Rappin' Randy

The NFL draft is closing in and that can only mean one thing: Randy Lerner is talking again. In what is becoming a ritual nearly as reliable as the buzzards returning to Hinckley each spring, Browns owner Randy Lerner recently made the rounds of the local dailies by granting interviews to the Plain Dealer, the Beacon Journal and the Canton Repository. Apparently he hasn’t been able to touch base with Jeff Schudel at the News-Herald to make the rounds complete but it’s bound to happen.

Cobbling together the tidbits from each interview, we’ve learned the following:

• If it’s Lerner’s call, Romeo Crennel’s job is safe. Lerner told the Canton Repository that the disruption to the organization by replacing the head coach is something he couldn’t even wrap his mind around. Lerner was less poetic to the Plain Dealer but no less emphatic, saying that it is not his perception that Crennel is a lame duck.

• That when Crennel and GM Phil Savage took over, the cupboard was bare and they have spent their time since trying to fill it. Lerner was at his most candid in this regard, telling the Beacon Journal that the team had maybe “five or six or seven ” football players to speak of and he would leave it to debate who they were.

• Lerner believes that a team needs a core of 35 players to be successful and right now the Browns have around 18. Lerner even went so far as to name the core players, saying: “I have (Joe) Jurevicius, (Orpheus) Roye, Kellen Winslow, Braylon Edwards, Kamerion Wimbley, Sean Jones, Brodney Pool, Eric [Steinbach], Jamal Lewis, Andra Davis, Charlie Frye, D'Qwell Jackson, Leigh Bodden, Josh Cribbs for special teams certainly if not other, Steve Heiden, and emerging players like Leon Williams, Lawrence Vickers, Jerome Harrison, Travis Wilson.'' Actually, that’s 19, which, by Lerner’s calculation means the Browns are roughly half way toward building their roster.

• He likes the job Phil Savage is doing. He said the Browns are very focused on improving both the offensive line and defensive line and creating depth, particularly in free agency and that Savage is on track in that regard.

• He is a big Braylon Edwards fan. Lerner told the Canton Repository that it’s a misconception that Edwards is a loner and not a team guy and that Edwards is an amazing athlete and well-liked. He told the Plain Dealer that Edwards is growing and maturing as a person and, as noted above, told the Beacon Journal that Edwards is considered a core player.

• The addition of Jamal Lewis is something that can help jumpstart a change in culture from that of a franchise used to losing to one expecting to win.

• He understands the frustration of season ticket holders and suite owners and believes that the Browns obviously need to win more games and provide and environment that people will look forward to.

• Lerner has no plans on selling the team, despite his acquisition of the Aston Villa team in the English Premier Soccer League.

In many ways, the various interviews were refreshing if only for Lerner’s candor. Of course, it would be hard for him to find any sort of spin that could make his ownership to date look successful. As we noted previously, for all their success elsewhere the Lerners have been the least successful NFL owners as measured by won/loss record.

But if anyone was looking for some glimmer of hope that next season the Browns will make a miraculous turnaround, forget it. Lerner is realistic enough to acknowledge that a successful franchise needs at least 35 core players and that the Browns, even with the recent free agent signees, are still well short of that mark. Lerner also acknowledged that the upcoming draft will, at best, fill two more of those holes, still leaving the Browns well short of the talent needed to be a playoff team.

The real question all this raises is how long might it take for the Browns to get to Lerner’s magic number of 35. Giving Lerner the benefit of the doubt that the Browns do have 19 such players now (and that is giving Lerner a huge benefit of the doubt, by the way), by the time they break training camp that number may have crept up to 21, assuming that they found two key players in the April draft. That puts them 14 players short of Lerner’s goal. If the Browns had only 5 or 6 when Savage and Crennel took over and its taken them 3 seasons to get to 19, that means they are adding core players at the rate of, at best, five or six a year, meaning they are about 3 years away. And that’s assuming that the core players they have now are still with the team and playing well 3 years from now.

In many ways, even this seems like an incredibly optimistic scenario. Adding five or six core players a year is a pretty tall order for any team. The vagaries of the free agency pool combined with the salary cap create a certain amount of player movement that is inevitable. If Lerner is right and the Browns are starting to build depth, it’s also just as likely that they will lose some of that depth to free agency. In the last few years, the Browns really haven’t lost anyone they wanted to retain, mainly because they simply didn’t have those kinds of players on the roster. If their talent level improves, so will the chance they will lose some of it to free agency, meaning that they will have to find two players just to add one more core player to the roster.

But even more importantly, looking at Lerner’s list of core players, it includes Jamal Lewis who is on a one-year contract, Kellen Winslow, who is coming off of serious surgery, Joe Jurevicius who may be lucky to be playing three years from now and Charlie Frye, whose future as a legitimate starting NFL quarterback is very iffy. It also includes a kick returner (Josh Cribbs) and a back-up tight end (Steve Heiden). It would be fun to run this list by league general managers for comment. If given anonymity, most would likely chuckle at Lerner’s assessment.

Lerner admits that he hasn’t been successful and feels he, more than Crennel or Savage, is on the hot seat. He told the Plain Dealter that ownership, like coaching, is a performance-based privilege (don’t tell that to the Bidwells in Arizona) and if he can’t perform, why should he continue to own the Browns? It’s a legitimate question as well and one that is more likely to be answered before the one about when the Browns will truly get to a competitive level.

Misplaced Fears

After Wednesday night’s Cavs/Mavs game what have we learned? To the average fan, maybe it was it that the Mavs are simply a much stronger team or that the Cavs have trouble sustaining energy when it plays back-to-back games. But if you’re Plain Dealer columnist Bud Shaw, maybe it was that LeBron James just doesn’t have the appropriate fear of failure?

Shaw in his most recent column used the loss to Dallas on Wednesday, as well as the loss in Charlotte, to dump on James’ supposed inability to finish off games. But with the silent recognition that he wasn’t exactly the first to write that flawed observation, Shaw put a different spin on it by playing pop psychologist. According to Shaw, what separates James and Dirk Nowitzki and hence, why one team is better than the other, centers around a fear of failure. Nowitzki, the heart and soul of his team, is more motivated to succeed because failure bothers him more than it does James.

The column by Shaw was so ridiculous it could have been written by Bill Livingston. All it needed was some obscure reference to Philadelphia and an out-of-context homage to the cheese steak sandwich. But the biggest flaw in Shaw’s thesis is the underlying premise: the reason people are driven to success is because they fear failure. Ironically, Shaw doesn’t seem similarly driven but that’s a different column for a different day.

There is, of course, any number of reasons why a person is driven to succeed and it doesn’t always derive from the fear of failing. Pride, for example, comes to mind as a powerful force. Being true to one’s self and the desire to give forth one’s best effort at all times isn’t always done because the individual fears the results. Rather, there is tremendous self-satisfaction in a job well done that is separate and apart from any concern over what result is ultimately achieved.

Similarly, the attainment of goals or the desire to achieve the intended results are just as much drivers for success than their first cousin, the fear of the bad result. But the concepts are distinctly different. Perhaps that really is the root of the difference between James and Nowitzki. Their drive to be the best takes a much different path. That isn’t necessarily meant to praise one at the expense of the other, it’s just to illustrate that motivation and drive are an intensely personal issue that varies, often widely, by individual.

In the case of James, the fact that he does not lose sleep over a missed shot or opportunity hardly relegates him to the loser pile. But this is essentially the argument that Shaw and others before him have advanced: James just doesn’t seem to care as much as, say, Michael Jordan or, now, Dirk Nowitzki. As silly as this seems, it is now serving as legitimate discourse in the columns of your local daily.

But beyond a flawed premise, Shaw’s column is frustrating for his rather selective use of examples. He notes James’ failure at the end of the Charlotte game and essentially implies that it did not push James into some sort of otherwordly performance against the Mavs. But that is a rather poor way to describe James’ unusual cold streak during the first three quarters of the game. Maybe his shot just wasn’t falling. It happens. Just ask the aforementioned Nowitzki, who is shooting 50% on the season but was only 9 of 24 Wednesday night.

Shaw also fails to mention that James essentially took over in the fourth quarter, scoring 17 of his 31 points. But for James’ performance during that period, the game would have ended in a blowout. But James can’t do it alone. The play of the bench Wednesday night was awful. At one point midway through the fourth quarter, the Cavs lineup featured three players (Marshall, Gibson and Varejao) who had yet to score. Talk about the key to the loss. But that telling statistic collides with Shaw’s premise so it was ignored.

Shaw also failed to mention the way in which James elevated his game and that of his teammates late in the third quarter and early in the fourth against Utah Saturday. Utah is a pretty fair team and seemed headed to a sloppy victory as the Cavs were seemingly sleepwalking again through another game. Then came a series of powerful, thunderous dunks from James that literally changed the face of the game and propelled the team to victory. But since no last second shot was needed for the victory, the game and James contribution to that victory doesn’t get mentioned in Shaw’s column, presumably because it collides with the premise.

There is no question that there have been missteps by James at key points in various games. In the first Dallas game, for example, James missed two relatively easy three-point shots that could have brought home a tough road win. But picking out these exceptions while simultaneously failing to note the other contributions paints a rather incomplete picture of one of the NBA’s best players. And as even Shaw should know, no matter what James personally accomplishes, until the Cavs have a roster that rivals that of Dallas, that picture will never be complete.

This is really one of the key takeaways from Wednesday’s night game. But there were plenty of others as well. The lack of team energy in the second of back-to-back games suggests that head coach Mike Brown still isn’t in full control of which buttons to push. Larry Hughes’ is mired in a miserable shooting slump of such proportions that he often seems loss. The Cavs bench is scary inconsistent and is likely to be their Achilles heel come playoff time. But if Shaw and anyone else ignores these and thinks instead that the key to the Cavs problems is teaching James to fear failure, then for them the wait for a NBA title in Cleveland just got that much longer.

