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.

Emerging Irrelevance

As February rolls into its deepest darkest and coldest corners, there’s been much talk about which 65 teams might make it to the NCAA’s so-called “big dance” come March. Here we are, weeks away from the tournament and speculative brackets and seedings are being created.

This isn’t a story, ladies and gentlemen; it’s what most call the dead zone. Pro football is through for the year, its ridiculous Pro Bowl notwithstanding, and pitchers and catchers have yet to report to spring training. The only game in town right now is the Cavs but this is about the time of year when the sameness and blandness of the NBA really kicks in. Most players are anxiously awaiting the All Start break and actual, intense basketball that will determine playoff seeding is still several weeks away. It’s getting so bad, poor Bill Livingston at the Plain Dealer has essentially written the same column three of his last four times out.

But all this talk of the potential seedings for the NCAA basketball tournament serves as a nice reminder of the college football season just ended and all the controversy it generated because of the absence of a playoff system. The real question, though, is whether the presence of the NCAA tournament and it’s fairly inclusive field of 65 has made the regular season mostly irrelevant for all but the teams playing in minor conferences.

The season Ohio State is enjoying provides a nice backdrop for the discussion. The other night they played that team from up North and hardly anyone seemed to care. While it is true that the Ohio State/Michigan rivalry is more football based, it’s still Ohio State vs. Michigan, still a chance to further cement the recent dominance of the Buckeyes over the Wolverines. But the Buckeyes lineup this season all but assured that they’d be in the NCAA tournament before the first jump ball of the season, making the only mystery to be played out where they’d be seeded and which bracket they’d be in. This is hardly compelling stuff to the average fan.

For teams like Ohio State and the rest of the Big Ten, the NCAA tournament has made the regular season nearly irrelevant. Making matters worse is the presence of the post-season, pre-NCAA conference tournament. The only real value in being the regular season conference winner is that it typically carries a first round bye in the conference tournament and gives athletic directors a reason to order another banner to hang in the rafters of the arena. But these days, the Big Ten conference champ in basketball carries all the prestige of being the 98th person to walk in space. Of arguably even lesser relevance is the actual winner of the conference tournament. In fact, the conventional wisdom now seems to be that losing early in the conference tournament is not a negative because your team gets a few more days rest before the NCAAs.

This isn’t a call to abandon the NCAA basketball tournament, although eliminating the blatant money grab that is the conference tournament would be a good idea. It’s to demonstrate the stark contrast between college basketball and football and the approach to the post-season. There is little doubt that if the NCAA wasn’t so tied into the current bowl system, Division I would likely have a playoff system similar to what they have in their smaller divisions. But the presence of the bowl games coupled with the lack of political will or courage by the college presidents to bring about a worthy playoff system and not some jerry-rigged mess that is the BCS or any of the other similar proposals still kicking around all but assures the preservation of the current system.

But is that all bad? As this column is being written, Ohio State and Purdue are locked up in a game that is closer than it out to be. But in the grand scheme, whether or not the Buckeyes prevail or Purdue pulls the upset means little. But how critical, on the other hand, was the Buckeyes football game against a lesser opponent like Illinois last November? The nail-biting outcome made all the difference in whether or not the Buckeyes would even play for the national championship.

In other words, the lack of a playoff system brought a level of intrigue to the football season that might not have otherwise existed. Had a playoff system been in place, it’s still likely that the Buckeyes would have been part of it, even if they had lost to Illinois instead of squeaking by. Similar scenarios played out all over the country. Had Florida, for example, not prevailed in the SEC conference championship, Ohio State likely would have faced Michigan in the National Championship game. In fact, if Ohio State had not beaten LLLLLoyd Carr and Michigan in the season finale, the Wolverines would have been the fodder for Urban Meyer’s Gators. And don’t forget the USC meltdown against its archrival UCLA or the last-second loss by the Louisville Cardinals to surprising Rutgers. The list goes on and on.

But however the football season would have played out or did play out, it kept the interest level high for virtually every regular season football game, which is the way it ought to be. It’s an element that has been missing now for several years in college basketball and with the emphasis on the NCAA tournament only increasing each season, it promises to get worse.

One Man's Whine...

Somewhere Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow, Jr. must be scratching their heads.

At various points during the last Browns season each popped off to the media about the pathetic state that was the offense. Each railed against the plodding and ill-conceived offensive schemes that seemed to make insufficient use of the few skilled players on the roster, namely Edwards and Winslow. In the process, each made the kind of headlines they neither could have liked. They were being excoriated by fans and media alike for being selfish and aloof, Cleveland’s answer to Terrell Owens, times two, even if their comments rang true.

But on a different day and by a different player, similar comments are seen as leadership. It all depends on the speaker. Earlier this week, as he did earlier this season, LeBron James took his complaints about the pathetic state of the Cavs offense directly to the media and his comments hardly caused a ripple, let alone controversy.

Most will recall a few weeks ago when the Cavs entered their most recent funk, somewhere on the West Coast. Head coach Mike Brown’s view was that the main problem was a lack of defensive intensity. When asked about Brown’s analysis, James countered that the problems lay more with the offense. This public contradiction of the head coach garnered no headlines. None. Just a few short weeks later, with the Cavs funk deepening, the scrutiny on Brown has increased. And rather than diffuse the issue, here comes James once again throwing a little more gas on the fire by publicly taking on his head coach, if not by name then by description.

James told the media that the Cavs need to break out of Brown’s boring and predictable half-court offense and get into their offensive schemes more quickly. He wants to run more in order to create more fast break opportunities. James even had the statistics to back up his point, telling the media, in case no one noticed, that in multiple games this year, the Cavs have had no fast break points. According to James, “we’ve got to find a way to get easy buckets. I don’t get easy buckets like I did in the past. Pushing up the tempo can help.” Indeed, the Cavs rarely push the tempo. Brown seems more comfortable with an offense that pokes and prods that too often results in James taking an ill-advised jumper with two defenders on him as the shot clock winds down to zero.

What is astounding in all of this, though, is not so much the accuracy of James’ insights as the fact that his comments have largely gone unnoticed or unchallenged. In many respects, what James is saying is every bit as inflammatory as the comments Edwards and Winslow made about the Browns, if not more so. His words, carefully chosen, were aimed directly at Brown in the same way as Edwards and Winslow directed their comments at Crennel. Brown, like Crennel, is a defensive coach first and foremost who seems to treat offense like an afterthought. Eventually the stilted nature of this approach starts to frustrate those who are paid to play offense and eventually that frustration will boil over as it did with Edwards and Winslow with the Browns and as it is doing now with James and the Cavs.

But where Crennel sloughed off both Edwards and Winslow by suggesting that they are merely young players with much to learn, Brown was more deferential. He not only didn’t downplay the comments he embraced them, albeit reluctantly, by saying that he is open to tweaking his offense as suggested, so long as it doesn’t result in running just to run. Whether Brown actually does tweak the offense is iffy, given his nature. But even as the words of James must have stung, Brown seemed to take them seriously.

This is not to call out James for being selfish or for attempting to undermine the team, far from it. It’s to point out that the similar comments made under similar circumstances can have vastly different consequences. The difference, of course, is credibility.

