Player Profile: Can Michael Brantley Take the Next Step?
March 19, 2012Front and Center: Bring Back Andy or Roll With Tristan?
March 19, 2012I don’t know if it would make some people happier if I just claimed that the Browns aren’t trying to win. I won’t do it. Despite Chuck Booms claiming Randy Lerner wants to wash out the fan base so he can move the team to London (Yes, he really said that this morning and if he was joking it wasn’t even half way) I am not one who thinks this front office is just in it for a paycheck.
So, what are they doing?
That’s a more than fair question. It is something that I’m constantly trying to figure out, by the way. I think sometimes I get a bad rap as someone who “co-signs” for everything the Browns are doing. The way I look at it, I’m just trying to figure out what the intentions are. For me, that starts with the basic assumption that the Browns desire to get better and do the what they think is best to accomplish that goal. If we’re starting anywhere else in the conversation, we just don’t have much to talk about.
So don’t mistake this as me saying I agree with everything the Browns are doing. I don’t. I thought it was a bad idea to come into last season with that group of receivers. At the same time, it was important to understand that the Browns thought that the group was going to be good enough just by switching offenses and adding Greg Little. I was the one who suggested that Brian Robiskie maybe should have been cut during training camp. I think that’s a pretty big disagreement with the team. Even worse was allowing Pat Shurmur to go into his first season without an offensive coordinator, but I don’t want to rehash every single time I’ve ever disagreed with Mike Holmgren and Tom Heckert.
The important thing is that I don’t think they’re trying to tank. I don’t think they’re satisfied to just collect their paychecks. I think they enjoy their paychecks, but isn’t that all the more reason they’d want to set up their next ones?
That is the perspective I come with when looking at the lack of free agent signings. When Matt Flynn goes to the Seahawks for $10 million guaranteed, I assume that Tom Heckert really didn’t believe in Matt Flynn, or at least didn’t think he was a marked improvement over Colt McCoy. That’s not to say that he’s right about it, but to think that he’s in it to punish Browns fans just isn’t one of the possible conclusions for me.
There’s a fine line between trying to understand what the Browns are attempting to do and agreeing with it all. Trying to understand what their goals are seems constructive. Assuming they have a devious plot to alienate Browns fans and move the team to London doesn’t.
84 Comments
Please, everyone knows the Rams are moving to London. Why do you think they are stockpiling so many draft picks? They need to make the team attractive for that huge, untapped British football market.
Imagine the crowds for doubleheaders with Arsenal at the Emirates.
I’m actually glad there are people who listen to the local sports talk and report back on the nonsense that is spewed on a daily basis. Means I’m not missing anything while listening to Sirius.
The Browns are just trying to help out Booms because if they start winning he’ll be out of a job.
Good article, Craig. Illegitimi non carborundum.
Sounds like the old joke: “The good news is that the President is doing the best he can. The bads news is that the President is doing the best he can.”
But really, Craig, why enable the radio outrageous statement shtick guys by repeating their inanities. First, this is deliberate lowest common denominator stuff meant to increase listener/caller traffic. Second, now you might be asked on the show to debate, and even a refusal sucks WFNY into that cesspool. Just let the nonsense die its quick death, along with its creator’s career here.
I’ll see your quote and raise forsan et hoc olim meminisse iuvabit.
The Browns new regime knew what they were walking into here with the die hard fan base so they can’t/shouldn’t complain. I’m not in favor of this 5 year plan because in the NFL you can turn things around much faster – if you do it right. Doing it right to me isn’t continually trading down sacrificing playmakers for solid team players. Not for a team with this many holes. It’s also not signing one star, not superstar but star. It’s not giving another coach his first head coaching position. It’s not waiting a year to admit you should have given that head coach some help in the form of an OC. It’s not letting that same head coach try to explain things in a press conference about one of his best (Hillis) players when he obviously was in over his head. It’s not having a visible attitude when questioned when you don’t bother to tell people some of your ideas. It’s not acting superior when your team quite frankly has stunk for the two years you’ve been here. It’s not overpaying a veteran QB to come here then reportedly considering the very same move yet again. In short give me a break. What I want to know is how many years to you wait before you pronounce the patient DOA or do you keep it on life support for another 12 years?
Thank you for not giving in to the “sky is falling” type of journalism that’s all over the N.E. Ohio area.
Moving to London? Ha, they’d be nuts to take this team.
I think you assume too much with Heckert/Holmgren, though. Their only response to problems was to circle the wagons and claim that “It’s different now” and “You’re either with us or you’re not.”
