in less pressure on Frye, not more. Yet his sack total last year is nearly identical to what he's suffering from this year. And this year the running game has been much worse.

We've noted before that we understand why GM Phil Savage didn't sign a big-name back-up. Given the limited expectations of this year's team, there seemed to be little reason to saddle Frye with fans screaming for his back-up as Frye himself continued to founder. In theory, this makes sense. In reality, it's played out much worse then anyone could have expected.

To the extent that Frye is progressing, it's imperceptible to the naked eye. He continues to fumble and throw interceptions. He still can't seem to look beyond, at best, the second option on most pass plays. He has an unwarranted confidence in his own ability to make a play with his feet despite very limited success in that regard.

We're not burying poor, beaten Charlie yet. But at this point it's in the conversation. The Browns have significant holes to fill in the off season. It appears that quarterback will have to be added to this list, if only because the likelihood rises each week that a career-threatening injury to Frye is just around the corner. Ken Dorsey, make sure you can find your helmet.

***

We've had many ask us how the Browns could possibly give Joshua Cribbs a six-year contract. While we agree that he's shown some skills as a kick returner, his abilities as a receiver are rudimentary, at best, and were on full display yesterday. And while a six-year contract tends to show a very odd and lengthy commitment, even for the Browns, recognize that it is solely a function of how the salary cap works. We don't yet have the details on Cribbs' contract, but you can bet that there is a signing bonus involved. As such, the Browns can pro-rate the bonus over the life of the contract, thus reducing the salary cap impact. If/when Cribbs gets cut in a year or two, the bonus will then get accelerated. But until then, the contract, which is NOT guaranteed, nonetheless gives Cribbs the perception of security while allowing the Browns salary cap flexibility. That's it.

***

In all of this discussion about Frye, don't lose site of two points that were even more apparent yesterday. First, the Browns simply wore down during the game. The outcome was inevitable. San Diego, a good but not great team, was physically better and stronger. The point, though, is that the Browns have a long way to go to even get to the level of the Chargers. Which leads us to the second point. If the Browns aren't even near the level of the Chargers, how far behind must they be of the New England Patriots or the Indianapolis Colts? To paraphrase Robert Shaw's character Quint in the movie Jaws, you're gonna need a bigger yard stick to measure that one.

Stupid is as Stupid Does

There's this old joke about a young boy without a body. It seems that his mom would set his head on the window ledge each day to allow him to watch the world go by. The young boy constantly longed to be outside, running and playing with the other boys in the neighborhood. One day his fairy godmother appears and grants him one wish. Naturally he wishes that he had a body so that he could go outside and play football with the other boys. His wish is granted and as he runs out the door and begins to cross the street he's hit by an on-coming semi. As he lays dying, his fairy grandmother appears and says "you should have quit while you were a head."

We think of that often and particularly today as we read Plain Dealer columnist Bill Livingston's latest 20 inches of wasted column space. Ostensibly Livingston muses about whether Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel would be a good fit for the Browns. But what caught us at the outset was Livingston's second paragraph. Admitting that he openly wondered whether Tressel could make the jump from Youngstown State and the several national titles he won there to the pressure cooker of Ohio State, Livingston said "Too bad we didn't sign a pre-nup to limit our stupidity liability. "

From our viewpoint, had Livingston ended his column right there it would have been his best and most accurate piece ever. But alas, it's budget cutting time at the PD and the editors figured that if Livingston is going to earn his salary, he'd have to write more than two paragraphs. More's the pity, at least for Livingston, because he then sets about methodically proving, again, his own stupidity.

Livingston notes that few, if any, college coaches can successfully make the transition to the pros. That seems true enough, at least recently. But there have been plenty of successful coaches who started in the college ranks, including Vince Lombardi, Bill Parcells and John Madden, although not as head coaches. And the trend these days does seem to work more in reverse--the successful pro assistant going to the college ranks.

But where Livingston really loses us is in his criticism of Tressel as supposedly a poor judge of quarterback talent. Taken in order, in 2001 Steve Bellisari was a senior and Tressel, as the new coach, had little choice in the matter. In terms of choosing between Scott McMullen and Craig Krenzel, two John Cooper recruits, Tressel initially chose the more classic quarterback of the two. Ultimately, though, Tressel made the right choice and Krenzel made the most of his limited abilities and lead the Buckeyes to the national championship in 2002. In choosing Justin Zwick over Troy Smith, Livingston fails to mention two key points. First, they were both Tressel recruits so if you're going to ding him for not recognizing talent, acknowledge, at least, that he recognized enough in Smith to offer him a scholarship. Second, Zwick was, by far, the highest rated quarterback recruit nationally at the time. He's a big guy with a classic drop-back style.