At the time their comments were made, neither Edwards nor Winslow had yet accomplished much of anything in their professional careers. They still haven’t. As a result, their motives are considered questionable. All James has done on the other hand is live up to the unprecedented hype he faced coming out of high school by becoming one of the best players on the planet. No one questions that he’s team-oriented. Even those who have watched James only casually over the years can tell you that the one attribute that stands out most is his willingness to get his teammates involved in the game. He is a pass first, shoot second player with a desire to win that is unquestioned. His skills and attributes are universally recognized as evidenced by the fact that he was the leading vote getter this year for the NBA All-Star game. His motives are beyond question.

In many ways, James is like his Nike compatriot Tiger Woods. More often than not, like Woods, his interviews are bland. He rarely if ever ventures very far out on a limb settling for clichéd platitudes over thoughtful analysis. But, like Woods, when James does have something more to say, it carries additional gravitas. Not only are people not offended, they’re thankful because he’s saying what needs to be said.

If Edwards and Winslow are indeed scratching their heads over what appears to be inconsistent treatment by fans of media of them versus James, they should remember that the difference between being viewed as a whiner or a leader often boils down to not simply talking the talk, but being able to walk it as well. With Edwards and Winslow, the jury is still out on that question. With James, that verdict was delivered long ago.

Hard Lessons

Almost the second after the Indianapolis Colts were putting the finishing touches on their victory over the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI, oddsmakers employed by the various sports books in Las Vegas were installing San Diego as the prohibitive favorite for next year’s Super Bowl. This probably shows a bit too much optimism in Marty Schottenheimer given his track record, but on the other hand a flipped coin can’t keep coming up tails, can it?

More interesting than the favorite, though, is where the beloved Cleveland Browns figure in next year’s pecking order among gamblers. Without even knowing which free agents might be signed and then injured or which players might be chosen in the draft and then left unsigned until the third week of training camp, the sports books have made Cleveland and the other dregs of the league 100-1 shots to win the Super Bowl. Frankly, that seems too optimistic.

If you think that is an overly negative view, then sit back and replay Sunday’s Super Bowl in your head. As you consider the players for each team, try and determine which members of the current Browns roster could start for either Chicago or Indianapolis. It matters little which player or players you want to argue about for the truth is that there may be one or two, perhaps three, that could possibly crack the starting lineups of either of this year’s Super Bowl participants. And that should tell you everything you need to know about how far the Browns are from being a legitimate competitor in the NFL.

Assuming Browns owner Randy Lerner wasn’t in England with his soccer team and watched at least some of this year’s Super Bowl, he can’t be happy with this stark reality. After all the advantages, after all the early round draft picks, after all of the organization and reorganization of the front office and coaching staff, the Cleveland Browns sit as far away from the Super Bowl as at any time in the history of this franchise, and that includes the years when no football was even being played on the lakefront.

Given Lerner’s management approach to date, the pressure of this reality lands squarely on the shoulders of General Manager Phil Savage. Perhaps that’s why Savage decided to keep Romeo Crennel. That could be just another battle for another day. When he looks at his roster and sees just how far away the Browns really are, acquiring talent is jobs one through 45.

The tendency of Cleveland sports fans is to swing wildly from emotion to emotion. Given the results of this last season, most Browns fans right now are somewhere between anger and outrage, with a healthy number probably drifting toward abject indifference. Eventually, though, as the free agency period begins to hit its stride and draft choices are made, wide-eyed optimism will return. Browns fans will engage in one of their favorite past times that goes like this: “with another year under his belt, Kellen Winslow should emerge as the best tight end in the AFC. If Chud can harness Braylon Edwards and his attitude, our receiving corps should be one of the strongest in the league. If free agent X or draft choices Y and Z can just come through and with Charlie Frye and Derek Anderson locked in a real battle at QB, we have a real chance to turn this around.”

It’s great to dream. But it also raises expectations to unrealistic levels and makes the fall even harder to absorb. The point has been made repeatedly, but it is critical that it be revisited often. Of the three Cleveland sports franchises, the Browns are easily in the worst shape. Part of it is due to the fact that football requires more personnel overall and places the most emphasis on that personnel playing together in a much more coordinated fashion. But part of it also is due to the whole litany of poor management that has befallen this franchise since it has returned.

There is speculation that Lerner is considering selling the Browns. But new ownership hardly solves the problem unless it is accompanied by a sea change in attitude. Sunday’s Super Bowl may not have been the most exciting or compelling contest ever but hopefully it proved to be instructive to Browns fans and management alike. The Browns simply are not in the conversation in terms of making an impact in the NFL and don’t look to be any time soon. So before anyone even considers wasting a single dollar betting on the Browns Super Bowl odds for next year, remember how you feel right now and know that your money is better invested in betting the over and under on the number of times Lindsey Lohan will land in rehab in the next two years.

The Cleveland Three

Reading Eric Cassano’s column about the field bosses running each of Cleveland’s professional sports teams (see his excellent column here ) served as still another wake-up calls as to how quickly things can change.

Late in the summer of 2005, the Indians were emerging as the one team no one wanted to meet in the playoffs. Kudos were being given to Eric Wedge for managing the team through a slow start and but for a collapse during the last week of the season, there’s a decent chance that someone other than the White Sox would have been World Series champs. Wedge was completing his second year as manager and expectations for the 2006 season were high. Wedge was subject only to the typical second guessing of any manager but no one was seriously identifying him as the key impediment to the team’s chances of returning to the playoffs.

It was also late in the summer of 2005 that Romeo Crennel was getting ready to embark on his first season as head coach of the Browns. While there were probably some that were a little skeptical of Crennel given his age, his hiring was generally greeted very favorably. Crennel had what seemed to be an impeccable resume and pedigree and the requisite connection to Cleveland. His lack of head coaching experience was noted but was not seen as any significant detriment particularly given the breadth of his experience in the league. The popular notion was that this team needed a teacher, a figure of authority and Crennel seemed to fit that description well.

It was also the summer of 2005 when Mike Brown was named head coach of the Cavs. Dan Gilbert had taken over as owner during the middle of that season and fired Paul Silas a short time later. Brendan Malone was named the interim coach. Once the season ended, Gilbert hired Mike Brown as head coach and, soon thereafter, Danny Ferry as general manager. Brown, like Crennel, had a good coaching pedigree. His lack of head coaching experience was likewise noted but, again, was not seen as a significant determinant. He was a young up and coming force leading a team of young and up and coming players.

Yet here we are, barely into 2007, and nothing seems to have worked out as planned. The most stable coaching regime we have is Wedge with the Indians. And to most fans, it’s a very shaky stability. What started as typical second guessing has now turned into essays about Wedge’s perceived shortcomings. But on the other hand his job doesn’t seem particularly insecure. Fans understand intuitively that General Manager Mark Shapiro is the team’s auteur and Wedge is the dutiful implementer. They also understand that more than any other general manager/head coach relationship in town, Wedge and Shapiro are the most tethered. Wedge goes down when Shapiro goes down. Crennel, of course, is hanging by the barest of threads and Brown apparently finds himself somewhere in the middle.

The very tenuous nature of the Cleveland coaching situation begs the question, how did we get this way? Why is it that other franchises in other sports seem to take flyers on coaches with little or no established track record and succeed wildly? Why can newcomers like Sean Payton or Eric Mangini succeed in the NFL where seasoned veterans like Crennel fail? Why can Lawrence Frank, a virtual unknown, step into the head coaching slot with the New Jersey Nets and be successful while Mike Brown struggles to find his voice with a more talented Cavs team?

