Rookies make mistakes. So do veterans.
But the story of the Cleveland Browns’ latest loss isn’t just
about rookie and veteran mistakes. One of the great things we know
about that loss is that it’s as much, if not more, about the story
of head coach Pat Shurmur’s increasingly shaky grip on his current
job than anything else. Shurmur demonstrated once again that for all
the mistakes of the players he leads, it’s his own mistakes that
hurt this team even more. The simple truth is that the fans
shouldn’t expect the players to get better until the coach gets
better.
The Browns 17-13 loss to the Colts has
many parents. It was mistake-filled, from the botched hold by Reggie
Hodges (who had a miserable day overall) on an extra point that put
the Browns in a position where a field goal wouldn’t be enough to
the two holding calls on veteran Ray Ventrone on two kick returns to
even the Billy Winn offsides penalty and the various false starts
that serve as drive killers. The cumulative weight of all these
little indignities usually spells defeat, as they did Sunday, and yet
it wasn’t as if the Indianapolis Colts were playing mistake-free.
They were practically begging the Browns to win the game. I turned
on the radio broadcast from the Colts near the end of the game and
their announcers were almost apoplectic about how the Colts were
surely handing the game to the lowly Browns; bold talk from a team
that rightly should have lost all its games last season.
Sure you can put the blame on wide
receiver Josh Gordon who dropped what would have been a potentially
game winning touchdown for the ultimate loss. But that too would
miss the larger point. Shurmur’s lack of nerve, his “let’s not
seize the day” approach to decision making continues to reinforce
among his charges that he doesn’t have their backs. So why would
they have his?
There’s been plenty of written
already about Shurmur once again eschewing a 4th and 1
late in the game in favor of Jim Tressel’s favorite play, the punt.
But what the heck, let’s pile on as well. Shurmur’s lack of guts
reveals a very bothersome and ultimately debilitating flaw in his
makeup as a head coach. It deserves to be examined and re-examined.
We all know the scenario by now
because, hell, it was the same scenario as a few weeks ago. It was
late in the game, the Browns needing a score and Shurmur deciding
that the best way to get a touchdown was to put the game in the hands
of his shaky defense and, what, hope they recover a fumble?
Shurmur doesn’t get a chance to
demonstrate his cowardly streak if Gordon catches that pass on what
was a 3rd and 1 play. And some credit to Shurmur for
trying to catch the Colts flatfooted by throwing long when the run
looked like the safer play. But the second it’s time to give him
credit, Shurmur invalidates that faith.
I don’t know exactly why the Browns’
offense couldn’t get their asses moving quickly enough to run a
play before the time clock expired, I just know that they didn’t
and when quarterback Brandon Weeden saw that only 3 seconds remained
he panicked (rookie) and burned a very critical time out.
Let’s talk a little about that time
out and how it fit into Shurmur’s warped thinking. First, it
caused Shurmur to ignore what looked to be a gut instinct to go for
the first down and try to win the game right there. That gut
instinct would have been solidly backed up statistically. It’s
been well chronicled by this point how head coaches, particularly in
the NFL, often ignore the higher percentage play of fourth down out
of loss aversion. But here, Shumur shouldn’t have even been
suffering from loss aversion. The Browns never had this game won in
the first place. They weren’t on the verge of losing anything
because what’s another loss for a team that has cornered the market
on competitive losses? Instead of recognizing that bit of
circumstance Shurmur decided to make it that much more difficult to
win the game, which was the last thing this team needed. If anything
Shurmur suffers from win aversion.
Second, because the time out was
stupidly burned, it actually made the decision to go for it on 4th
down that much easier, or should have. The problem with the “pin
‘em back” strategy that Shurmur trusts more than his offense is
that it also requires all of your time outs for it to work best.
When you can’t stop the clock, opposing NFL teams are pretty good
at bleeding it well. Why Shurmur saw this as a more compelling
reason to punt and not less is perhaps the biggest mystery in trying
to figure out how his brain works.
Now of course Shurmur defends the
decision by noting the after-the-fact result. The defense did hold
the Colts and the Browns did get the ball back. The key there though
is that he’s relying on the after-the-fact outcome to justify a
decision that had to be made when he didn’t have the benefit of
hindsight, except of course the kind of hindsight that comes with
having made the same decision previously with the same, predictable
dispiriting result just two weeks ago.
