Cavaliers Recall Christian Eyenga From Canton Charge
January 23, 2012Browns Hire Defensive Backs Coach Tim Hauck
January 23, 2012
Every week of the Browns season we do the (sometimes comical) “Browns will win if…” articles here on WFNY. Usually it was something about Peyton Hillis being healthy, Colt McCoy finding some rhythm with his receivers, Phil Taylor and Ahtyba Rubin stopping the run, or Phil Dawson hitting eleventeen field goals as the keys to victory. It was always interesting to see how the games turned out to see if any of our “predictions” or key matchups became as key as they felt on Friday afternoon as we were making things up. In the end, the NFL has become a game of predictions between Vegas and Fantasy and, really, nobody knows what is actually going to happen. Nothing could have been illustrated more perfectly than that sentiment yesterday during the NFL playoffs.
Peter King pointed it out in his MMQB column and it is true.
1. Sterling Moore.
2. Billy Cundiff.
3. Kyle Williams.
4. Jacquian Williams.
Sterling Moore stripped Lee Evans of what should have been a Ravens touchdown. Billy Cundiff missed the game-tying field goal. Kyle Williams fumbled two punts in his attempt to fill in for Ted Ginn. Jacquian Williams dislodged the ball from Kyle Williams in overtime to set up the game-winning field goal.
An undrafted 21-year-old player from Southern Methodist University, a kicker on his 9th NFL team from Drake, a 23-year-old 2010 sixth rounder from Arizona State and a 22-year-old 2011 sixth rounder from South Florida all were pretty intimately involved with games that ultimately will drive storylines about guys like Alex Smith, Frank Gore, the Harbaugh brothers, Eli Manning’s legacy, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick’s legacies and countless others.
I know I’ve talked about him too much lately, but this reminds me of a really smart thing I heard Peyton Manning say.
“You’ve seen all the highlights with the rookie hazing and haircuts,” Manning said Tuesday. “We don’t do that around here, because we don’t treat the guys like rookies. We expect those guys to play this year and to play well.”
I am guessing Tom Brady didn’t have much time during training camp to attach Sterling Moore to the field goal post with athletic tape even if Bill Belichick would somehow allow that.
Also, it just goes to show how hard it is to build a professional football team. It takes finding good players from the starting quarterback who must take the majority of the bullets for all those backup linebackers, receivers and defensive backs that make up special teams blocking and tackling units. You must have affordable depth so that when you are calling on your sixth round linebacker deep in overtime of a playoff game that he just might strip the other team’s sixth rounder to win the game.
It is not proof of much, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find it interesting that Sterling Moore overcame Lee Evans to help the Patriots advance to the Superbowl. That doesn’t mean that you should never acquire veterans for much younger counterparts because there are no hard, fast rules for this kind of thing. Still, it should raise everyone’s eyebrows.
It’ll hopefully make me think a little bit harder when we do the “BWWI” thing next year. Maybe I’ll write about Buster Skrine. Better yet, maybe I’ll write about the importance of the long-snapper before the game instead of afterwards.
52 Comments
He won’t be called names because he offered some sound points on what he thinks the team needs to do to get better. You, on the other hand, bash them for being awful this past year. Spewing about they got worse. Look, we know they got worse, but you aren’t looking at the big picture. Like Bbo13 said, the “overnight” success stories aren’t really overnight successes. Jim Harbaugh took over a team they have been building for years. Atlanta has been building for a few years, and really look at them now they are regressing a little if you ask me because they got free agents who are getting older. I think the Browns are on the right path. They are trying to do what the good teams did. Build your foundation through the draft. That is one thing these other regimes never did. They fell victim to the fan pressure of win now. Which is why we have been in a state of sucktatude for a decade. There has been no foundation built. Trust me I am as frustrated every Sunday too, but Heckert has shown some promise that he can draft. Nobody knows for sure if Shurmur will be a terrible head coach. I always say this town wanted to run a certain rookie head coach out of town back in the 90s. Now he is arguably the best coach in the NFL. Oribiasi i respect your opinions on here, as a matter of fact I agree with alot of them. I just wish you would offer something like a “how would you fix it” kind of thing. Because the whole “these guys don’t know what they are doing” thing gets old. Especially since Heckert has had some decent drafts in his two years. If he hits on this one, and I think he will, then we should get better which is what we all want.
Isn’t it telling that super-star coaches are lining up to work under Fischer in STL while last year ee couldn’t get a single name to come interview for our HC job? Fast-forward a year and we can’t get anyone to swing by the front office to talk about our OC job….
Analysts be damned, this “football-guy” must have a helluva bad rep in the coaching community.