If you’re going to use their behavior as a means to illustrate their intelligence (i.e., they didn’t sign Flynn, so they must not think he is better than McCoy), then you must use everything, not just that one thing.
So, you’re going to have to come to terms with the plethora of free agent WRs (almost all of which were better than our entire corps) being overlooked/not even brought in for a workout. Among many, many other debacles.
Or, perhaps this:
Or, perhaps this:
As before, you are on it good sir. Correct to the tenth degree.
Watch them trade with the Rams for a boatload of picks because “we are building threw the draft.” They will sell that move to us until they are blue in the face.
As before, you are on it good sir. Correct to the tenth degree.
Watch them trade with the Rams for a boatload of picks because “we are building threw the draft.” They will sell that move to us until they are blue in the face.
Rams? You must be thinking Buccaneer’s.
wait till the Jags don’t go to LA, they’ll be the new team du joir. or perhaps the Vikings, etc.
Maybe all four can go and create the new European Division of the NFC: St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Jacksonville and Minnesota.
Salus populi suprema lex. Okay, I never took Latin.
And Baltimore was nuts to take the old Browns. How’d that work out for them?
I did 🙂
And it was non scholae, sed vitae!
It’s real real easy to be down on this organization frankly more people should I just don’t like this Indians type philosophy that seems to have spread to the Browns. What I’d like to know is what is the statute of limitations on how long the Browns can go with the strategy of “building through the draft” or does it just keep going until Shurmur gets fired?
Holmgren supposedly suggested to Heckert that he wouldn’t be in favor of trading down this according to a press release Terry Pluto held up on MS&LL last week. I expect them to trade down because it makes the most sense but watch they’ll use the #4 and draft either Richardson or Tannehill. I’m scared to death of Richardson but if they use that pick on Tannehill, well, Browns fans best of luck.
How many Browns players (from the old team) were on the Super Bowl team for the Ravens? I see Stover and……
London, Manchester, Birmingham, and Dublin (IRE)
done, done, done and done. Goodell should pay us.
Sure, I agree. I don’t think they are that insane to draft Tannehill at 4 or 22 but if they do, then look out man. He’ll have a an angry mob on his hands each week.
I think he is counting on the fans’ support a little too much and he is in for a rude awakening down at the stadium. He hasn’t quite dispelled the collective angst of the crowd, try as he might with his gestapo tactics at the games.
I think that the Shurmur hiring will be the albatross around Uncle Mikey’s neck that will drag him so far to the depths that he won’t be able to pull up far enough for it to matter. He made a critical error there and his insistence to “stand by his man” only digs the hole deeper.
Remember this, Cleveland fans: if you want to say that “there is a reason Free Agents are available,” and mean that in a pejorative sense, then there was also a “reason” why Holmgren was available…which was due to the fact that he was run out of town in Seattle.
Tannehill makes no sense other then they are desperate and hope that by using a top 5 pick they somehow get the QB position right, um, nooooooooo! If this was the case then they should have indeed offered the farm to St. Louis ‘cuz I’d have rather had Griffin then Tannehill.
You’d have to pay me to go to a Browns game now I won’t even go with a free ticket. I still watch, kind of, them but that’s about it.
Shurmur proved he was in over his head last year on and off the field. Holmgren didn’t do much to help his “friend” either. I didn’t like the hire because it was another first time head coach. How many is that since ’99?
It pains me when I hear people use that line about free agents. It’s an excuse is all. The point about Holmgren could very well be true I mean people applied it to Matt Flynn being a product of GB, perhaps Holmgren was too. Which reminds me I forgot Hasselbeck followed him to Seattle. Yep, Matt will be here next.
Exactly, as I don’t agree with some things they do, fact is they have proven what they know and do works. They have both been to superbowls, I can’t say that so for now I have no reason to not trust them
I just hope I can convince my kids to take it, because it comes in handy more often than I think many people realize (3 years myself)
Semper ubi sub ubi!
only thing I might suggest Craig is drawing a line between the Front Office and the Owner. I think Holmgren and Heckert do care, and are trying their best, but unfortunately are so entrenched in their belief that their way is the best way that they lack the ability to see that their decision making methodology may be flawed.
On the other hand, I don’t think the owner cares. He may act like he does, and he may say the “right” things in a softball interview, but does he really care? Or does he only care insofar as he promised his dying father he wouldn’t ever let the Browns leave Cleveland and he figures so long as he makes good on that, the performance of the team is secondary.