Flakes

To the extent that anyone is still searching for another reason why the NCAA men’s basketball tournament is the best event in sports, here’s one: it renders the weekly coaches poll irrelevant.

It’s true that Ohio State finished the season as the near-consensus number one team in the country. And to most that should have led to their being the overall number one seed in the tournament. But that is a minor slight at best as the Buckeyes hardly suffered for not being the tournament’s overall number one. The tournament serves as the best meritocracy in organized sports and gives one the sense that whoever prevails really does deserve the title.

The problem with the BCS system has been chronicled many times. But at its core, it is a compilation of numerous polls designed to hopefully pit the top two teams against each other. But since there really is no playoff, there is no way to know whether the NCAA got it right. But in Division I men’s basketball, the polls are almost irrelevant except perhaps to help decide which remaining fringe teams should get in the tournament. This is a good thing because if the NCAA ever bothered to actually examine, for example, the USA Today Coaches poll it might never stop throwing up.

Perusing the poll database (click here and the click on the “polls database”) reveals all manner of oddities that makes one glad that it is meaningless. Consider the case of Tim Floyd, a poll voter and the coach of USC. There are 19 votes during the season. The first establishes the preseason rankings and the regular season voting began on November 13. In the second to last poll of the year, which occurred on March 3, Ohio State received the first place vote of every coach but one, Tim Floyd. He voted Ohio State second and Kansas first. As you may recall, two days prior to that vote Ohio State played Michigan in Ann Arbor and won 65-61 to close out the regular season. While Floyd didn’t think the Buckeyes were worthy of the number one slot, the Buckeyes narrow victory over the Wolverines didn’t cause him to put the Buckeyes lower than number two.

This is important when you look at the final week’s poll. The only thing that happened in the interim was the conference tournaments. Ohio State won the Big 10, disposing of Michigan, Purdue and Wisconsin in the process. Following that game, the last poll was taken (and the NCAA brackets were announced) and again Ohio State garnered the first place vote of every coach but one, Mr. Floyd. Ok, so he wasn’t impressed by the Buckeyes march through the conference tournament. But then how could he explain lowering them to third on his ballot? He still had Kansas first but elevated Florida to second, apparently feeling that the Gators victory over an inferior Arkansas team in the SEC tournament was more impressive than Ohio State’s victory over a much tougher Wisconsin team.

At the least this strange result begs for further analysis of both the poll and of Floyd.

Consider the week 1 or preseason poll. In that poll every coach but one voted Florida, the reigning national champ returning most of its team intact, as number one. The holdout? You guessed it, Tim Floyd. He voted Ohio State number one. In fact, he had Florida at number four, with Kansas number two and North Carolina number three. Week two saw exactly the same result. In week three, Kansas lost but Ohio State, Florida and North Carolina were still undefeated. It would seem that with the season still young, Floyd would have simply moved Kansas down, kept Ohio State at number one and moved North Carolina and Florida up accordingly. No chance. He did keep Ohio State number one, but moved Florida to number two (they had been four) and dropped North Carolina to number five (they had been three). He decided to elevate both LSU and UCLA into his top four.

Week four must have put poor Floyd into a real tailspin with Florida and North Carolina losing. He kept Ohio State number one, moved UCLA to number two, reached all the way down to Marquette as number three (based on the votes of the rest of the coaches they were ninth that week otherwise) and moved Kansas back to number four.

Then the bloom came off the rose. In week five Ohio State lost in Chapel Hill to North Carolina, 98-89. This sin really seemed to steam Floyd who dropped Ohio State all the way down to eighth on his poll. He must have felt, at least temporarily, that his faith in the Buckeyes was not being rewarded and punished them accordingly. The reason it was only temporarily is that, amazingly, the next week he elevated them back to number one. From number 8 to number one in one week! That must have meant that his number one from the previous week, UCLA, lost and/or that Ohio State had a really good week. You be the judge. UCLA remained undefeated and Ohio State beat, in short order, Valpariso and Cleveland State.

Maybe Floyd wasn’t paying close attention or maybe he just made a mistake. Either way, he stayed at it, keeping Ohio State number one, despite what virtually every other coach was saying, until they lost to Florida. That drubbing pushed them down to number seven on his ballot. He inched them back up to five over the next few weeks and then dropped them back to eighth following the loss at Wisconsin. Eventually the Buckeyes were inching their way back up the polls as other teams around them were losing, landing at number two in week 15. But that wasn’t good enough for Floyd, who had them ranked sixth. Even when Ohio State regained the number one position, they were not number one with Floyd, not even in that final week.

What all of this seems to illustrate more than anything else is not just the vagaries of the polls themselves but the vagaries of the coaches who vote in them, particularly Floyd. It’s hard to draw a conclusion, for example, that Floyd is anti-Ohio State. His failure to elevate Ohio State late in the season was a token, mostly irrelevant gesture. Perhaps a conspiracy theorist might suggest that when Andy Geiger was looking to fill the vacancy created by the Jim O’Brien flameout and didn’t hire Floyd, who was rumored at the time as a front-runner, he might be bitter toward the Buckeyes. But that doesn’t seem to hold much water given his views of Ohio State early in the season and the fact that he was voting Ohio State number one when no other voter shared that opinion.

But good luck trying to find an explanation. You can do a Google search on Tim Floyd and Ohio State and you won’t find one article explaining his voting methodology. You can go to the USC web site and you won’t find anything, either. In the end, the most likely scenario is that Floyd is just a first-class flake who doesn’t take his roll as a voter very seriously. This is why no one should take the polls very seriously, either. But if the USA Today hopes to have its poll retain any shred of credibility, a good start would be to dismiss Floyd. As one of the worst coaches in the history of the NBA, a coach who was dismissed twice in that span, it’s something he should be used to anyway.

An Amazing Coincidence, Again

Because it’s the longest season, all of the participants in a team’s baseball season inevitably become a bit clubby with each other. That isn’t limited to simply members of the team and the coaching staff. To the contrary it applies to the extended family, including the media, at least as it’s practiced in Cleveland.

Everyone, for example, is used to WTAM’s talking troll Mike Trivisonno serving as the house shill for the city’s professional sports teams. After all, WTAM pays huge money to each team for the privilege of carrying the games and all manner of pre and post-game shows. Consequently, it shouldn’t surprise anyone when Trivisonno, while interviewing infielder Josh Barfield the other day in Winter Haven, referred to Manager Eric Wedge as “Wedgie.” It’s how the players refer to their manager and, hey, we’re all friends here, right? But it did serve as a reminder that the relationship between the media and the sporting figures they cover is often more cozy than most of us would like.

But Trivisonno isn’t a journalist. Heck, he’s barely a broadcaster. So it’s not exactly sporting to pick on such an easy target. But how, then, to explain it when similar symbiosis develops not only among members of the media and the people they cover but among media members themselves?

There are enough stories arising out of spring training on a daily basis that would normally render the odds of any two reporters having exactly the same feature on the same day infinitesimal, let alone three reporters. But among the media elite covering Cleveland, convenience, cooperation and camaraderie are the rule. There was a time when they would be the exception.

If you are one of the dwindling few who happen to read more than one local newspaper each day, you’ve likely noticed this phenomenon but either didn’t make the connection or just didn’t care. When reading the various feature stories punched out by each newspaper’s beat reporters, one is often left with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu all over again. But it’s not because the same reporter is writing the same story again and again. It’s because different reporters for different newspapers are writing the same stories, often at the same time, again and again.

Wednesday was the most recent but hardly the first or only example. The headline in the Plain Dealer for a story written by beat reporter Paul Hoynes was “C.C. Makes Pitch For Young Blacks.” Sheldon Ocker of the Akron Beacon Journal countered with “Baseball Losing Black Kids.” Andy Call of the Canton Repository checked in with “C.C. Wants to Do More to Boost Baseball in Inner Cities.” The gist of each story was exactly the same: C.C. lamenting that young blacks are gravitating toward basketball and football and not toward baseball.

Only a fool would think it merely a coincidence that three reporters, supposedly competing (if only via their papers’ internet sites) would happen upon the same story on exactly the same day. More likely, much more likely, is that sloth and laziness has replaced drive and initiative when covering what can often be a boring and mundane spring training. Maybe it was Hoynes this time that happened upon Sabathia and began chatting about the issue when Ocker happened on by. Call, seeing Hoynes and Ocker with Sabathia maybe thought something big was happening and listened in as well. Any other combination is just as likely as well. That’s the nature of how these things work and the fact that whoever had Sabathia’s ear first and let the others stay is shocking.

This is not to suggest that the underlying story is unimportant. Indeed, if you happen upon a little league game in nearly any suburban city (good luck finding a little league program in the inner city), the make-up of every team is overwhelmingly white. That may be a reflection of the lack of diversity within the suburbs, but it’s also a reflection of the fact that baseball does not hold the same appeal for young blacks as it does for young whites. But Sabathia’s observations were hardly news. They were merely the kinds of statements, as a reporter, you hope to elicit from your subject when putting together a feature story. It’s the kind of thing that hopefully sets your reporting apart from the competition.

It’s important to contrast this with the job each reporter has to cover each day’s game and the press conference thereafter and any other hard news story. When covering the same story, a certain sameness is inevitable. But those rules don’t apply to feature stories. These are the kinds of interesting sidelines that are supposed to give readers a deeper and more thorough understanding of what is going on and why. That’s what makes this such an odd and appalling development. It’s pretty clear that Hoynes and Ocker in particular don’t see themselves in competition for a story. If they did, then whoever got to Sabathia first would have made sure that no other reporter was around when Sabathia was talking.

It would be one thing if this was the first time this has happened. But it happens on a consistent basis and not just with feature stories. Hoynes and Ocker, for example, run nearly identical columns each Sunday that feature them giving snarky answers to the legitimate questions of readers. Clever. Cute. Derivative. You also see the same thing each week during Browns season, the same player seemingly being the subject of the same feature by different reporters for different newspapers on the same day.

