What Would You Give Up For…
September 17, 2008So…You’re Sayin’ There’s a Chance
September 17, 2008
In the wake of my previous post from this morning, there is now a bit of interesting rumor and speculation at Mike Florio’s wonderful ProFootballTalk.com.
A league source tells us that there’s talk of trouble between Browns G.M. Phil Savage and members of the coaching staff in the wake of Savage’s characterization of Sunday night’s game against the Steelers as a “must-win” contest.
Specifically, Savage described the Week Two showdown as “almost a must-win game” during his weekly radio show on Thursday.
The Browns didn’t win.
“The implication,” said the source, “was that the coaches had all the players they needed to beat the Steelers.”
Now, we all know that this rumor isn’t all that difficult to buy. Sure, Romeo had Phil’s back when the big front office shakeout occurred a couple of years ago, but in the NFL the fates are as fickle as the wind was here in Northeast Ohio last Sunday. If Phil Savage feels the need to protect his job and he has to bury an underperforming team member in order to do it, he will. And honestly, can anyone blame him? It isn’t like Romeo hasn’t put the target on his own back with his own incompetence in the first two games of the season and even farther back if you want to start naming instances.
Or, is Mike Florio’s rumor talking about coaches underneath Romeo like new defensive coordinator Mel Tucker? As we saw with Mo Carthon, Phil Savage isn’t going to be afraid to step on Romeo’s toes when he doesn’t think that Romeo is making the tough decision.
Win or lose, you all know where I stand on Romeo Crennel. If they win it will be in spite of him, so I say fire him no matter what. I would bet that we will find out sooner rather than later if this rumor is referring to a coordinator or Romeo himself. With the expectations of this season comes responsibilities. It could be Phil Savage’s responsibility to find new coaches soon.
15 Comments
“Word is that some of the defensive coaches are upset because Corey Williams (who arrived via trade) has been viewed from the inside as a bust to date, and because the decision to trade Leigh Bodden has made it difficult for the secondary to succeed.”
Looks like this is a two-way street, though. Sounds like the coaches aren’t all that happy with Phil in some respects, either.
I thought Cory picked his game up against the Steelers. The rest of the season he’s going to have to really step up because on Robaire being out. We will probably have to sign a guy, and we should get another D-back but we all know that
Paging Dr. Cowher
/pondering 4-3
Chin…chin…chin
Defense played pretty well except when they didn’t get that stop in the 4th Quarter. I think I’d like to have a beer with Romeo, but I also think that there’s probably a reason it took him this long to become a head coach.
@ Mike – you honestly thing PIT only scores 10 points in modest weather conditions? No way. We need a full “The Name on the Door is” thread…
Williams is also learning a new position in the 3-4 defensive end. If they were so concerned with Bodden going, someone should have pushed to draft a corner in the draft.
Yeah I agree with Gonzo, I don’t know if this is Williams fault as a bust or he is in the wrong system. We have talked before on other threads that this team just doesn’t have the right personnel, especially in the LBs, to be a 3-4…go to a 4-3 and see how Williams performs then. And for the comment about Bodden, yeah we should have drafted someone else, or even just not included him in the trade. A 2nd round pick and Bodden seems pretty high right now for Rogers.
I think Rubin and Rucker will end up being our gems in this draft, Rubin give him a year or two. Rucker, once he’s healthy I foresee us running many more two tight end sets. Now I’d also love to see us make some play for Michael Bush, the former Louisville running back, who is finely healthy for the Raiders.
As much as I hate to have another losing season, you have to build through the draft. It looked like we were close this year so we made a run as some defensive players to try and get that side of the ball to average. I still wonder what happened to our o-line. If we were scoring 21+ a game, the defense would only have to be average for us to be in it. I also heard that Lerner was pissed after the Dallas game. I don’t hate Romeo, but he needs to answer for his game management the last two weeks.
To end on a positive note, we may have played the two super bowl contestants for this year.
I have to agree with Kersh on that as well, most of us are in panic mode but it could be argued we faced the two best teams from each Conference to start the season. It would probably do wonders to this team’s confidence if we come out this week and just obliterate the Ravens.
just an interesting espn article:
http://myespn.go.com/blogs/nflnation/0-1-940/Is-the-magic-gone-for-last-year-s-Cinderella-.html?lpos=spotlight&lid=tab4pos2
too bad Holmgren is still around or we could dub him the walrus.
they could play “i am the walrus” at halftime, and people could grow offensively large handlebar moustaches.
Man, talk about two weird pictures!
Savage looks like a crazed wild man.
And Romeo looks like he has a pulse!