The problem is that we treat those questions as rhetorical rather than actually take on the harder task of finding the correct answers. We watch, for example, as Browns General Manager Phil Savage avoids the real problem by instead tweaking the edges, tossing some assistants to the side and brining in new ones that look disturbingly like the old ones. Savage seems to act as if he’s showing great leadership and character by not abandoning an overmatched and underwhelming coach but instead getting him additional help. In the end, though, Savage is achieving the opposite result. The disarray that is apparent to everyone but Savage and owner Randy Lerner has cast a pall over this franchise that is getting increasingly harder to lift. It’s to the point that no matter what happens in free agency or with the upcoming draft most fans will go into the 2007 season with a sense of dread, just as firm in the belief that no matter the players Crennel lacks the ability to put the pieces of the puzzle in the right spots.

And that same dread is now creeping in with Brown and Wedge. It may be that the two of them are suffering somewhat because of the problems with the Browns and Crennel. It’s also likely that Brown and Wedge are suffering in part by unrealistic fan expectations for the teams they coach. But it’s also true that objectively speaking, both Wedge and Brown haven’t yet provided the same kind of spark to their teams that others, similarly situated, have brought to their teams.

Keeping this impending dread from turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy is indeed the biggest challenge the owner of all three franchises face. To this point, the jury is still out on whether any of the three understand that or, if they do, whether they have the ability to stare it down and come out on the winning side. But in the meantime, it is good to remind ourselves from time to time that the nature of sports is always cyclical. What’s not going as planned this year could turn on a dime the next. To be sure, Cleveland fans have had more than there share of downward spikes, but nothing lasts forever, either. We’ve seen too many teams in too many sports have seen their fortunes turn quickly both bad and good. It’s why they play the games in the first place and why, more importantly, we watch and care about the results.

Insanity Is Not a Strategy

If Terry Pluto isn’t the best sportswriter in town, he’s at least the hardest working. His columns appear in the Akron Beacon Journal with such annoying frequency that you kind of get the sense that he’s being paid by the word. Still, most of what he says is worth reading and he often brings a perspective that you simply can’t find elsewhere.

All that being said, it’s difficult to completely grasp the point of his column Tuesday morning regarding Cavs head coach Mike Brown. (See column here) On the surface he appears to be supporting Brown during these somewhat turbulent times facing the Cavs. But beneath the surface he seems to be posing a question that no one has yet specifically asked: do the Cavs need to fire Mike Brown?

To this point, and other than some minor rumblings on the local sports talk stations, there doesn’t seem to be any real consideration being given by anyone of replacing Brown as the coach. Yet there was Pluto setting up the straw man and then seemingly knocking it down with ease by pointing out the general ineffectiveness of interim coaches. In fact, the defense of Brown was so effortless that it made one wonder if Pluto’s real aim was to at least start the debate over whether Brown is the right coach for this team.

Maybe the question is being raised because owner Dan Gilbert still suffers somewhat from a reputation as an activist owner with little patience. That impression was forged soon after Gilbert took over when he immediately dumped a grumpy and intransigent Paul Silas as head coach. But since then Gilbert has remained mostly behind the scene, allowing General Manager Danny Ferry to guide the action. Brown is Ferry’s guy and there is scant evidence, at best, suggesting either that Ferry is unhappy with Brown or, more generally, that Brown at all is the main problem plaguing this team.

It’s understandable the attention the Cavs rather dour play has drawn lately. The Browns seem to be forever engaged in a game of chasing their own tail and pitchers and catchers don’t report to Winter Haven for another few weeks. But regime change seems a little drastic to even be discussing at this point, unless everybody is at least convinced of two key points: 1. there is another coach currently available that is objectively better than Brown; and, 2. that this team, as currently constructed, is underachieving.

It’s always difficult to tell, of course, whether there is a better coach available. The answer to that question usually is a qualified “yes” irrespective of who the current coach is. Likely there is any number of coaches, usually current assistants, just waiting to break through and odds are that one of them will be a great coach. Finding that person, of course, is the difficult part, but pretending that there usually isn’t someone better is simply naïve. The better and more pertinent issue is whether this hypothetically better coach can do more with what is currently on the roster than Brown. It’s here that doubts enter.

A strong consensus seems to be emerging that Ferry’s working assumption going into the season was flawed—that another year of growth coupled with a healthy Larry Hughes would magically elevate this team past the second round of the playoffs. In many ways, it’s the same assumption Indians GM Mark Shapiro made entering into the 2006 season and we all saw how that turned out. Shapiro has since spent the off-season filling holes and bringing in veterans to complement a young team with some talent. Now, of course, some corners are screaming that he’s not giving “the kids” the chance to develop, so it appears that Shapiro can’t win either way. The point though is that standing pat while other teams around you continue to adjust has a better chance of succeeding if your team was already of championship caliber. Whatever one thinks of the Cavs last season, it was clear that talent-wise they were not a championship team and neither were the Indians at the end of 2005.

The silence coming from Ferry’s office these days is deafening. It’s doubtful that he’s ducking the media. More likely, he’s spending every waking moment trying to figure out how to find a credible point guard without otherwise stripping away other key elements. Given the Cavs salary situation and its lack of draft picks, making a deal that can spark the team like Flip Murray did last year is a long shot.

If a deal is not in the offing, the only other option for the Cavs is for Brown to rethink his personnel. To this point he’s been reluctant, hoping against hope that a stronger defensive effort holds the key and that somehow Eric Snow’s skills will quit diminishing. And this is where Brown needs to be most careful. As a young coach he needs to learn that altering his philosophies is not a sign of weakness, rather it’s a sign of strength. If Ferry can’t make any meaningful maneuvers, Brown needs to adapt to his players rather than continuing to try to pound square pegs into round holes. This is a lesson that the best coaches in every sport eventually learned and is what Brown needs to learn quickly if he’s going to quell talk of his being replaced. Continuing to do the same things in the same way but hoping for a different result is not a strategy. It’s the definition of insanity.

Power Surge?

Well, at least it was a team effort.

This past Sunday, the Plain Dealer, as only they could do, published their list of “The Most Powerful People in Northeast Ohio Sports.” (see column here) It took the combined efforts of nearly all of the PD’s various beat reporters to compile the list that purports to name the 25 males who most impact area sports because of their prestige, wealth, ability or position. Of course, they claimed that it was the 25 most influential “people” but since no women made the list, no need to pretend that it’s inclusive

This is not to begrudge their effort to do something interesting during the bye week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl. The Plain Dealer usually demonstrates such little creativity that almost any effort these days is appreciated. But having taken on the effort one wonders what the heck they were thinking.

The fact that not one woman made the list in any capacity should itself have been a story. This week we’ll be bombarded with stories marking the historic meeting of two African-American head coaches in the Super Bowl and the Plain Dealer doesn’t think that the fact that not one woman is on their list warrants anything more than a story of the few women considered and ultimately rejected?