There are probably a million or more reasons why newspapers are suffering, an observation noted here before. But one of the reasons on that list should not be reporter laziness. In some ways it seems that the Plain Dealer and the Beacon Journal go out of there way to alienate their readers and drive them to other sources for more information. Thankfully there are other resources.

This isn’t meant to sound like simple shilling for The Cleveland Fan web site, but far and away the best coverage to date of the Indians preseason has been by Tony Lastoria. In various features he has broken down the starting rotation, the bullpen, the infield and the outfield. On his own dime he went to Winter Haven and his two features since his arrival contain far more interesting information than both Hoynes and Ocker have provided, combined. Hoynes, Ocker and Call are supposedly professional journalists. Lastoria is a rabid fan who, right now, is eating their lunch. You have to wonder whether any of the editors at the various papers are even paying attention.

The Star Chamber

The final bracket is barely revealed on the CBS NCAA tournament selection show each year when analysts and pundits of all stripes begin debating/complaining about who didn’t get in. To its minor credit, the NCAA sends the chairman of the selection committee; this year it was Gary Walters, to appear before the cameras to explain some of the more marginal selections. But in the end, the process remains so much a black box.

Depending on whose ox just got gored, the answer we’re given is that a particular team got left out because of its non-conference road record or because of its RPI score or because of its conference record or because its conference is weak or because of the cut of their gibe. In the end, the only thing certain is that there is a bias for teams that play in major conferences and a near universal lack of respect for teams that don’t.

On some level, maybe that’s fine. But if that’s the case, why not simply say so? No one ever claimed that the NCAA tournament featured the best 65 teams, mainly because of the automatic bids. And this isn’t to knock giving every conference an automatic bid. But almost half the field is made up of at-large bids and given the amount of money at stake for the participants one would think the selection process would be much more transparent.

In fact, when it comes to the NCAA virtually nothing it does is transparent, which makes little sense given the power it wields. Fans, coaches, players and even most administrators are left grasping for straws as to what is taking place and why. The irony, of course, is that the NCAA mandates transparency of its member schools by demanding the slavish adherence to a Byzantine set of rules that impact nearly ever aspect of a sports program’s existence. Yet, the NCAA refuses to be similarly bound, particularly when it comes to selecting teams for its annual March money grab. As a result, teams like Syracuse, Drexel, Air Force and even Akron this year are left searching for answers that will never come. By listening to interviews with Jim Boeheim of Syracuse and Keith Dambrot, you just feel the frustration and no it isn’t coachspeak.

The guess is that the NCAA doesn’t want its selection process to be automated to the point where it loses its human touch, nor should it. But having a set of solid guidelines would hardly be the death knell. The problem though is that by reserving for itself ultimate flexibility in selecting the field, the NCAA leaves teams wondering from year to year exactly what it will take, outside of winning their conference tournament, to get into the NCAA tournament.

This isn’t a small concern. If teams knew how much their non-conference road record was weighted, both in terms of teams played and games won, more competitive non-conference games would be scheduled. Syracuse, for example, might avoid playing Canisius in favor or, say, playing Texas Tech, in order to enhance its status. And fans of nearly every program with NCAA tournament aspirations would benefit. But without any sort of real road map, coaches and athletic directors are left to their best guess work knowing that what might have worked this year may not work next year when the make-up of the selection committee changes.

One would have thought, for example, that given the success of George Mason last year, the selection committee would be kinder to the mid-majors this year. In fact, they were less kind, reserving only six at-large bids for the so-called mid-majors this year. This is akin to simply writing off dozens of programs out of the gate on the theory that they can’t be competitive with the majors anyway.

One solution being advocated this that the NCAA simply expand its field. Tennesse’s Bruce Pearl, for example, argues for an 80-team tournament. That is one way to solve the problem. Simply expand the field to the point where selection guidelines are irrelevant. But expanding the field also has the benefit of finally recognizing that the number of quality programs is significantly greater since the NCAA expanded the field to 64 teams over 20 years ago.

In the end, the NCAA basketball tournament is still the most consistently entertaining sports event of the year. There will always be a Cinderella team or two, a shocking upset or three and an elite team that gets hot at the right time. The national championship game rarely disappoints. So in that sense it would seem that whatever process the committee utilizes, it tends to get it right. But not everything should be judged simply on its bottom line. The process, too, is important.

But perhaps what makes all of this most amusing is that the NCAA’s basketball selection process makes the BCS system used in Division I football look positively progressive by comparison. Who would have ever thought that would be the case?

The Clock

We can leave it to others to debate the bubble teams that ended up on the wrong side of the NCAA Basketball Tournament Selection Committee’s ledger. When you have a limited field tournament someone’s always going to get left out, which makes for a great debate. And wherever you come down on that debate, you still have to feel for the Akron Zips whose bitter loss Saturday night to the Miami Redhawks in the Mid American Conference tournament final in Cleveland left them sitting on the outside looking in for this year’s tournament.

In a way, the loss was quite fitting both because of where it occurred, Cleveland and because of who it happened to, a sports team in Northeast Ohio. Though the Zips enjoy good company in that regard, they can take precious little comfort in that.

Despite the relative success of the Mid American Conference over the years in the NCAA tournament, it is still viewed as a mid-major, meaning it gets little if any respect when it comes to awarding at-large bids. As a result, it gets the one automatic bid and then screams every year how one or two other deserving teams instead found themselves relegated to the NIT. In fact, the last time the MAC had two teams in the NCAA tournament was 1999 when, guess who, the Miami (then) Redskins and Wally Szczerbiak received an at-large bid after losing to Kent State in the finals.

The fact that it was highly unlikely that the MAC would get one of the 33 at-large bids only makes what happened Saturday one of more disappointing defeats you’re likely to ever see. The manner in which it occurred was stunning in its suddenness, like the bullet Leonardo DiCaprio took near the end of The Departed. With 30 seconds left and the score tied, Romeo Travis hit two free throws. The Zips, playing the kind of defense that served them well in this game and all season, forced a Redhawks miss. Junior Cedrick Middleton grabbed the rebound and was fouled with 6.6 seconds left. Middleton missed the front end of the one-and-one. Miami grabbed the rebound, the ball eventually ended up in Doug Penno’s hand and he banked in the most improbable three-point shot you’ll ever see just as the clock struck zero.

The celebration was momentarily short-circuited as the officials huddled with the television monitor to determine if the shot was made in time. After initially determining that the shot was timely made, Akron head coach Keith Dambrot, complained that the clock didn’t immediately start as it should have following the Middleton miss. According to various reports, the clock stood still for about 1.5 seconds while the Redhawks grabbed the rebound and dribbled their way toward the improbable shot and victory. Though the officials determined that Dambrot was correct and that the clock was not properly started, what the officials next did seems logical on the surface but actually makes little sense and cost the Zips the bid to the tournament. According to an official after the game, they timed and retimed the last play from the point where the rebound of the Middleton miss until Penno’s shot went through the hoop and concluded that this took six seconds. Given that there was 6.6 seconds when Middleton lined up for his free throws, the officials felt, apparently, that had the clock properly started there would have been .6 of a second left in the game. They then cleared and the Zips given one last gasp. The long inbound pass traveled out of bounds and the Zips were left to taste defeat for the second time in 10 minutes.

But if you stop to consider what the officials should have done instead of what they did, the error of the officials becomes that much more egregious. Instead of determining how long the play took, the officials should have determined how long the clock actually stood idle when it should have been moving. As noted, various reports put it at 1.5 seconds. If that is true, then Penno’s shot was untimely because, according to the replay, the ball left Penno’s hand with about 1.3 seconds left. In other words, Penno’s shot was likely untimely by, perhaps, .2 of second. That also clearly means that the entire play took longer than 6 seconds, irrespective of what the officials claimed afterward. Thus the Penno shot should not have counted and the Zips should have been declared the winners.

Of course, there has been any amount of games the outcome of which is the result of officiating errors. Fans will quickly recall, for example, Oklahoma’s loss to Oregon in football last season when the officials blew an onside kick call on the field and the replay official failed to overturn the indisputably wrong call. That mistake gave the ball back to Oregon which went on to score the winning touchdown. And while this may seem like so much sour grapes, the overarching point is that given what was at stake, the officials couldn’t afford to make a mistake when it mattered most. Even more disappointing is that under the rules, the officials get the benefit of replay and still didn’t get it right. These two teams were literally playing for their tournament lives and the officials blew it to the grand disappointment of another Northeast Ohio team.

The likelihood is that in the grand scheme what happened to Akron on Saturday night will matter little as neither Akron nor Miami were likely to advance very far in the tournament anyway. But the deserved victory would have matter greatly to the Akron players who worked so hard for the result and to the resurgent Akron program under Dambrot. And because the NIT has a smaller field and new selection procedures, Toledo, improbably, gets the bid despite not even making it to the tournament finals and Akron is left out in the cold there as well. Again, this may not mean much to most because it’s unlikely that the Zips would have advanced very far in that tournament either. But they do miss the chance to extend their season a bit longer and get a head start on next season.

So the Zips season ends, unfortunately, with the kind of disappointment that Northeast Ohio sports fans no too well. The only consolation prize for now is that they’ll have to be satisfied knowing that their loss is worthy of its own nickname—theClock--and now enjoys a permanent place next to Red Right ’88, the Shot, the Drive and the Fumble in the Northeast Ohio sports hall of horrors.

A Weighty Matter

It’s well understood that professional athletes live in a bubble where little is their fault and there’s always an external factor to blame for something that goes wrong. Who hasn’t seen the pro golfer miss a critical putt only to then immediately tap down an imaginary spike mark? So, too, it is with C.C. Sabathia who is busy tapping down the imaginary spike marks that are to blame for the tender oblique muscle.