What Shurmur can’t seem to grasp is
what is becoming his fatal flaw. He simply can’t see how the lack
of confidence he exhibits in his own decision making infuses the
players with the same inevitable sense of doom and loss.
Let’s roll the tape further and see
what really happened. Hodges punted 21 yards, which was nearly as
big a disaster as when he botched the hold on the extra point early
in the game. The inability of a punter at a crucial moment to put
the ball inside the 10 yard line from the 50 yard line suggests that
Shurmur and his staff should spend quality time this week auditioning
new punters.
Then the defense did hold the Colts to
a 3-and-out and forced the punt. But Holdges’ lousy punt ensured
the Browns would start in worse position, which they did, about 30
yards worse, then they voluntarily gave up. If that weren’t
enough, the Browns now had 2 ½ minutes less time and that much more
yardage to get the touchdown it still needed. (And as an aside, why
is it that Shurmur seems to have enough faith in his defense to force
a 3-and-out with the Colts backed up further but not the same faith
that this defense can perform that trick if the Colts are starting
from their own 41-yard line, which is where they would have started
from had the 4th down play not been successful? If you
can figure that one out then congratulations, you’ve just been
elected president of the Pat Shurmur fan club.)
But football is as much emotion as
talent and at that point all things were not created equal. The
offense that felt a little surge of confidence with a deep throw on
3rd and 1 that almost worked was now not even close to the
offense now on the field. In the interim they had been publicly
embarrassed by their own coach who concluded for the entire world to
see (or at least those few small corners that cared) that he didn’t
believe his offense was good enough just a few minutes earlier to
get 1 yard. It begs the question, doesn’t it, as to how the hell
it was now going to move most of the length of the field and grab a
touchdown? Not surprisingly, they didn’t come close.
If the reaction of Jimmy Haslam III
from the owners’ box is any indication, this telling sequence of
the events was harder for him to digest then a 3-day old brat from a
street cart vendor.
It makes me wonder too what Haslam
would do if this week were a bye week. Would he live up to his
promise not to make any changes midseason? I know the temptation
would have to be to move beyond Shurmur now and at least send the
message to the troops (fans included) that it’s no longer business
as usual.
No one is suggesting that Shurmur needs
to be an unnecessary risk taker just to prove his mettle. But in a
business context he needs to understand what appropriate risks there
are to take. The Browns are 1-6, the worst team in the NFL, and have
offered precious little to their fans for years to suggest that now,
finally, this team is on the right path. Shurmur doesn’t come
across as a person who even understands context or risk, which makes
him ill suited to coach a team run by a businessman who clearly
understands both. Shurmur may not get fired midseason but there’s
no doubt that after Sunday’s game, this will be his last season in
Cleveland.
**
To go back to where we started, one of
the things fans had to expect when they saw how general manager Tom
Heckert put this roster together was that most games would be
mistake-filled messes. The fact that it’s turned out that way
shouldn’t surprise.
The Browns, by virtue of their
mistake-plagued record, most certainly lead the league in competitive
losses. Other than the manhandling at the hands of the New York
Football Giants a week ago, the Browns have basically been
competitive all season.
But let’s not use that as some sort
of evidence that the ship is righted. The truth that was revealed
again Sunday is that Browns 2.0, now in its 14th season,
probably leads the league in competitive losses for the entirety of
its existence. Eric Mangini managed to keep games close. So did
Butch Davis and Romeo Crennel. And just like the competitive losses
under prior head coaches didn’t end up translating into actual
wins, there’s no reason to believe that the competitive losses like
Sunday will magically translate into wins anytime soon either.
It’s a little jarring that Heckert
hasn’t adequately explained, or really explained inadequately for
that matter, why he put so many kids on the roster. Indeed, one of
the reasons Mike Holmgren is enjoying retirement with Randy Lerner’s
money stems from the disconnect between him and his general manager
over this issue. Holmgren admitted he hadn’t realized that Heckert
had constructed the roster as he did, thus demonstrating that if he
had his hand on the pulse, it wasn’t the pulse of this team. Ouch.