The Plain Dealer notes that Carol Heiss Jenkins, Olympian Diana Munz and even Gloria James were considered but just simply say none made the top 25. Forget the fact that Heiss Jenkins, for one, is a world famous coach who maintains her base in Lakewood, training world class figure skaters. Perhaps the achievements of these skaters, who live and train in Cleveland is viewed as less influential and powerful as, say, Laing Kennedy, Kent State’s athletic director, who finished 23rd on the list. But what of Gloria James? If her son is going to be viewed as the most powerful person in Cleveland sports and the “James Gang,” LeBron’s coterie of hangers on are viewed as the 17th most powerful, then it makes little sense to exclude the one person, his mom, from the list who continues to exercise the most influence over James, keeping him local and grounded.

But moving beyond the Plain Dealer’s gender myopia, it’s probably no surprise to most that James finished number one on the list. It seems like an easy and safe choice, but is it warranted? With all due respect to the Chosen One, it is ludicrous to think that the best player on the third favorite Cleveland sports team is the most powerful person in Northeast Ohio sports. James’ abilities and accomplishments are hardly in debate. He has a chance to be the best player ever to play for Cleveland in any sport. His love for his hometown of Akron and the fact that he gives back to the community in many, many ways is unquestioned. But the fact remains, the Cavaliers aren’t even close to being this town’s most popular or influential team.

A case could be made for James in the sense that the only reason the Cavs are at all popular now, in Cleveland and elsewhere, is the fact that James is on the team. In that way, he’s had a huge impact. But that impact still must be put into context. To most Cleveland fans, indeed to most sports fans, the NBA is the least interesting of all the major professional sports and James’ presence only moves the needle slightly. Its regular season drones on and, thanks to its playoff system, seems mostly irrelevant to most. Neither the NFL’s regular season nor baseball’s bloated 162-game schedule seems to suffer a similar fate. If James can somehow transcend all of this and raise the status of the Cavs in the minds of fans to be at least on par with the Indians, let alone the Browns, then he truly wouldl be the most powerful person in Cleveland sports. But until that unlikely day presents itself and inspite of his accomplishments to date and the promise to come, he’s not even close to being this town’s most influential or powerful sports figure.

That honor, unfortunately, goes to Randy Lerner, who clocked in at number two on the PD list. He seems like such an obvious choice that it’s hard to believe that even the Plain Dealer messed this up. Lerner is the reluctant but earnest owner who to this point has mostly failed at trying to return the Browns to some semblance of glory. For purposes of this list, however, it’s not so much whether he fails or succeeds that matters most, it’s the fact that he’s in the position to influence that equation the most. Whatever he does is watched more intently by more Clevelanders than the war in Iraq. Need proof? Look how much attention even the tiniest of moves the Browns make gets. Right now you have fans debating the relative merits of each and every assistant coach. It’s doubtful that these same fans could name any of the Cavs assistant coaches or the Indians assistants for that matter. The fact that Cleveland sports fans are nearly all consumed with how Lerner wields his power as the Browns owner is what makes him such an obvious choice at the top of any such Cleveland list.

Given that the Plain Dealer completely misunderstands the Cleveland sports market, it’s not a surprise that the rest of the list is a mess as well. Dan Gilbert is their number 3 choice You can take the same comments about James and paste them here. But it also seems like the PD put him on the list because one of Gilbert’s key goals, according to the PD, apparently is to keep number one happy. That being the case, one wonders why Gilbert wasn’t number two, Danny Ferry number three and Mike Brown number four? Instead, the PD placed the Dolans at number four and Phil Savage at number 5. Given the importance of the Browns to this town, Savage probably deserves to be right behind Lerner, then the Dolans at number three with their chief executive, Mark Shapiro, next. Then, and only then, should anyone talk about James, Gilbert or anyone else associated with James, including head coach Mike Brown.

The rest of the list is simply goofy and internally inconsistent. For example, despite his relative importance to the Cavs and James’ psyche, coach Mike Brown ranks 13th, behind attorney Fred Nance and Jim Brown. Nance is a fine person and an even finer attorney. But from a Cleveland sports perspective his biggest splash was that he helped preserve the Browns, but that was years ago. His continual presence as a key figure in Cleveland sports is, at best, unclear. If someone is going to make the list, his or her accomplishments should both be current and apparent. The PD notes that Nance was a finalist for the job of NFL Commissioner. But that job was destined to go to Roger Godell before even the first interview was held. In any case, that hardly seems a reason to rank Nance at all, let alone number 10. As for Jim Brown, the first person who can cogently explain his current impact on Cleveland sports, please raise your hand. Sure, Brown shows up for games and various other Browns-related events, but if the criteria is current power and influence Brown has none. The PD suggests that Brown is a trusted adviser to Lerner. Even so, no outward manifestation of that role has emerged.

The same sorts of flaws befall the rest of the list as well. But perusing the rest of it for flaws misses the larger point—the list is too long. The impact any of the remaining members of that list have on Cleveland sports is negligible at best, save for Eric Wedge. An interestingly side note is that Wedge is only number 15 on the list, one ahead of the commissioner of the Mid American Conference, which doesn’t even have a team in Cleveland. See the point?

Maybe it’s because it’s the Plain Dealer’s own list and humility and/or a massive conflict of interest prevents it, but wouldn’t you like to think that the editor of the sports section of the town’s only newspaper might be more influential than, say, WTAM’s Mike Trivisonno? Trivisonno's influence is solely a product of his own warped mind and, in any case, seems severely undercut by the simple fact that he spends little if any time anymore even talking about sports. Or perhaps one of the Plain Dealer’s sports columnists should have garnered a mention? After all, isn’t their job description to help shape public opinion about Cleveland sports? If none of these folks can make the list, that speaks to what we’ve said all along, relevance and the Plain Dealer is an oxymoron. While that’s hardly a surprise, it’s just hard to believe that the PD and its columnists have sunk below Lee Reed, Cleveland State’s athletic director, who finished last on the list in a tie with Joe Tait.

The Missing

It’s a long season, irrespective of the sport, and sometimes a loss is just a loss. But every so often a certain loss has a way of staying with you like an undercooked Stadium hot dog. Wednesday night’s Cavs loss to Philadelphia seems to have fallen into that category.

In this regard, Terry Pluto’s column in the Akron Beacon Journal was right on the mark. Something was missing in the Cavaliers performance against the hapless Philadelphia 76ers. Remember, Philadelphia is a depleted and dispirited team with one of the worst records in the league. They were playing on the road in the second of back-to-back games. That should spell rout no matter how the players are shuffled. Yet the Cavs found a way to keep Philadelphia around long enough to allow them to eek out the win.

If the Cavs underachieve this season, which seems to be the one constant in Cleveland sports that you can bank on, fans likely need not look beyond last night’s game to figure out why. No matter what schemes, offensive or defensive, that head coach Mike Brown seems to employ, when the game is on the line the Cavs always look like just four guys in Cleveland uniforms standing around hoping LeBron James will do something great.

James, who had a season high 39 points Wednesday night, should have won the game in regulation but his final shot rattled out of the rim. In a way, though, it’s probably a good thing the shot didn’t go in. A last second victory likely would have masked what appear to be deepening problems with this team as it struggles to meet the accomplishments of last season.

There were, of course, the usual culprits in last night’s loss, poor defense and even worse offense. But those are the technicalities. The fact is that these players either cannot or will not respond to what Brown is asking of them. And that has to be of paramount concern to both GM Danny Ferry and owner Dan Gilbert.