Monday’s story by Paul Hoynes in the Plain Dealer about Sabathia was a fascinating journey into the mind of today’s professional athlete. Sabathia touched on a number of subjects, not the least of which was the potential derivation of the oblique muscle he pulled each of the last two seasons that cost him several starts. According to C.C., his pulled muscle may well be due to the game of golf, which he took up five years ago.

As Sabathia related it: "It just wasn't working, me going out and shooting in the 90s and being on the [disabled list] in April," said Sabathia. "I want to stay healthy this year. I go down to the weight room every day and work on my core." Indeed, it must be the golf.

Sabathia has been a good pitcher for the Indians and if past performance is indicative of future results, the Indians can ill afford to let him get away. Except for his rookie year when he won 17 games, his won/loss record has been disappointing and frustrating. But by most other measures, including innings pitched, hits, strikeouts, ERA, he’s clearly established himself as one of the better pitchers in the American League if not all of baseball. Last year, for example, he had a 3.22 ERA and led the American League with six complete games. Given his talent, you have to think the won/loss record will improve, particularly if the bullpen improves.

But as Sabathia acknowledged, his health is critical to the success of the team. It may be a bit of an overstatement on his part when he suggested to Hoynes that his stint on the disabled list for the first few weeks of last season was a key to the Indians descent. At least as responsible was the poor defensive play on the left side of the field and an inflammatory bullpen. But certainly Sabathia’s early-season injury didn’t help.

Thus, given how critical Sabathia is to the overall success of this team, one wonders why he continues to look for the goblins in his golf game as the reason for the muscle pull instead of facing the hard truth that he is woefully out of shape and grossly overweight. Equally puzzling is why Indians management continues to coddle him by publicly aiding in the deception by suggesting that C.C. is simply big boned.

The guess here is that Rosie O’Donnell thinks she’s just big boned, too. But she’s also, as David Letterman said of former pitcher Terry Forster, a fat tub of goo and so, too, is Sabathia. There is a long and grand history of out of shape pitchers, not the least of which was the aforementioned Forster. Others such as Aurelio Lopez, aka Señor Smoke, Mickey Lolich and Denny McLain come to mind as well. But even at their heaviest, all looked positively Kate Moss compared to Sabathia. If you saw any of the highlights of Sabathia’s first pre-season start on Sunday, it’s pretty obvious that C.C. still has much more work to go on his core.

According to Baseball Almanac, the heaviest player ever in the major leagues was Walter Young, who weighed in at 315 pounds when he played briefly for Baltimore in 2005. But that dubious statistic is likely based on the weight as reported by the club. Cecil Fielder was officially only 240 pounds when he played, too, but it’s hard to believe that he was lighter, let alone 20 pounds lighter, than his son, Prince Fielder who is currently listed at 260 pounds. It’s not beyond the pale that there’s some fudging going on. Officially, the Indians list Sabathia a 6’7” and 290 pounds. We’ll buy the 6’7” part but Sabathia hasn’t seen 290 pounds since his rookie year. Maybe television adds 10 or so pounds, but it would be hard to believe that right now Sabathia is less than 325 pounds.

The truth, of course, is that this really isn’t a joking matter for any number of health-related reasons. Right now, Sabathia is 26 years of age and probably doesn’t give this issue that much thought. But if left unchecked, it will soon take its toll on him physically and well beyond a pulled oblique. At that weight, Sabathia is headed for battles with high blood pressure and diabetes, either of which could shorten his other promising career. Even more likely is a knee injury. As a power pitcher, Sabathia relies so much on his legs to drive through his pitches. But the weight Sabathia carries puts a great deal of strain on both knees and it would hardly be a surprise if that’s the next body part to give way. The only way to reduce the strain on the knees is to lose weight, something Sabathia has been reluctant to embrace.

Right now Indians management seems to be ignoring the issue. But as Sabathia inches closer to becoming a free agent, his weight will take on greater importance, at least to those being asked to open their wallets. If Sabathia doesn’t commit now to conditioning, he will make it tough on the Indians or anyone else to want to invest $15-20 million a year for five to seven years, which is the kind of dollars his record to this point would otherwise command.

Sabathia can continue to blame it on golf, but that hasn’t seemed to slow the careers of guys like John Smoltz or Roger Clemens, both extremely avid golfers. Sooner or later the truth can’t be avoided but for Indians fans sake here’s hoping that this isn’t the year.

Sleeping with the Enemy

We live in the age of the apology, no doubt.

Rarely does it seem like a day goes by when an athlete doesn’t step into it up to his ankles. Tim Hardaway is the most recent but hardly the only example. But it’s not Hardaway’s recent meltdown that got the juices flowing on this subject. It was the news item that the Browns are considering potentially signing recently released Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Joey Porter.

According to Mary Kay Cabot’s item buried deep in the bowels of the Plain Dealer’s Friday sports section, head coach Romeo Crennel indicated that the Browns might very well be interested in bringing Porter to the Browns. Crennel made the comments to Cabot before an autograph session at the Greater Cleveland Auto Show. Cabot probably didn’t need to rush and hunt down Crennel before the session as there likely was plenty of downtime during the session as well.

It’s not surprising that the PD completely misplayed this story. After all, your average high school newspaper editor usually exercises better news judgment. But enough is enough when it comes to the PD. This is a story worthy of 60 point type across the front page: Browns Considering Porter, Get Your Tickets Now!!!

As a player, Porter has talent that would be useful on this defense. But that is so much beside the point. The possibility of the Browns having both Porter and Kellen Winslow, Jr. on their roster at the same time is so compelling, many fans would likely pay just to watch the practices.

As Browns fans no doubt recall, Porter very publicly called out, or outed, in Porter’s view, Winslow last December following another Pittsburgh beat down of Cleveland. It was late in the December 7th game at Heinz Field and Derek Anderson had just completed a short pass to Reuben Droughns. Well after the whistle blew, Winslow blindsided linebacker James Farrior and drew a 15-yard penalty for unnecessary roughness. The hit was ridiculous by any measure of player etiquette and was particularly ridiculous in the context of this completely meaningless game. It was just another bad decision by a player whose career thus far has been defined by bad decisions.

Ultimately, that drive resulted in a Browns touchdown (their only touchdown of the game) but the hit incurred the wrath of nearly every Steeler, none more so than Porter. After the game Porter didn’t mince words, saying “It was late, that’s what fags do. He’s [Winslow] soft. He wants to be tough but he’s really soft.”

Winslow was fined $5,000 for the late hit but Porter was fined twice that for his comments. League spokesman Steve Alic claimed the fine was the result of Porter’s “vulgar, inexcusable statements” to Winslow, presumably the reference to Winslow as a “fag” rather than “soft.” But of course the statements weren’t made to Winslow they were made to the media. What Alic’s statement left unanswered was whether the league would have levied the fine if, for example, Porter had simply referred to the hit as something a “homosexual” would have done. Presumably the more politically correct reference wouldn’t have been deemed vulgar. On the other hand it would have played into the stereotype that all homosexuals are soft so it might still have invoked the wrath of the league.

But whatever the actual reason for the fine, at least as amusing was watching high-minded sportswriters and commentators getting all twisted up in their shorts the same way they did when Ozzie Guillen essentially directed the same remark toward Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times after Mariotti was critical of various coaching moves made by Guillen. That’s the real arc of these things. Something stupid is said. The offender apologizes. Commentators pile on as if they can’t believe anyone would use such terms, even though many of those same writers probably use such and similar terms regularly in casual conversation.

But back to Porter. Even more amusing than all of that was the fact that Porter hardly backed away. Sure, he issued the obligatory apology, saying “I would just like to say it was a poor choice of words in the comment I made toward Winslow. If I offended anybody, I apologize for that." But when he got beyond the public relations speak, he added, "Like I said, I apologize to anybody I offended on it. I didn't mean to offend nobody but Kellen Winslow. Pretty much, that's it about that."

If this sounds familiar, it should. It’s really the apology Guillen gave to ESPN: “…"I shouldn't have mentioned the name that was mentioned, but I'm not going to back off of Jay.” In other words, both wanted everyone to know that they didn’t mean to offend generally only specifically.

But back to Porter. Though he was sorry for the way the comment came out, he at least explained where it came from. Buried in the apology was this nugget: "I guess how we used that word freely, me growing up using it, I didn't think nothing of it like that," Porter said. If this sounds familiar it should. It’s essentially the tact that Tim Hardaway used during his third apology for telling the world that he “hates” gay people. Hardaway said: “I am sorry for saying I hate gay people… When I was growing up and now, we say we hate broccoli, we say we hate potato chips, we hate. It’s just a form of how we talk….” To that, Browns fans could add “we hate the Pittsburgh Steelers.”

Maybe this is a form of how we all talk and how we all apologize. But if Porter does join the Browns, the apology story is likely to get a real workout. Porter’s comments to Winslow were hardly his first outburst. And that’s the baggage he carries. Given this can the Browns, even with a huge talent deficit, afford to sign Porter? True, having him on the roster will make for a very interesting training table if not locker room. And true, it is unlikely Porter will ever feel comfortable turning his back on Winslow in the shower stall. But given the relationship between Porter and Winslow and the entertainment value that their pairing would likely provide to an entertainment-starved fan base, the real question here is: Can the Browns afford not to sign Porter?

The Legacy of Marvin Miller

The Veterans Committee failed, again, this year to elect anyone to the Baseball Hall of Fame. This may be of some interest to Ron Santo or Gil Hodges fans but for most the news invokes nothing more than a shrug.

But Hal Bodley, in Tuesday’s USA Today, upped the stakes by suggesting that if Marvin Miller, the long time head of the players union, didn’t get voted in by the Veterans Committee there should be an investigation. Bodley’s point was that as the architect of what has become the most powerful union in professional sports, Miller’s influence on the game is profound. But according to the Veterans Committee’s rules, to be eligible a person such as Miller’s “overall contribution” to the game must be considered. Thus, while it’s hard to disagree with Bodley that Miller’s impact on the game was profound, whether that influence contributed to the overall good of the game is highly debatable.