The lack of communication from Browns’
management is a given and Heckert and his silence about this mess of
a roster is in keeping with that grand tradition. So we’re left to
surmise. At the very least, whether or not you agree with how the
roster was put together, you can surmise credibly that Heckert
doesn’t suffer from the same lack of confidence that plagues
Shurmur. If nothing else, putting together a roster that almost
certainly would be prone more to mistakes than wins was essentially a
statement that Heckert was willing to stand behind his skills as a
talent evaluator. Heckert obviously felt that the short term pain of
the coming year would be worth it in the long run or even later in
the season.
Well, a loss like Sunday’s is another
reminder of just how much that pain can actually hurt. At 1-6 this
Browns team is running out of games in which to put together an even
respectable record, forget a winning record. At some point soon and
well before next season, this team is going to have to turn these
competitive losses into wins to justify the faith Heckert has in
himself and some of the suspects he’s allowed on this roster.
Let’s be clear about one thing.
Finding new or even more competitive ways to lose as the season comes
to a close isn’t going to save Heckert’s job. Nothing short of
actual winning will accomplish that. Yet there’s only so much the
players can overcome and the one thing they can’t for now is the
tentative nature of their head coach. Having gone all in on this
roster the one thing Heckert apparently missed and what could
ultimately undo his entire strategy is the weak link that Shurmur has
become.
**
For as much attention he garners, one
could be excused for thinking that as Greg Little goes so goes the
entire team. That will never be the case.
It was nice to see Little finally hold
on to the football but one game does not make a trend. Weeden
clearly was not throwing much in Little’s direction the last few
weeks, sending a message in the process. Maybe Precious Little got
the message, if 6 catches Sunday means anything. Maybe he didn’t,
if all the missed blocks mean anything.
Nonetheless, while blocking is a core
competency for a wide receiver, Little needs to catch the ball to
stay on the field and took a step in the right direction Sunday, even
as the rest of the team was taking a step back.
**
Speaking of run blocking, the Browns
looked clueless in their quest to establish a consistently feared
running game. The New York Jets absolutely shredded the Colts run
defense the week before and yet the Browns of Sunday looked like any
other version of the Browns 2.0, you know the ones that would send
Travis Prentice or James Jackson into a mass of humanity and then
wonder why the run game never worked.
Trent Richardson was a bit confusing on
his own health, saying both that he was fine and more hurt then he
was letting on. What was true was that he was ineffective so sitting
him down for the second half and trying to catch lightening in a
bottle again with Montario Hardesty wasn’t among Shurmur’s worst
ideas. That said, Shurmur decided not to actually use Hardesty all
that much. Shurmur called the game as if the Browns were down by 20
and essentially needed to pass every play. They didn't.
In any event, let's be honest about
Hardesty. He's only demonstrated that he’s a very average running
back and Richardson demonstrated that it’s hard to be physical when
your ribs are broken. Maybe that's why Hardesty acted as mostly a
decoy. That put the game on Weeden’s shoulders. He delivered a
credible performance. The pass that Gordon dropped was damn near as
perfect of a pass as you’re likely to see. And he didn’t add to
his league-high number of interceptions, either.
But putting any game solely on Weeden
at this point isn’t among Shurmur’s better ideas. Weeden may
resemble Randy Lerner facially but he has much more guile. Yet
Weeden still doesn’t know everything he doesn’t know at this
stage of his career. It falls on Weeden for calling that ill-advised
time out. It’s his job to get the players in a position for the
next play. That failing, as I noted above, gave Shurmur enough time
to revisit a decision in the most unfortunate way.
Weeden has made dramatic improvement
since week one and is playing as well as any rookie quarterback not
named Robert Griffin III. Given that it is reasonable to expect that
Weeden will someday be able to maintain calm while all others around
him, including an overmatched coaching staff, are losing their heads.
But that time is not just yet and Sunday more than proved that as
well.
**
Next up is the San Diego Chargers, a
mercurial team that perfectly matches the mercurial nature of their
head coach, Norv Turner. Nonetheless, it will be another game where
the road team is favored in Cleveland. If that doesn’t inform
Haslam’s thinking about the team he just overpaid for, nothing
will.
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