The guess here is that Ferry is feverishly working to find this year’s Flip Murray, a player who can come in and provide some sort of spark. That even may work again but it’s starting to look like the issues are more systemic than that. But addressing these kinds of core issues is extremely difficult, particularly in the middle of the season. Moreover, it’s not as if the exact problem is as obvious as they are for, say, the Cleveland Browns. Likely it has as much to do with the mix of players on this team as it does with Brown and his coaching style.

In many ways, it is reminiscent of the problems plaguing the Cleveland Indians, particularly last year. Just as with the Cavs and their offensive woes, it was easy to point to the Indians and say the problem, of course, was the bullpen. And while neither point is particularly wrong, the strong feeling is that something more fundamental was missing but pinpointing the source is proving to be just as elusive as finding good beer at reasonable prices.

Fortunately for the Cavs, the NBA’s Eastern Conference is looking more and more like the weak sister to the Western Conference. Toronto leads the Atlantic Division despite playing less than .500 ball. Only two teams are above .500 in the Southeast Division while four teams in the Central are above that line, but all barely so. At this point in the season, none look to be even competitive with teams like Phoenix or Dallas.

But that’s what makes this all the more frustrating. The Cavs have a golden opportunity to assert themselves as an elite team but continue to play down to their level of competition instead. True, just before embarking on their west coast swing the Cavs were playing their best basketball of the season. But even then you got the sense that there is no way they could rip off a string of 12 or 15 straight victories like both Phoenix and Dallas have done this season.

But because the conference is so relatively weak, the Cavs do have the luxury of time to figure it out. With the joke of a system that passes for the post-season in the NBA, only the real drecks of the league, like the Cavs pre-LeBron, are likely to find themselves sitting at home when the regular season ends. But unless something dramatic happens and soon, Clevelanders are likely to once again find themselves watching a ticker tape parade being celebrated in some other city at season’s end. And the real kick is that even with their problems, the Cavs still are the best team Cleveland has to offer. Oy vey.

The Coaching Merry-Go-Round

Maybe it was always this way, but it certainly seems like these days the amount of activity in the week between the NFL’s conference championship games and the Super Bowl has increased, particularly on the coaching front.

There always has been a certain amount of shuffling that goes on as teams complete their seasons and try to position themselves for the next, but this off-season has been more fascinating than most, probably because the Browns, once again, are such active players.

Browns GM Phil Savage decided to fall on his sword just a bit and retain head coach Romeo Crennel. Apparently Savage sees something in Crennel that most others don’t, but on the other hand that’s what Savage is paid to decide. But just as apparently Savage saw little value in a fair portion of Crennel’s staff and so now the Browns are busy trying to fill an ever increasing amount of openings.

The biggest hire, of course, was Rob Chudzinski as offensive coordinator (see our comments here). Now they have added Alfredo Roberts as the tight ends coach and are searching for at least two other significant positions, special teams and offensive line. Jerry Rosburg, the previous special teams coach, supposedly left abruptly to join Bobby Petrino in Atlanta. And Jeff Davidson, who was passed over for the vacant offensive coordinator position here, took that position in Carolina after Dan Henning was recently fired.

We detect some minor hand wringing from some over the loss of Davidson, which should abate quickly. Davidson was never officially given the title of offensive coordinator once Savage finally ordered Crennel to dump Maurice Carthon. This should have sent a message to Davidson well before the perfunctory interview he had with Savage and Crennel. Moreover, if anything malcontent receiver Braylon Edwards was worse once Carthon left. This didn’t reflect well on Davidson’s leadership. Finally, and most importantly, the offensive line, Davidson’s primary responsibility, is and remains a mess. Given all this, we wonder what Carolina sees in him but that’s another column for another day.

There have been other significant developments that are or should be of interest to Browns fans, particularly considering how incestuous the league has become in the coaching ranks. Bill Parcells retired, again. How his former job in Dallas gets filled may have a direct impact on how the Browns may be able to fill their inevitable opening in the head coaching slot next year.

Many fans believe that Crennel was retained solely to buy time until Bill Cowher can be hired free and clear of any obligations he still has to Pittsburgh. Of course many of these same folks also believe that Rich Karlis did indeed miss that field goal against the Browns and that most games are fixed but that’s beside the point. Cowher would be a great fit in Cleveland because he has a proven track record, which is exactly why the Browns would never hire him in the first place.

But suspending reality and taking the leap that the Browns are just this shrewd, Jerry Jones is just the kind of owner capable of throwing a turd into that punch bowl. Jones likes to make a splash, just as he did in hiring Parcells in the first place and bringing in the single biggest clubhouse cancer in the history of the league, receiver Terrell Owens. In other words, we don’t see Jones hiring someone like Lane Kiffin, the recently hired 31-year-old ex-USC offensive coordinator hired by the Raiders. Jones is significantly more flashy, which is where Cowher comes in. We can foresee a scenario in which Jones goes after Cowher now, even if he had to pay some sort of compensation to Pittsburgh. Even if Cowher insists on not coaching next season, which seems likely, Jones could still get him under contract in some sort of consultant role, again even if it costs him some compensation to Pittsburgh. But even if Jones doesn’t secure Cowher, he likely will take another top notch coaching talent off the market and hence him unavailable ultimately to the Browns.

Speaking of Kiffin, his hiring may have a greater impact on what ultimately happens in Berea than most think. It’s not clear if Kiffin was the only person left who would take the job working for the fossilized Al Davis or whether he was the winner of some reality-based show on the NFL Network called “Coach My Team.” We don’t know of course because most still can’t get the NFL Network on their local cable channel. But what is of interest is the fact that Kiffin is only 31, reinforcing the trend we’ve noted previously—that a sea change is taking place in the NFL and hires like Crennel are the exception and not the trend.

There will still be franchises looking to catch one more fire in one more bottle by hiring re-treads like Marty Schottenheimer or Dick Vermeil. There will also be franchises run by contrarians who feel that the aging assistant ignored by everyone else for twenty years is their best bet for getting to the Promised Land. But those kinds of hires are getting fewer and farther between.

Of all the head coaches hired this off-season Petrino with Atlanta and Cam Cameron with Miami are the oldest at 45 years of age. Kiffin, as noted, is 31, and Mike Tomlin with Pittsburgh is 34. Of even greater note is the fact that none had NFL head coaching experience or even exceptionally deep experience as a key assistant. As coaches like Sean Payton in New Orleans and Eric Mangini in New York proved experience alone is hardly the tipping point. Both of these trends are probably as good an indication as any that when Crennel gets dumped after next season, the Browns will go young, which is why it is wise to keep your eye on both Chudzinski and Todd Grantham, the most likely successors from the current staff. Of course, the fact that teams are having success with this new paradigm is also as good as any indication that Browns probably will do the opposite. They usually do.

At Least He Can Spell

In the Parthenon that is great quotes in Cleveland Browns history, most people will recall, “there’s a gleam, men” from Mary Schottenheimer and “mad dog in a meat market” from Schottenheimer, again, in describing Mike Junkin, an oft-injured linebacker from Duke who lasted exactly three years in the NFL. To those we can now add what hopefully won’t be just as ignominious: “not a single misspelling in his presentation. It was really organized.” That was Browns GM Phil Savage explaining some of the rationale behind the hiring of new offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinksi. Who knew that the ability to use spell check was so high on the list of requirements?