It’s probably not necessary to talk about the history of unionism generally or it’s relationship to professional sports. Suffice it to say that when it comes to baseball, the owners got what they deserved when the players union gained much of its momentum under Marvin Miller. (For a good discussion on the history of the Major League Baseball Players Association, see here) The major sticking point when Miller arrived in 1965 was the reserve clause which, in operation, bound a player to his club until the club, in its sole discretion, released the player. Thus, for example, if a player had a two-year contract, at its conclusion his only choice was to negotiate a new deal with his current club or quit. Only if released by his club was a player free to play for another. He wasn’t otherwise free to sign elsewhere. Clearly the presence of this clause, standard in all player contracts, gave all the economic leverage to the clubs forcing the players into a take-it-or-leave-it situation. In the days of the reserve clause and even in the several years thereafter, it was not unusual for a player to get a pay cut if he had a poor year. He had no choice. These days, of course, the only thing a poor year gets is a smaller raise.

Miller’s major achievement with respect to the reserve clause was to get it reversed through binding arbitration. To understand how that happened and to fully appreciate its impact, recall that the most famous challenge to the reserve clause was by St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood, who sued the owners for allegedly violating antitrust laws. (An excellent four-part series on the entire Curt Flood matter can be found by searching the main archives on www.athomeplate.com) Federal antitrust laws apply only to businesses engaged in interstate commerce or businesses affecting interstate commerce. In most cases a business will likely fall into one or the other categories and thus be subject to federal law. Flood argued that baseball was a business in interstate commerce and that the clubs, as separate entities engaged collectively in interstate commerce, used the reserve clause as a means of stifling competition for player services. Typically, it is illegal for such businesses to conspire in that fashion and if found guilty they are liable for treble damages or three times the actual damage caused.

The battle Flood faced, however, was that at the time professional baseball was deemed to be exempt from antitrust laws through a series of Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1922. In essence, the Supreme Court had ruled in those days that baseball games were exhibitions and any impact on interstate commerce was incidental. This may have been technically true in 1922 but had long since ceased to be the case by the time of the Flood case in 1970. However, considering the Supreme Court precedent, the trial court in the Flood case was reluctant to rule to the contrary and thus upheld the antitrust exemption and dismissed the case. Eventually the case made its way to the Supreme Court which, oddly, upheld its prior decisions based on the traditions of the game. Of course this ruling was in spite of the major changes in the game since 1922, in spite of the fact that no other professional sport enjoyed a similar exemption, and, most importantly, in spite of the fact that baseball clearly was involved in interstate commerce. Consider, for example, how many different states each major league team must travel to in order to play away games. In fact, for nearly every major league team, every away game is in a different state. In spite of having virtually every legal reason to rule in Flood’s favor, the Supreme Court felt that it was up to Congress to change baseball’s antitrust exemption, not the courts. This anomalous result continues to this day.

Although Miller and the players’ union backed the Flood lawsuit and lost, the battle was hardly over. One of Miller’s first tasks when he took over was to negotiate into the collective bargaining agreement a binding grievance arbitration process, something common in most collective bargaining agreements. This allowed players to take contractual disputes to a neutral arbitrator. Two players, under Miller’s guidance, Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally, challenged the reserve clause as a violation of the collective bargaining agreement. This allowed the dispute to go to an arbitrator and in 1975, Peter Seitz ruled that the reserve clause only bound the player to his club for one additional year and not in perpetuity. This essentially put an end to the reserve clause and opened the gate for what would eventually become free agency.

The reserve clause was an antiquated concept that couldn’t stand and probably existed far too long. Free agency, properly implemented, is basically good for the game, the players and the fans, although not in equal measures. Still, it’s hard to find fault in Miller for working so hard to make this a reality. But the advent of free agency, in some fashion, likely would have happened even without Miller as Congress has often rattled the saber of eliminating the antitrust exemption as a way of getting baseball owners to do what they want, including toughen drug testing policies. But even if free agency never would have happened without Miller, it hardly seems like a sufficient reason in and of itself to enshrine him in the Hall of Fame unless you’re going to also enshrine the arbitrator who had the courage to render the actual decision.

The main sticking point on Miller though is the rest of his influence on the game, which hasn’t been nearly as good for the fans. Under his watch and that of his hand-picked successor, Donald Fehr, there have been five strikes by the players. The first strike, in 1972, resulted in the loss of 86 games. Its conclusion brought about salary arbitration, a system the fans are still paying for today.

The 1981 strike cost a whopping 713 games and a split season. Cleveland fans will recall that the season resumed on August 10 with the All Star game played in Cleveland. More importantly, it was this strike that really opened the breach between the players and their fans that free agency only exacerbates to this day. It really was the beginning of the haves vs. have nots system that still exists and is responsible, in large part, for the lack of true competitive and economic balance in the league, robbing the fans the full benefit that baseball could offer. Not surprisingly, following the strike attendance and television ratings dropped drastically.

The last major strike began in August, 1994 and resulted in the loss of the rest of that season, including the post season. In all, 938 games were lost. When the strike was settled just prior to the beginning of the 1995 season, a rough form of a salary cap and revenue sharing was in place. But for fans, if the bloom wasn’t off the rose in 1981, it certainly was after what happened in 1994. Baseball may still have legions of fans but few if any don’t completely understand that it is a business and that they are now considered the least important part of the equation.

It was also under Miller’s watch and more so under Fehr’s that performance enhancing drugs really began to shape the cynical way in which many modern day baseball records and, by proxy, the players who set them are viewed. Fehr, following the blueprint of his mentor, effectively squelched any effective drug testing program as an alleged violation of the players’ rights. Maybe so, but in the end it was the fans, again, who suffered for the loss of integrity in the sport.

This point here isn’t to criticize Miller for doing his job or to stake out some sort of anti-union stance. But never forget that Miller was a hired gun whose sole interest was in enhancing the status of his clients, the players. Miller never once tried to instill in them the importance of the fans to the health of the game and, as a result, the distance between the players and the fans, which began under Miller’s watch, has never been greater. For anyone who still doubts this premise consider the story just the other day in which Fehr, according to Gary Sheffield, basically told the players not to cooperate in former Senator George Mitchell’s probe into steroids. If the integrity of the game and the interests of the fans are truly critical then Fehr should be encouraging the players to ferret out the cheaters, not protect them.

Miller (and, by extension, Fehr) may have done right by his constituency, but he was hardly a guardian of the game for the greater good to anyone who considers fans to be critical. Put another way, if anyone can name one benefit any fan received out of any of the work stoppages propagated by Miller or how, in any sense, the fan’s interests have been served by the union’s refusal to seriously address drug issues it is then and only then when it will it be time for any serious consideration of Marvin Miller for the Hall of Fame.

In Defense of LeBron

With all this kvetching about LeBron James, one would think that he’s averaging more turnovers than points these days. You can pretty much take your pick from the various sports web sites, chat boards or sports talk shows and you undoubtedly will stumble upon someone with an opinion on what’s supposedly wrong with LeBron, as if the premise itself is even valid.

There are two answers, take your pick. Here’s the first: nothing. Here’s the second: it’s that he’s LeBron, a victim of his own unparalleled success.

Perhaps the most pertinent antecedent to the questions about LeBron James was the questions about another amazing superstar, Tiger Woods in 2004. As most might recall, Tiger Woods was in a horrific slump, at least to those who thought Woods should win every week. He had fired his swing coach Butch Harmon, got engaged to a Swedish nanny and suddenly he was 0-10 in the major championships as he entered the 2005 season. Just as with LeBron and perhaps even more so, virtually every sports commentator with a microphone or a keyboard had a theory about what was wrong with Woods, even if the those commentators knew little about professional golf. This despite the fact that Woods had finished second in the World Golf Rankings in 2004 and was fourth on the money list with a mere $5.3 million in earnings.

Nevertheless, they branded Woods a fool for tinkering with one of the sweetest swings ever. They questioned his sanity when he fired Harmon and hired Hank Haney, even if they couldn’t tell Butch Harmon from Tommy Harmon or Hank Haney from Mr. Haney. They openly speculated that his off-course activities were interfering with his ability to prepare. And don’t even get anyone started about the Swedish nanny and what that was probably doing to his stamina. Tiger, for his part, said little other than he was working on “some things,” which only seemed to frustrate the peanut gallery even more.

Of course, the air went out of that story when Woods went on to win the Masters and the British Open in 2005 and then won the British again the next year as well as the PGA Championship. Suddenly he was a genius again and no one, positively no one, was talking about his swing coach or his marriage. In the end, Woods was never the problem. It was the self-proclaimed golfing experts and the casual golf fans whose outsized and unreal expectations had placed Woods on a pedestal that no one could ever reach.

That’s pretty much the territory LeBron finds himself in these days. There is no disputing, for example, that his numbers are down virtually across the board. But it’s not as if the current numbers are lousy. He’s still one of the five best players in the league by virtually any measure you can think of. He’s still number one on the CBS Sportsline power rankings. But for his detractors, this is hardly good enough.

One of the most scathing criticisms recently came from ESPN columnist Bill Simmons who gave LeBron a thumb down after the All Star game and said, suspiciously without attribution other than to some unknown “connected” NBA types:

To LeBron James, who coasted through the Skills Challenge on All-Star Saturday and played the All-Star Game with the uplifting, charismatic intensity of a female porn star trying to break one of those "most male partners in one afternoon" records. Could we end up putting him in the "Too Much, Too Soon" Pantheon some day? Will he become the basketball version of Eddie Murphy, Britney Spears, Michael Jackson and every other celeb who became famous too quickly and eventually burned out?
Before he becomes a global icon, maybe LeBron should work a little harder on his game.