But even more to the point, the Troy Smith of today is hardly the Troy Smith of a few years ago. In terms of pure quarterback skills, Smith was sorely lacking, even when he first took over in the Iowa game two years ago after Zwick was hurt. Smith was a run-first, pass second kind of guy. In short, he was selfish.

But to Smith's credit, and to Tressel's, Smith has developed into probably the best quarterback ever at Ohio State and the front-runner in this year's Heisman Trophy contest. Again, if you're going to ding Tressel over an initial decision, acknowledge the entire landscape and, more importantly, the fact that it was under Tressel's direction that both Krenzel and Smith developed into the players they became.

In context, Livingston's column seems more designed to try strip away what he sees as the veneer coating Tressel. But Livingston's efforts, as usual, are weak and unsupported. Tressel may not be perfect, or as perfect as Livingston, but to suggest that he's not all he's portrayed is as unfair as it is ridiculous.

We harbor no doubt that if Tressel had pro aspirations, he could easily make that transition and be successful. But as unabashed Buckeye fans, we can only hope he harbors no such goals.

Jump Ball

In perusing the various NBA previews in the local and national newspapers, we can't help agree with the common theme of them all--that last year's playoffs served as a key reference point to this upcoming season. Where we depart ways, though, is why. In our view, if last year's playoffs proved anything, it's that the NBA season is too long and mostly irrelevant.

To be sure, last year's Cavs/Washington Wizards (or is it Bullets, we're not sure) and Cavs/Detroit Pistons were compelling and entertaining. But all that did was demonstrate the indifference with which most NBA players seem to approach regular season games. The intensity of virtually any playoff game was unmatched in any regular season game between any NBA teams and we challenge anyone anywhere at any time to prove otherwise. In fact, what is most striking about the NBA is the starkly visible difference between regular season and playoff games. To be sure, the playoffs are different than the regular season in every sport. But the disparity in the NBA is so obvious that it actually cheapens the day-to-day product.

The even larger point, though, is that the season simply is too long. That's the message the players continue to send with their indifferent play until the playoffs roll around. The season is 82 games spread over nearly 6 months. the playoffs take another two months, meaning that the NBA season is longer, by a month, than the Major League Baseball season and three months longer than the NFL season. And what do you get for your first six months: a meritocracy system that eliminates only the truly putrid. For all practical purposes, the NBA playoffs are a massive, out of control round robin tournament from which only the lame and infirm are uninvited.

We can appreciate the talents of someone like LeBron James as well as anyone. And all things being equal, we're glad he's on a Cleveland team. He gives this city its first international sports superstar ever. But we tend to subscribe to the less is more theory and believe that shortening the season would only further highlight the true gifts of someone like James and make each game that much more meaningful.

The reason that fans are so crazed for NFL football, even bad NFL football like that purveyed by the Browns, is that there are only 16 games. That places outsized importance on each one. If you don't think so, take a visit to Pittsburgh right now and you'll find most of their fans sitting in their family rooms in a semi-catatonic state with a switchblade near their wrist because the Steelers are 2-5. Even with 9 games left, they know that there is very little margin for error left if their team, the reigning Super Bowl champs, are to return to the playoffs.

But if the Cavs start off 2-5, or even 10-20, there is still little doubt that they'll make the playoffs. And irrespective of what their record may be it has absolutely no relevance to how they may or may not perform in the playoffs.

So if you insist on dissecting the Plain Dealer's NBA preview supplement in today's paper for insight into how the Cavs will finish, don't look to the idle words of the self-annoited experts. We suggest you look solely at the schedule. You know that the Cavs will play on the road 41 times. That means that, at best, that will account for 20 wins because if there is one thing that is more true in the NBA than in any other sport, it's that the home court advantage is more pronounced. Next, look at how many times the Cavs play back-to-back games, particularly when the second game is on the road and even more particularly when they are both on the road. If there is anything even more true about the NBA than home court advantage, is that back-to-back games are greeted with about as much enthusiasm as a Thanksgiving trip to the in-laws. That should account for another 10 losses right there. In short, if the Cavs are as good as advertised, they'll win around 50-52 games. If they fall short of expectations, meaning they lose more games at home than anticipated, then they'll be in the 46-48 win range. Again, though, this is mostly meaningless because they'll make the playoffs either way.

If you're looking for real insight from the PD's NBA supplement, check out the schematic of the locker room. There you'll find that King James has the corner suite and no neighbor, the better to accommodate the media. You'll also learn about his 20" video monitor, his X-Box 360 game system and, most importantly, that his shoe company (Nike) not only supplies him with shoes, but shower slippers. Now that's insight we couldn't live without.