The hiring of Chudzinski has garnered a fair amount of negative publicity among Cleveland’s main stream media, mainly because of Chudzinksi’s inexperience. For example, both Bud Shaw and Tony Grossi at the Plain Dealer, in amazingly similar columns (here and here), noted that Chudzinksi’s hiring continues the “on-the-job training mentality in Berea.”

Grossi and Shaw may be technically right but to that we’d ask, what were the alternatives? If Shaw had his way, the Browns would have hired long-time assistant (and failed former head coach) Dan Henning for the job. Grossi didn’t say but we got the distinct impression that if he were in charge, Lindy Infante would no longer be retired. If the Browns had gone with another re-tread (like Crennel) that would have received its own share of criticism that the Browns aren’t nearly as innovative as, say, the Jets or the Saints or, God forbid, the Steelers, all of whom turned over their entire franchises to young, relatively inexperienced assistants.

Actually, the hiring of Chudzinski isn’t so much innovative as it is the continuation of a trend that Savage started with last year’s free agent signings: brining in folks who truly understand what the Cleveland Browns mean to this community. Chudzinksi was reared in Toledo (a highly partisan Browns town, despite its proximity to Detroit) and is a former Browns coach. Our guess is that in addition to his spelling skills, what sealed the deal for Savage was the fact that Chudzinski actually wanted to be here, as opposed to simply enhancing his resume by taking the almost certain promotion he would have gotten under the aforementioned Schottenheimer in San Diego.

What we like most about Chudzinski is his age. He strikes us as the kind of up and coming coach, a head coach in the making in fact, which the Browns have been reluctant to hire in the past. Almost no one gives head coach Romeo Crennel much of a chance in the long term. He may survive next year but his coaching days are numbered either way. We like the fact that Savage is trying to round out the staff with young coaches that have the energy, fire and drive to be head coaches in the NFL. If/when the Browns finally cut ties with Crennel it will be far less disruptive if the job goes to a talented assistant already on staff and not another lifelong assistant.

In this regard, Chudzinski fits nicely into the mode of Todd Grantham, the Browns defensive coordinator, a young, energetic coach with a strong personality who seems to be moving his charges in the right direction. The Browns defense last year was pitiful, but this was due mostly to injuries and talent deficit. At least they looked like they knew what they were supposed to be doing on most every play, even if they couldn’t fully execute the commands.

The only trepidation we have whatsoever with Chudzinski is the same trepidation we’d have with whoever would have been hired: the task is so daunting it could very well swallow even the most veteran of coaches. The consensus seems to be that the Browns have some talent on offense, mainly in the form of Kellen Winslow, Jr. and Braylon Edwards. But it’s so hard to judge because there is so little talent on this team in the first place even average players have the chance to stand out as the next great thing.

Winslow likely will be fine, particularly under Chudzinski who knows him well. As for Edwards, he’s a much bigger mystery. Whether fair or not, Chudzinski’s effectiveness next year will be measured, in part, on his ability to reach Edwards and turn a budding malcontent me-first Terrell Owens wannabe into a team-oriented top-tier receiver.

But in actuality, we need not wait until next season to gauge Chudzinski’s effectiveness. His ability to lay out his philosophy and identify the kinds of players necessary to execute it is absolutely critical to this off-season both in terms of the kinds of free agents that are pursued and the kinds of players that will be drafted. Chudzinski indicated that he believes in a run-first type of offense, which has always made sense in Cleveland. That may very well signal that Oklahoma running back Adrian Peterson is at the top of their draft board. For anyone who watched the success that Reggie Bush had in New Orleans this past season, drafting someone like Peterson makes incredible sense. But past being prologue, a defensive tackle will likely be their first pick.

It’s understandable that some aren’t pleased with Chudzinski as the choice to run this moribund offense. But at this juncture and with a team so far from being competitive it often looks like it’s playing in a different league, taking a calculated gamble on a hard-charging assistant and not on a well-worn assistant was hardly the worse decision the Browns could have made.

Wasted Asset

You can tell the Cavaliers are on their annual winter west coast trip and the games are being played past the bedtime of at least one Plain Dealer columnist. It’s January 19, 2007, the Cleveland Browns played their last game three weeks ago and now, just now, Bill Livingston offers his take about Braylon Edwards and Phil Savage in this morning’s Plain Dealer.

Of course, you had to sort through about three paragraphs to figure out what the heck Bill was talking about since he started his column talking about Eric Snow. Usually Bill doesn’t start to veer wildly off course until five or six paragraphs into his thrice-weekly mess. As near as we can figure, Bill has come to the conclusion that the Browns and Savage just don’t “get it.” He surmises that Savage just doesn’t understand Cleveland fans. According to Bill, we don’t dislike Braylon Edwards because he’s a Michigan Wolverine, we dislike Edwards because he drops passes.

Actually, we do dislike Edwards because he is a Michigan Wolverine and because he’s a loud mouth, me-first prima donna whose mediocre production doesn’t match his overinflated opinion of himself. And because he drops passes. But thanks, Bill, for the observations. Day late meet dollar short.

In another story from this morning’s paper that we think is directly related to our overall point, Plain Dealer editor Doug Clifton announced that he’ll be retiring on June 1, ending an 8-year stint at Cleveland’s only daily newspaper. When Clifton looks back on all he surveys, hopefully he’ll come to grips with the notion that at this point, the best people can say about the PD is that it used to have a good sports section.

But that was years and years ago. Pick up the Plain Dealer sports on any day and no day in particular and there is an undeniable sameness and blandness. The game stories, irrespective of the team, are largely uninteresting. The columnists, particularly Livingston, rarely venture very far out on a limb or say anything remotely controversial. The fact that now Livingston chose to write about Edwards and Savage at a time when he doesn’t have to run into either for several months just illustrates the point.

Perhaps this is the kind of malaise that creeps into an organization when it doesn’t perceive a need to be competitive. And at the Plain Dealer, they still act as if they have the market to themselves. That’s true, but only if one defines the market as narrowly as the PD does. What they fail to realize is that on any given day, there are probably a dozen better sources on the internet for Cleveland sports fans to gain a more interesting and deeper perspective into what’s happening than the Plain Dealer seems willing to offer.

Sure, the Plain Dealer has a modest internet presence. It consists of providing the same bland columns that one can find in print and an occasional podcast from Tony Grossi. Pretty ground breaking stuff. Given their modest objectives, it seems like the PD is still worried that this internet thing may be a fad as they hardly even begin to take advantage of the potential that the immediacy of the internet offers, which is good news to sites like this.

But we don’t think that daily newspapers are ever going to suddenly disappear like Chuck on “Happy Days.” Nor do we think it is ultimately a good thing that the Plain Dealer is a mediocre presence in this community. As we’ve said before and we’ll say again, part of the problem in this town is that the sports teams in this town have produced such crappy products for such a long period of time, the fans have come to embrace mediocrity as an acceptable state of affairs. We no longer push for excellence and thus get what we deserve.

And the Plain Dealer, as the only Cleveland daily newspaper, is a big part of the problem. It is so casual in approach to how it covers sports these days that it simply isn’t in the position to even identify excellence, let alone demand it from the various teams and their representatives and hold them accountable when they fall short.