Here's what I know. I had four conversations with connected NBA people over the weekend that centered around the same themes: LeBron isn't playing nearly as hard as he did last season; it looks like his only goal right now is to get his coach fired; he's regressing as a basketball player (especially his passing skills and his shot selection); he made a huge mistake firing his agent and turning his career over to his buddies back home (all of whom are in over their heads); he was a much bigger problem during the Olympics than anyone realized; he doesn't seem to be enjoying himself anymore; he has an overrated sense of his own worth and his own impact in the sports world (as witnessed by the ESPN interview last week when he answered the "What are your goals?" question with two words: "Global icon"); he's been protected by magazine fluff pieces and buddy-buddy TV interviews for far too long; he doesn't have the same relentless drive to keep dominating everyone like Wade and Kobe have; and basically, we're much closer to LeBron re-enacting the career arc of Martina Hingis, Eric Lindros and Junior Griffey than anyone realizes. This will evolve into THE dominant NBA story of the next two months. You watch.

If you take out the direct references to LeBron and the NBA, it sounds exactly like every criticism of Woods in 2004, right down to a controversial firing of one of his entourage and the off-court activities. Perhaps the most outrageous prediction Simmons makes is to say that, with barely three years in the league, LeBron is on his way to becoming more hype than substance.

What Simmons and the rest of the LeBron detractors forget, conveniently, is that no one outside of Tiger Woods ever entered his or her own sport with more hype and expectations (although Michelle Wie is starting to approach that territory), including the aforementioned Hingis, Lindors and Griffey, Jr. Yet, both Woods and LeBron have easily outpaced that hype by simply performing at levels of sustained greatness from virtually the first day they stepped on their respective fields of play. But these days, apparently, even that isn’t good enough.

This bashing of LeBron is fascinating stuff and speaks more to outlandish expectations than rationale discourse. At this point, Lebron’s a veteran, but he’s still a very young veteran, barely 22 years of age. Dwayne Wade, by comparison is 24. That may not seem like much, but look back on your own life. If you weren’t much more mature at 24 than 22 then it’s time to grow up, Peter Pan. And while many talk about Wade’s continued ascension, keep that in context as well. Simply put, put Shaquille O’Neal on the Cavs and you could probably substitute Wade’s name in Simmons’ column.

For another comparison, look at Carmelo Anthony, about seven months older than LeBron. Anthony is still incredibly immature for his age and while a huge offensive talent and an elite player in the league, Anthony played in his first All Star game just this year and it took a David Stern holding his nose and looking the other way to accomplish that. And it wasn’t because Anthony didn’t have the numbers. It was because his relative lack of maturity and discipline resulted in a meltdown and an ensuing 15-game suspension. This isn’t to bash Anthony at the expense of LeBron. It’s merely to present the complete picture. In the end, ask yourself, would you trade LeBron even up for Carmelo? Didn’t think so.

If you still aren’t satisfied with these answers, consider another: his teammates and/or his coach. There are times, many times, when his teammates have the same outsized expectations of his talent. As a result, they spend too much time simply standing around on the offensive end waiting for LeBron to do something. That tends to keep the ball in LeBron’s hands even when he’d rather pass to someone heading toward the basket. With the shot clock inevitably winding down, LeBron then settles for still another jumper while his teammates stand idly by.

But whether you place this on LeBron’s teammates or his coach is your prerogative. They’re both probably to blame in equal measure. The least culpable is LeBron himself. Since he was in high school, LeBron has been the kind of player who takes his craft very seriously. He revels in getting others involved. He knows he’ll get his points so he often looks to pass first and shoot second. But either head coach Mike Brown and/or LeBron’s teammates just can’t seem to fathom how to utilize that kind of talent to its fullest and instead ask LeBron to do everything but sell slurpees at halftime. Talk about being in a can’t win situation.

The Cavs may be the most consistently inconsistent team in the league, but it is ridiculous to lay that on LeBron’s already overburdened back and shoulders. The truth is, the Cavs need better players and without them, even exceeding his own lofty accomplishments to date is not going to suddenly make the Cavs an odds-on favorite to with the NBA championship.

With The Third Pick...

It was nice to see at least a little something go right for the Cleveland Browns. At the Scouting Combine in Indianapolis on Friday morning, Cleveland won the coin flip over Tampa Bay that assured them the third pick in this year’s college draft. Of course, they should have had the third pick without the coin flip since Cleveland had lost to Tampa Bay during the regular season, but nothing’s ever as it seems in the NFL. Hence the coin flip.

But whether Cleveland actually won anything in that coin flip remains to be seen once draft day comes and goes. It may be, for example, that with differing needs Cleveland and Tampa Bay weren’t going after the same players anyway, at least in the first round. But more importantly, it will come down, as it always does, to how good Cleveland’s scouting really is. That’s the scary part.

But the truth is having the third or fourth selection hasn’t seemed to make much of a difference, except in the amount of guaranteed money the “winning” team will have to pay to sign the player. Looking at salary and bonus figures of the third and fourth round draft picks over the last several years, the third pick can expect a minimum of $1 million more in guaranteed money, even if the overall salaries are similar. Remember, in the NFL contracts are rarely if ever guaranteed. Thus, ignore the reported value of the contract and focus instead on the contract’s length and the amount of guaranteed money as the length determines over how many years the bonus will hit the salary cap. Because most first round contracts run five or six years, even a $1.5 million dollar difference in guaranteed money, prorated over those five or six years, is relatively meaningless from a cap standpoint.

But because a team has either the third or fourth pick, it is absolutely critical that it not make a mistake. Reviewing all third and fourth round draft picks since 1990, there have been many great players selected. There also been some noteworthy busts. Here is the breakdown since 1990:

Year Third Pick Fourth Pick

2006 Vince Young D’Brickashaw Ferguson
2005 Braylon Edwards Cedric Benson
2004 Larry Fitzgerald Phillip Rivers
2003 Andre Johnson DeWayne Robertson
2002 Joey Harrington Mike Williams
2001 Gerard Warren Justin Smith
2000 Chris Samuels Peter Warrick
1999 Akili Smith Edgerrin James
1998 Andre Wadsworth Charles Woodson
1997 Shawn Spring s Peter Boulware
1996 Simeon Rice Jonathan Ogden
1995 Steve McNair Michael Westbrook
1994 Heath Schuler Willie McGinest
1993 Garrison Hearst Marvin Jones
1992 Sean Gilbert Desmond Howard
1991 Bruce Pickens Mike Croel
1990 Cortez Kennedy Keith McCants


Perusing the list, a number of things stand out. Last years picks, Vince Young and D’Brickashaw Ferguson, were both great picks that should serve their teams well for several years. Although it’s too soon to judge, neither looks like a bust. Barring injuries, right now both appear to be worthy of their draft status. In 2005, Cleveland selected Bryalon Edwards third and the Bears took Cedric Benson fourth. Edwards is an immature malcontent whose production, while solid, doesn’t approach his outsized ego. But in fairness to Edwards, he missed a decent chunk of his first season with injury and thus it is somewhat unfair at this point to judge whether he’ll live up to his draft status. The same goes for Benson. He’s been solid, similar to Edwards, but isn’t the Bears’ featured running back yet. Whether he will be able to unseat Thomas Jones is unknown, of course, but right now he’s proven to be a fairly integral part of the Bears offense. Still, the later rounds are full of running backs that could likely perform similarly and thus whether he’ll justify such a high pick is, at best, uncertain.

In 2004, Arizona took Larry Fitzgerald and the Giants took then traded, Phillip Rivers. In both cases, there is little question that the two look to live up to their status. But 2002 is a much different story. Both Detroit, with Joey Harrington, and Buffalo, with tackle Mike Williams, whiffed badly. Williams is out of the league and Harrington is a back-up in Miami, although he played well in spots this last season. Still, it is hardly an accident that Detroit and Buffalo still are struggling. When you miss big, it comes back to haunt you. That’s certainly the case with Cleveland and Gerard Warren, whom the Browns selected third in 2001. On the other hand, Cincinnati selected Justin Smith with the fourth pick that year and he remains an important part of that team and one of the few Bengals that hasn’t been arrested. In fact, the Bengals just designated Smith as their franchise player.

Although there are a number of third and fourth pick busts, perhaps none is bigger than Akili Smith with the Bengals in 2003. But in the end it turned out fine for the Bengals as they ultimately ended up with Carson Palmer, a superstar quarterback. The Browns had no such luck, unfortunately. That year they took Tim Couch number one that year and while he flamed out like Smith, the Browns haven’t found their Carson Palmer, not even close. Among the other notable busts with the third pick have been Andre Wadsworth, a defensive end selected third by Arizona in 1998 and Heath Schuler, a quarterback selected by Washington in 1994.

Perhaps most interestingly, there actually have been a few less draft busts with the fourth pick than the third and, conversely, there have been a few more great players drafted fourth than third since 1990. Among the more notable fourth round picks have been Ferguson (2006); Rivers (2004); Edgerrin James (1999); Charles Woodson (1998); Peter Boulware (1997); Jonathan Ogden (1996) and Willie McGinest (1994). The most notable of the third round picks are Young, Fitzgerald and Steve McNair, although there are several other decent third round picks as well.

The mock drafts conducted thus far have the Browns selecting anyone from JaMarcus Russell to Joe Thomas to Brady Quinn to Calvin Johnson to Adrian Peterson, any of which would be decent choices for different reasons. But the reality is that until the Browns and the other teams sign a few free agents starting next week, it will be hard to peg their draft plans.

But whatever those plans, at this point, the 2007 draft class looks to be strong enough to better the chances that the Browns won’t make a colossal mistake. Still, it’s the Browns and given their recent history, anything can and likely will happen.

Down San Diego Way

The news that Browns center LeCharles Bentley is likely out for 2007 was hardly unexpected. After all, a Cleveland sports franchise careening down the track like a runaway train, well, it’s expected. But once in awhile it is fun to watch someone else’s carnival from a distant and what’s recently taken place in San Diego is surely worth a smile or two on another dismal Cleveland day.