Despite its continuously dwindling readership, the PD could still play a vital role in helping shape this community. But the institutional boredom that seemed to set in years ago shows no signs of abating. As a result, a needed asset and advocate for change is absent. But on the other hand, as long as they keep letting Livingston chew up newsprint three times a week, there will always be a reason to laugh. It’s just not for the reasons the PD probably intended.

In a World...

Is this what Troy Smith eventually has to looked forward to?

An item that most probably missed in this morning’s paper (although it wasn’t in the sports pages so we understand why it was missed) said that Eddie George (yes, that Eddie George) is following a trail blazed first by another notable Heisman trophy winner, O.J. Simpson.

No, Eddie isn’t in trouble with the law, at least as far as we can tell. He’s just in trouble with good taste. According to a blurb buried in the entertainment section, Eddie has gone Hollywood, sort of. Perpetual Hollywood partygoer, fashion victim and serial drunk Tara Reid has been signed to star in and executive produce an “indie” romantic comedy called “Honestly.” But to Buckeye fans everywhere, the more notable mention was that Eddie has been signed to “co-star” in this project.

Before venturing into the nature of his new project, a quick recap of Eddie’s film career is in order. Yes, we said “career.” It seems that “Honestly” will be Eddie’s second feature film. A search of movie database website www.imdb.com revealed that Eddie played the character “Jones” in a low-budget straight-to-video martial arts film called “Into the Sun.” The movie and we use that term loosely, was made specifically for the Japanese film market and appeared under the name “Yakuza.” The tagline of this thriller is “Only One Man Can Stop the Yakuza.” Given that his specialty was offense and not defense, we doubt that George was that one man but anything’s possible. We haven’t seen the movie.

Notably, Eddie wasn’t the star of “Yakuza”. That honor went to the bloated Steven Segal, who also co-wrote it, and we use that term loosely as well. It was directed by some English bloke named “Mink” whose previous career was as a gopher at Disney Studios. It’s probably not giving much away to tell you that the plot of this R-rated thriller revolves around the assassination of Tokyo’s governor by Yakuza members and the one man who can stop their treachery: Steven Segal. Think Jack Bauer and 24 but with less plausibility and more continuity problems.

It’s not clear exactly what Eddie’s role was in this movie but we’re guessing that since Segal is, like, 173 years old, he’s surrounded by an entourage, one of which includes a scowling ex-football player who was probably drummed out of “the league” for being “too violent.” The guess, too, is that there are the gratuitous scenes where Eddie escapes from the Yakuza either with a head fake or a chop block or possibly an illegal use of hands. We couldn’t get the trailer to download from the IMDB web site, naturally, but we’re pretty sure it starts like this: “In a world…”

We’re not sure how the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences missed honoring this film, but consider yourself warned if you happen across this at the local Blockbuster. It supposedly includes frequent profanity and gory violence (both givens) as well as swordplay and nudity, but hopefully not at the same time.

We’d say that Eddie’s latest project holds more promise but that likely would be damning with feint praise. In the first place, it’s doubtful that Tara Reid can stay sober long enough to actually finish the movie. And even if she can, since she’s also supposedly the executive producer, it too is likely to contain generous amounts of frequent profanity, gory violence and nude swordplay. So from that vantage point it doesn’t seem like much of a step forward.

But it is a romantic comedy and if you’re like us, when we think of romantic comedy our mind immediately goes to Tara Reid and Eddie George. According to the article, Reid plays a private eye (“doctor” was just too much of a stretch) who works as a temptress to test the fidelity of philandering husbands. Hilarity and mayhem ensue. Filming is scheduled to begin this summer in Los Angeles. Given what is inevitably a low-budget, our guess is that filming concludes two days letter and you’ll be able to rent the film a few weeks after that.

We don’t begrudge Eddie’s right to forge a career post-football. We just wonder if this is what his Mom had in mind when she made him promise that he’d get his degree. Still, there is hope for Eddie. He’s just 14 films and several bit parts on bad television shows before he equals the career of another, equally talented thespian/ex-football player, Brian Bosworth.

Thin Skinned

There may not be much fight in the Browns on the field, but there is no shortage of it in the front office if the recent dust-up between Plain Dealer associate editor and part-time editorial columnist Phillip Morris and Browns vice president of communications, Bill Bonsiewicz, is any indication.

A week ago, Morris wrote a column essentially questioning Randy Lerner’s commitment to Cleveland and the Browns given the sad state of affairs in Berea. This isn’t exactly a new thought, (see our article here) but it was somewhat refreshing to see that, finally, someone at the Plain Dealer was raising the question. Of course it may have been too much to ask that this question be raised on the sports pages of the PD but at least the issue found its way in print in Cleveland.

What Morris’ initial column lacked in insight it more than made up for in passion, something usually in short supply at the Plain Dealer. Morris spoke not as a sportwriter but more as a fan who is sick of losing and sees an unemotional owner in Lerner who is seemingly more interested in investing in European soccer than in the Browns. Morris didn’t exactly make a compelling case though by suggesting, for example, that Lerner demonstrate his commitment by spending more. Next time Morris may want to vet his thinking process a bit further with someone a bit more knowledgeable because the issue isn’t the lack of spending by the Browns, given the NFL’s salary cap, it’s the lack of ability to spend their dollars wisely. Still, the overarching question is fair.

Because Morris’ musings appeared on the editorial pages we figured it would be mostly ignored, given the rather low regard, generally, that the PD’s editorial pages are held by most folks. And it was, except by the Browns. Showing that an incredibly thin skin exists within the management and ownership ranks of the Browns, Bonsiewiecz, utilizing his official title, wrote a rather terse letter to the editor last Saturday. In it, he gripes that if Morris thinks Lerner is a lousy owner, he should just say so rather than dance around it. He also takes Morris to task for not understanding the rudimentary workings of the NFL and its salary cap and says that Lerner is committed to the Browns because look at how low he’s kept the ticket prices. Finally, in the kind of vague reference he criticized Morris for making in the first place, Bonsiewiecz concluded by asking, “Want a new owner? Be careful what you wish for.”

And Bonseiwiecz wonders why anyone would question Lerner’s loyalty? Maybe it’s because the only time Lerner talks publicly, it’s under very controlled circumstances, such as with the Browns flagship radio station where he won’t be forced to answer anything more difficult than what he had for breakfast. Maybe it’s because it’s insulting to suggest that the reason the Browns ticket prices are so low is because Lerner is a swell guy and not because even Lerner isn’t so naïve as to risk alienating the fan base for good by asking people to pay more for a product whose quality continues to deteriorate. And maybe, just maybe, it’s because Lerner employs publicists who can’t edit their own thoughts or letters and instead of easing the situation, which they’re paid to do, fuel the fire by writing letters in their official capacity that impliedly threaten that if fans and writers continue to hurt Lerner’s feelings he may run to England permanently and sell this franchise to David Modell.

If Bonsiewiecz thought that his rather childish response would put an end to it, he’s as clueless as Kimberly Ethridge, the now former publicist of Tyrell Owens who disputed reports of a T.O. suicide attempt by saying he had “25 million reasons why he should be alive.” That’s because Morris revisited this issue in this morning’s Plain Dealer if only to detail the bizarre response from Bonsiewiecz in Saturday’s paper as well as Morris’ even longer, more bizarre letter to Morris personally.