To recap, San Diego finished 14-2 in the regular season. As someone noted recently, Browns fans didn’t even know a team was allowed to win that many games in a season. But then San Diego ran into Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots in the playoffs. It was probably the best game of the entire NFL season with the Patriots barely surviving the encounter. But that victory came at a high price the following week as the Patriots simply wore down in the second half against Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts.

The loss also extracted a heavy price on the Chargers. As the Chargers players prepared to play in the AFC divisional playoff game, Chargers fans were doing their part by acting like they were in Cleveland, focusing not on the task at hand but the potentially dreadful outcome that a Schottenheimer-coached team was likely to deliver. The eventual loss was the fitting confirmation to them and to GM A.J. Smith and team president/owner’s son, Dean Spanos, of the fear that comes with hiring Schottenheimer: great in the regular season, lousy in the playoffs.

But this is where the fun really began. It’s not exactly an embarrassment to lose to a Bill Belichick-coached team. It’s happened to many, many teams in recent years as Belichick, to the endless frustration of Browns fans, has molded himself into one of the greatest head coaches in NFL history. But rather than opt for perspective, Smith and Spanos acted instead like they had just been shut out by the Browns in preseason and decided they had to address the “Marty factor.”

It was no secret, of course, that Smith and Schottenheimer simply didn’t get along and rarely spoke, so the loss wasn’t likely to warm that relationship much. Clearly even without the playoff loss, this was a rock headed for the windshield. But rather than find a way to fix the underlying problem for the good of the team, particularly in light of a tough loss, the two most prominent members of the front office let the dysfunction fester and Spanos, apparently the team president in the same way that Mike Brown was the head of FEMA, sat nearby, fiddling. Without any intervention whatsoever, it’s likely Schottenheimer would have simply left of his own accord. It’s what he does. He creates his own self-fulfilling prophecies that usually start and end with him insisting on some member of his family getting a job with the team. But Spanos at least paused to consider the public relations disaster that comes with letting go the coach who helped restore the team to glory and apparently initially prevailed upon Smith to keep Schottenheimer. But it wasn’t as if Smith put aside his differences. Instead, he reached a compromise with Spanos by deciding to offer Schottenheimer a low-ball one-year extension instead of a long-term deal.

Schottenheimer, clearly not at his first dance, declined the token gesture. Of course, since Spanos was going to can him anyway, the only thing Schottenheimer ensured by standing on some misguided principal was one less year of salary free and clear of the obligation to work for it. Given Schottenheimer’s reaction to their offer, this was probably the time for Spanos to actually pull the plug, but that would have only made sense.

Instead, like Brittany Spears on another weekend bender, Spanos made a joke of himself and the situation by fiddling some more while the core of Schottenheimer’s staff, with Schottenheimer’s tacit permission, fled an increasingly deteriorating situation. First it was offensive coordinator Cam Cameron to Miami as head coach. Then Rod Chudzinski, who was the candidate to replace Cameron, jumped to Cleveland as its offensive coordinator. Two more assistants jumped ship and finally it was defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, who got the head coaching job in Dallas.

With every horse clearly gone from the barn, Spanos finally stepped in to shut the door tightly. Schottenheimer was finally axed, as if he had a chance to survive beyond the 2007-08 season anyway, and San Diego scrambled quickly to find a new head coach before the NFL’s Scouting Combine.

Having decided that they were better off without a coach who could at least win in the regular season if not the playoffs, Spanos and Smith decided to turn the paradigm on its head by opting to hire, in Norv Turner, the anti-Marty: a coach who can’t win in the regular season either.

From a Cleveland perspective, it’s nice to see another franchise in the middle of a meltdown if only to tell us that we are not alone. Cleveland often self-inflicts its wounds by consistently hiring head coaches without NFL experience, preferably lifelong assistants who have been passed over for every job since Paul Brown left the league. Though that path has never proven to be successful, they preserve anyway thinking they can outsmart history. San Diego is essentially doing the same thing by hiring a coach who has failed twice before. Such retreads rarely work. But at least when Dallas hired Bill Parcells or Kansas City hired Dick Vermeil, the two had actually been successful elsewhere. Heck, even Schottenheimer, who was on his fourth team when hired by the Chargers initially, he had a lifetime winning percentage of .621. But Turner is hardly Parcells or Vermeil or even Schottenheimer. In form and substance, he’s Marion Campbell redux. That didn’t work out too well for the Falcons and it isn’t likely to work out too well for the Chargers, either, which is good news for the rest of the NFL as they make their plans for next season.

Yes, Deano, you’re doing a heckuva job.

Ignore the Scrap Heap

Erik Cassano’s column about the Indians’ approach to compiling a bullpen, particularly under John Hart and Mark Shapiro, could just have easily been written about the Cleveland Browns and their approach to building an offensive line. The comparison couldn’t be more apt.

The bullpen was the Indians biggest problem last season, although infield defense gave it a run for its money. Shapiro went into his usual bag of tricks to try and rectify the situation, meaning he found at-risk players with some measure of past success to plug the gap. As Erik points out, it’s a rather questionable philosophy given the bullpen’s importance to the team’s overall success.

In much the same way, though, the Browns have gone about following a similar strategy for an equally critical component of their own success. Like the bullpen, the success of an offensive line is in inverse proportion to how often it’s noticed. The Browns offensive line was noteworthy last year only because of the penalties it caused, the blocks it missed and the sacks it surrendered.

With the 2007 free agency period set to begin on March 2nd and the college draft set for April 28-29, there is a fair amount of speculation over whether the Browns would consider drafting Wisconsin tackle Joe Thomas. Don’t bet on it. GM Phil Savage seems squarely from the Ernie Accorsi mode (or Mark Shapiro for comparison’s sake) intent on building an offensive line from the scrap heap that is late round picks and undrafted free agents. As that hasn’t worked, the Browns have been reduced to the always iffy free agent market.

What is puzzling is why Savage continues down such a well worn path of failure. If you examine all of the Browns drafts since 1980 to last year, the Browns rarely have attempted to legitimately address their chronic needs on the offensive line. They’ve never once used a first, second or third round pick on a left tackle (or a right tackle for that matter) and what low round picks they’ve spent in those 20 drafts (excluding the hiatus years) on the offensive line all have been centers.

What is also telling is that when they have spent draft picks on linemen, they’ve rarely made a good choice. Either such players are more mercurial in nature than most or the Browns are lousy at scouting. Gee, wonder which it is? In most years, the Browns seem to draft one or two linemen, generally in the later rounds. The few starters they’ve obtained have generally been with late round picks, which is what Savage probably looks at, among others, when crafting his line strategy. But on the other hand, if you’re only drafting linemen in the later rounds and your line has been perpetually lousy, eventually someone has to play. Thus Savage ought to simply ignore this rather dubious fact when drawing conclusions.

When it comes to the Browns, defining success is always a moving target. In considering the offensive line and for purposes of illustration, we can define success as a player who has lasted more than two seasons in the NFL. Here then is the list of linemen drafted by the Browns since 1980 that meets this rather generous criteria:

-1982: Mike Baab (5th round)- played 11 seasons
-1983: Bill Contz (5th round)- played 6 seasons
-1983: Paul Farren (12th round)- played 9 seasons
-1987: Gregg Rakoczy (2nd round)- played 6 seasons
-1987: Frank Winters (10th round)-played 16 seasons (only 2 in Cleveland!)
-1991: Ed King (2nd round)-played 6 seasons
-1993: Steve Everitt (1st round)-played 7 seasons
-1993: Herman Arvie (5th round)-played 4 seasons
-2001: Paul Zukauskas (7th round)-played 4 seasons
-2002: Melvin Fowler (3rd round)- still active, with Buffalo
-2002: Joaquin Gonzalez (7th round)-played 4 seasons
-2003: Jeff Faine (1st round)-still active

In perusing this list, easily the most successful lineman drafted by the Browns was Frank Winters. Unfortunately but typical for Cleveland, his success was realized in Green Bay after spending only two years in Cleveland. Second is Mike Baab, who anchored the Browns line in the early and mid-1980s followed closely by Paul Farren. After that, the list is hardly impressive. On the other hand, the list of draft failures is nearly twice as long.

Perhaps because the cupboard was so bare when he got here (and remains so today), Savage has continued the trend of his predecessors, foregoing any effort to use early round picks on linemen. Under Savage the Browns have drafted 3 linemen: Andrew Hoffman (2005, 6th round, now on practice squad); Jonathan Dunn (2005, 7th round, no longer in football); and, Isaac Sowells (2006, 4th round, still on roster).

But sooner or later, this area of critical needs has to be addressed in a more legitimate manner. When you look at all the lineman currently on the Browns roster, a few key facts hit you squarely in the nose. First, except for the aforementioned Sowells, who played sparingly, and Huffman, who is on the practice squad, none were drafted and developed by Cleveland, which is not a surprise given the stats noted above. Second, there are no first round picks on the roster, only two second round picks (LeCharles Bentley, with New Orleans; Cosey Coleman, with Tampa Bay)and two 4th round picks (Nat Dorsey with Miami and Ryan Tucker with St. Louis). The rest were either 6th or 7th round picks or signed as undrafted free agents. While many great lines have been built with players of all backgrounds and stripes, the lack of pedigree by the Browns line probably makes its lack of success inevitable.

Unfortunately, two years in Savage’s reign and the cupboard is still so bare that it is difficult to concentrate on any one area. Here’s a suggestion: concentrate on one area anyway and make that the offensive line. Trying to fill every hole usually results in filling none of them adequately. The offensive line, the foundation for a team’s overall offensive success, has been ignored far too long. All the skill players in the world can’t overcome a line that can’t block or protect the quarterback. If Joe Thomas isn’t the right guy, then find the right guy. This team needs to be rebuilt and it’s time that Savage resists historical trends and actually starts building from the bottom up.

Deja Vu Again

Demonstrating that they refuse to be one-upped by the Browns, the Cleveland Indians announced today that free agent signee Keith Foulke was retiring, even before the first pitch of spring training was thrown. All that’s needed now to make this mini-drama a complete re-rerun of the Browns pre-season is for Joe Borowski to blow out his arm on his first pitch and for Foulke to claim in Bob Hallen fashion that the reason he retired was due to a previously undisclosed mystery ailment.

While this all smacks of déjà vu all over again, only with Foulke playing the Bob Hallen role, remember that the “retirement” of Hallen was or should have been much more unexpected. Hallen didn’t appear to be injured, just unable to cope with the pressure of starting. Foulke, on the other hand, has been plagued by numerous injuries for the last few years and reportedly was now experiencing elbow pain. Whether and when he was going to retire or go on the disabled list were the only real questions. In fact, the same can be said for pretty much everyone Shapiro signed in the off season. It’s the kind of thing that’s going to happen when an underfinanced team forces your general manager to craft a strategy that rests on signing free agents with injury histories.

Mark Shapiro, the Indians general manager, has been getting good play nationally for the off-season he put together, mainly because he theoretically addressed the major holes on this team, particularly the infield and the bullpen. The Indians in many ways do appear to be stronger. But the way the bullpen was addressed was a perfect set up for what took place with Foulke. It’s just that the collapse happened much quicker than anticipated.

Frankly, it’s getting both tiring and boring writing and re-writing the same thing about the Indians. But unless and until ownership decides to fund this team properly, what happened in 2006 is just as likely to happen in any given year as what happened in 2005. And the way 2007 has now started can’t be the kind of encouragement Shapiro or Indians fans generally needed to help them rid the goblins of the disaster that was last season.

The argument has been made, with some validity, that given what was out there and coupled with the insane run-up in salaries during the off-season by teams more desperate than the Indians, Shapiro didn’t really have much of a choice in how he went about cobbling together this year’s bullpen. But the run up in salaries was just one factor that forced Shapiro to scour the injured list for his free agent signees. Bad decisions are at least as much a part of it as anything else. The decision to go hard after Trevor Hoffman at the expense of Bob Howry and the give away of Bob Wickman to the Atlanta Braves both figure prominently into the mix.

It’s probably not much of a stretch to suggest that Shapiro knew this was coming given the otherwise odd signing of Cliff Politte this week. But in the grand scheme, Politte was the perfect Shapiro signing. He has a decent track record and recent should surgery. With Foulke going down, Shapiro might want to consider adding Nolan Ryan as insurance. He’s barely older than Roberto Hernandez and he just got out of the hospital a few weeks ago.

Of Questionable Strategy

As the Cleveland Cavaliers approach the All Star break, they are on pace to win 48 games, two less than last year. Presumably, if the chat boards and sports talk shows are any gauge, this would be a major disappointment. But the real question is whether this disappointment is based on unreasonable self-inflicted high expectations or objectively indicates a step back.

The mission statement for this year’s statement was essentially ripped from the George W. Bush playbook: Stay the Course. The thought process was that another year of seasoning, coupled with the additions of the two young draft choices, naturally would lead to an even better result this year, particularly if Larry Hughes remained healthy.

But this always seemed like a tenuous theory, the kind of luck and hope strategy usually reserved for our friends in Berea. Instead, given the lack of moves made by the Cavs in the offseason, the belief here was that whether or not the Cavs significantly improved on their 50-win season of a year ago highly depended on the schedule. Back before the first game of the season, the following was noted:

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.

At the moment, this prediction is looking pretty solid. The Cavs right now are winning 74% of their home games, compared with 75% all of last year, essentially a wash. The slight difference right now is on the road. With last night's loss to Utah, Cleveland is winning 40% of its road games to this point and last year they won 46%. Thus, the Cavs need to go 9-7 on the road the rest of the season to equal last year’s road win total and overall win percentage, assuming they continue to win at the same clip at home.

But in the grand scheme, the Cavs are likely to end this season in similar shape as last season and with a similar playoff seeding. The only real difference comes elsewhere in the conference. Toronto currently leads the Atlantic Division which was won last year by New Jersey. Similarly, Washington now leads the Southeast Division where last year they finished behind Miami. And Chicago currently has a better record than Miami, meaning Chicago would have the 5th seed and Cleveland would retain the 4th seed.

Given the make-up of the entire Eastern Conference, the real impediment at the moment to Cleveland making the NBA finals, even with its current line up, still remains Detroit. And that is the rub. When Danny Ferry chose to stay the course, he offered a strategy that failed to present any logical reason, beyond the power of hope, as to why that would be enough to overcome the Pistons. To this point in the season, the Cavs look no closer to solving the Pistons than they did last year. If anything, they seem to be further away.

It makes nice conversation on a snowy February day to further dissect what’s supposedly wrong with the Cavaliers. But objectively, nothing so much is wrong as most fans simply drank the Kool-Aid once again, wanting to believe that things would automatically get better. But when one views the season in terms of what has actually been accomplished to this point in relation to last year, it’s very clear that the only thing really wrong was another failed strategy by another Cleveland general manager.

Marty's Parting

It’s hard to know if San Diego Chargers owner Dean Spanos is a mad genius or just mad. Either way, the Chargers find themselves without a head coach or any viable internal candidates and, in a small way, the Cleveland Browns are partially to blame.

By now, most know the story. Chargers head coach Marty Schottenheimer, who held similar positions with Cleveland, Kansas City and Washington, is once again unemployed despite going 14-2 this past season and despite having won 200 games in his long coaching career. Apparently Schottenheimer and Chargers GM A.J. Smith had the kind of dysfunctional front office/management relationship that made the John Collins/Phil Savage relationship seem positively giddy by comparison. According to ESPN’s John Clayton (see article here), the relationship began to deteriorate in 2003, that deterioration accelerated in 2004 and by last season Smith and Schottenheimer weren’t even speaking.

For Browns fans, the most interesting aspect of the firing is what accelerated it. First, some background. The poor relationship between Schottenheimer and Smith was well known, of course, to Spanos, but after a surprising regular season that resulted in the Chargers owning the best record at 14-2, followed by the usual Schottenheimer melt-down in the playoffs, Spanos opted initially to retain Schottenheimer. After all, you can’t fire a coach who just went 14-2, can you? But negotiations between Schottenheimer and Spanos broke down on the length of a new contract and Schottenheimer decided to stick with a one-year contract.

This created a more or less untenable situation for most of Schottenheimer’s assistants. First, Schottenheimer lost offensive coordinator Cam Cameron, who went to Miami as head coach. Then, last week, defensive coordinator Wade Phillips was named head coach in Dallas. Those kinds of losses were not unexpected. What was unexpected, however, was the fleeing of the other assistants, who sensed an increasingly insecure environment given Schottenheimer’s tenuous status. Apparently, though, one of the last straws for Spanos was the Browns hiring of Rod Chudzinski as offensive coordinator. Apparently, according to ESPN's Clayton, Smith had actually denied permission to Chudzinski to even interview with Cleveland. Schottenheimer, however, countermanded that decision and let Chudzinski interview. Quickly thereafter, the Browns pounced and put Chudzinski under a three-year contract. A similar scenario played out two additional times with other assistants, leaving the San Diego staff nearly vacant. That makes the decision to can Schottenheimer all the more strange.

In retrospect, though, it seems like Spanos was aching to fire Schottenheimer all along and just waiting for the right moment, which came as soon as the Cowboys filled their vacancy. It’s one thing to fire one of the more successful regular season coaches in NFL history, it’s a whole other thing to let that coach go and immediately land elsewhere. And make no mistake about it, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones would have jumped at the chance to hire Schottenheimer instead of Phillips had the opportunity presented itself. Now Schottenheimer faces the likely prospect of sitting out next season while Phillips, his former defensive coordinator, gets the opportunity to advance an already decent Cowboys team.

For Schottenheimer, this was just another ignominous end to another coaching job. Most will recall that he left Cleveland in late 1988 after another personality conflict that erupted when Art Modell insisted that Schottenheimer hire an offensive coordinator. Schottenheimer had taken over play calling duties that season when Lindy Infante left the previous season to take the head coaching job in Green Bay. In Kansas City, he resigned after going 8-8 and failing to get to the playoffs. Dan Snyder fired Schottenheimer after one inglorious season in Washington.

The most curious aspect of Schottenheimer’s career, however, is how underappreciated he seems to be as compared to someone like Bill Cowher. The two have nearly identical regular season winning percentages. Schottenheimer lifetime is 200-126-1 for a .613 winning percentage and Cowher is 149-90-1 for a .623 winning percentage. But the difference in how the two are perceived likely comes down to two factors. First, of course, is the playoff record. Whereas Cowher is 12-9 with one Super Bowl title, Schottenheimer is 5-13 with no titles. The second factor is how those records were compiled. Cowher spent his entire coaching career (to this point) with Pittsburgh, while Schottenheimer just completed his fourth different coaching stint. In other words, Schottenheimer is perceived as a retread even though he has one of the more impressive coaching resumes you’re likely to see.

Unless another job suddenly opens up, for example if Andy Reid’s one-month leave in Philadelphia becomes permanent while he addresses family issues, Schottenheimer will find himself in someone’s broadcast booth next year. Following the 2008 season, there will certainly be more openings, including a possible opening in Cleveland. Whether Schottenheimer gets one of those jobs or even wants one of those jobs is unknown. And while many Browns fans still squirm at thoughts of the Drive and the Fumble, at this point in their existence the Browns could do much worse than bringing back Schottenheimer. With Marty, at least you know what you get—a conservative coach who believes in running the ball. We’d also get something that’s been missing since the Browns returned, a coach with a winning record and attitude.