This would be a better fight if Morris was more up to the task. While he rightly notes that Bonsiewiecz introduced a question that had never been raised, he essentially revisits his original point in a typically clumsy manner, concluding that the problem with Lerner is that he just doesn’t get mad enough and that he should threaten to show the door to anyone satisfied with losing.

Well, that’s a plan, but hardly the best plan. We doubt that the problem with this management and this owner is that they are happy about losing, particularly in such spectacular fashion. The problem of course is much more complex but has its roots, clearly, in a constant lack of leadership.

In some ways, this reminds us of the debate currently raging over whether Marty Schottenheimer should be fired by San Diego. On one side of the debate are those who rightly point out that he didn’t personally commit the turnovers or fail to make the plays that caused his teams to consistently lose in the playoffs. On the other side are those who rightly point out that whatever the problem, he’s never been able to get the job done. The man does have a track record.

The same is true with Lerner. As Bonsiewiecz points out, it’s not as if Lerner can strap on the pads himself and play a few downs to solve the problem. But acting as if Lerner is not a significant part of the problem ignores the fact that the only constant since the Browns returned is that they’ve been owned by the Lerners. Ultimately the task falls now to Randy Lerner to figure out why the Browns continue to be a laughing stock and it is perfectly legitimate for anyone to question whether Lerner’s interest in English soccer has diverted much needed attention away from these important issues.

Frankly, the fact that Bonsiewiecz and Lerner are so sensitive to criticism that they would publish a veiled threat in such a cowardly fashion should be enough to scare even the most casual fan. It not only demonstrates that neither “gets it” when it comes to understanding the rights, privileges and obligations of owning a professional sports franchise like the Browns, it also demonstrates an amazing lack of sensitivity toward a fan based rubbed raw by an endless stream of pathetic performances.

If Bonsiewiecz thinks for a moment that most Browns fans wouldn’t trade Lerner for an owner who could actually win, then he sadly underestimates the real interests of the paying customers. Browns fans didn’t acquire their hatred for Modell until he moved the franchise. No one is necessarily looking to push Lerner away, but he doesn’t help his cause by spending a good deal of the season fiddling in England while the Browns were burning in Cleveland. If Bonsiewicz and/or Lerner really felt the need to respond to a column that few probably read in the first place, the least he could have done was show some empathy for the fans instead of trying to protect Lerner’s fragile ego. By doing so, he demonstrated what most already suspected, this thing isn’t going to get turned around anytime soon.

That Figures

Maybe these various things are related. Maybe not. But as another playoff season unfolds in the NFL without the Browns, you have to find your fun somewhere.

For example, it may have been worth only a one sentence mention at the end of Tony Grossi’s weekly dribbles about the Browns in this Sunday’s Plain Dealer, but isn’t there just a bit more of a story to be told in the Denver Bronco’s firing of defensive line coach Andre Patterson earlier this week?

Remember all the kvetching Browns fans did when the Denver Broncos essentially either signed as free agents or traded for all of the Browns defensive linemen a few years back? It was done at the behest of Patterson, who had recently been fired by the Browns and hired by head coach Mike Shanahan. In short order, Denver had Courtney Brown, Gerard Warren (for a fourth round pick), Mike Myers, Ebenezer Ekuban, and Kenard Lang.

As was reported at the time and at various points thereafter, this was another Cleveland joke, another example of a Cleveland team being played for fools. The Broncos, certainly as big a white whale to the Browns as any other team, were going to put these players into their far superior system and out would pop several pro bowlers.

In fact, the Plain Dealer and others, including the Beacon Journal, helped stoke those flames. Mary Kay Cabot of the PD, for one, gushed in a January, 2006 story about the grand success Denver was enjoying with these ex-Browns during a very modest playoff run. Cabot noted that when Patterson got to Denver, he sold Shanahan on these Cleveland castoffs. This quote in particular stands out: “Patterson said folks always wanted Warren to dominate the game to justify his No. 3 overall pick. ‘It wasn't enough for him to be keeping guys off everybody else," said Patterson. "But no matter how much I jumped on the table and beat my chest to tell people how good he was, nobody believed me.’”

Well, Shanahan drank the kool-aid. But oh how things change when a team doesn’t make the playoffs. None of these ex-Browns lived up to Patterson’s rather optimistic assessment and this was one experiment that didn’t work any better in Denver than it did in Cleveland. When Patterson was told this past week to report to Shanahan’s office and bring his playbook, it was the case of having to pay the price for a monumental defensive collapse.

Surely, while Browns head coach Romeo Crennel and GM Phil Savage have had little to smile about this year, this story had to at least curl up one corner of their mouths. The biggest reason the Broncos didn’t make the playoffs was the woeful play of the defense. And when you look deeper you’ll find that some things never change as it was the defensive line that hurt the Broncos the most. Courtney Brown couldn’t stay healthy, Gerard Warren continued to underachieve and Myers and Ekuban continued to play the minor insignificant roles guys like that will always play. For Shanahan, it was a case of again being talked into something silly, only this mistake is likely to linger longer than the ill-fated decision he was talked into making when Denver drafted Maurice Clarett in the third round.

And if Denver’s failures in this regard provided some warmth to Browns fans during this 20th anniversary weekend of “The Drive,” watching the Baltimore Ravens lose on Saturday in the playoffs had to make them downright toasty. The flameout by the Ravens was particularly noteworthy if only because it was the result of the same problems that have plagued self-proclaimed offensive genius and megalomaniac Brian Billick for years. Lack of offense.

Whereas Broncos fans were probably a bit skeptical when all the ex-Browns were signed, no such caution was exercised in Baltimore when Ozzie Newsome rescued deposed Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair from the scrap heap. McNair was the missing piece, the experienced quarterback, the winner who could put this team over the top, or so Ravens fans were told.

But the truth is the Ravens offense was mostly mediocre all year. They were 17th overall (8th in the AFC) in total offense, averaging 317 yards per game, only marginally better than 2005. Steve McNair had virtually an identical quarterback rating with the Titans last year as he had with the Ravens this year, a very pedestrian 82.5, although this was much better than Kyle Bollar’s 71.8 in 2005. In context, this was improvement for the Ravens, just not enough to make them a true contender. In fact, despite Billick’s credentials, the Ravens have struggled offensively since he arrived, despite the one Super Bowl victory.

This brings us, finally, to the odd site of New England vs. San Diego in a battle of ex-Browns head coaches. Of all the cruel things to happen to Browns fans, the emergence of Belichick as one of the best head coaches ever in the NFL has to rank at or near the top of the list. When Belichick cut quarterback Bernie Kosar without a viable alternative, it was the last indignity in an already shaky marriage. Of course, public enemy number 1, Art Modell, fired Belichick rather than carry him to Baltimore, giving Cleveland fans at least some reason to smirk. Billick may have won a Super Bowl, but Belichick has become an icon. If he had kept Belichick, perhaps Modell may have been able to hold onto his franchise.

As for Marty Schottenheimer, his successes or failures will never generate much emotion in Cleveland. No one who knows him was surprised that Schottenheimer took a highly-rated, rested team into the playoffs, only to lose, again. But at this point, most Browns fans look at Schottenheimer rather fondly for what he did accomplish, even if he could never quite get his team over the hump, either here or elsewhere. Still, given the way Clevelanders think, even had the Chargers won, Clevelanders still would have shrugged and said “that figures.”