A couple of points: If Matt Flynn was the “be all and end all” why didn’t his position coach in Miami make more of a play for him when the Dolphins clearly fell out of the Manning derby. Alex Smith more attractive than Flynn? What does that tell ya?
At least the Browns are making some deals at this point. Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Cincinnati are losing players with more sure to leave. Let’s make sure we don’t take on too many bad contracts this year and pray next year is our Kansas City 2012 blueprint (unexciting as that seems).
id est, non adeo commandus
someone else was listening to the fan sunday afternooon 🙂
I loved it. Definitely tell them to do it. It’s the skeleton key to all the romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portguese and even Romanian).
Credo meum: credo feminiam vixesse, ac me amivisse, ut vita intelligam.
KUDOS to you if you can translate that sucker.
Burnett was on the back-cover of Maxim after the SB kissing the Lombardi in a Browns uni. Will never forgive him for that one.
The funniest part about all of this is that the people farthest away from the intel (THE FANS) are the ones who always think they know what’s best. There is SO MUCH to be brought into consideration when these moves are being made. Look at the Redskins, they throw money at every hole and it hasn’t seem to work out yet. So while we may think we know everything, very rarely do we. Just as people were calling for Flynn, they were calling on Kolb (who hasn’t panned out yet, though it’s far too early to write him off). So people freaking out…Let Heckert & Holgren make the moves, they’ve done it before…and you haven’t.
KC blueprint? you mean lose your best offensive and defense player the 1st week? I don’t like that blueprint.
It probably added at least 250 points to my SAT, and 3 or 4 to my ACT
I obviously don’t want to see the Browns go to London, but a 4 team division would actually be pretty cool. Not sure the players would like it, but nothing like that has ever been done before (probably for good reason)
thread highjacking, personal attacks and every other thing you always claim.
But, do you like the “don’t sign your best/only offensive weapon” blueprint, a la Peyton Hillis?
Agreed. May he burn forever in Gehenna for that affront.
Lordy, its been a while since I took those, but yes, if every high-school student took a year or two of Latin it would help them immensely.
Ever read “The Smartest Guys in the Room” about the Enron collapse? Give it a quick read; you’d be surprised about how often the “experts” are so mind-numbingly wrong.
Yeah cause that’s even close to being the same thing….??
See thats why its the perfect plan, we don’t have a best offensive or defensive player, its poolfroof
Holmgren is on record saying that six wins this year won’t be good enough. With that in mind, here are our 2012 non-divisional opponents:
Chiefs, Chargers, Bills, Eagles, Redskins, Broncos, Raiders, Colts, Giants, Cowboys
Considering that we did not use FA to improve the team, I do not see how we get seven wins with this schedule. In fact, I’m not sure we will be favored to win in any of those games. Breaking it down, we lost every game last year to our six divisional opponents. The Giants, Cowboys, Broncos (now with Manning), Eagles and Chargers would seem to be huge favorites to beat us. That leaves the Chiefs, Bills, Redskins, Raiders and Colts as the soft part of our schedule. All of those teams have already improved much more this off-season than we have, but at least there will be some good story lines. I actually think it’s more likely we win less than six games than more, and if that happens I’m wondering who’s head will roll.
its got something to do with a lifes belief about loving women to understand life or something. Its been a while and im rusty
Hefe, do you even know what a plethora eeez?? How can there be a plethora of free agents if you do not know what a plethora eezzz?
I’ve come to understand that you can only comprehend things in their relationship to what you believe is right. When people agree with you they are “finally seeing the light, or they stopped drinking koolaid”. I don’t think you see them as independent thoughts, rather, they are extensions of your way of thinking.
Therefore please allow me to assure you that outside the bubble in whence you dwell it is possible for someone to be both intelligent and have different opinion then you.
Heckert has said from day one “We won’t use free agency to build this team”. The fact that they didn’t bring in FA wideouts for workouts is not a demonstration of Heckerts intelligence anywhere outside of Oribasibubblevania. You have a difference of opinion on how to build a team that’s all. He happens to be in charge, so his opinion counts more in this matter. The history of building SuperBowl winning teams through the draft since the beginning of free agency also is on his side. However, I would like you to understand the concept of debate before we move on to using things like facts to reinforce your position in a debate.
HUBRIS destroyed those jerks and it appears, especially from his interviews, that it is also Holmgren’s enemy.
Make the connection.
Very close, so KUDOS to you for trying.
My translation: I believe the girl existed, and that she loved me, so that I might understand life.
No, he’s thinking Rams. Kroenke (Rams owner) is a major stakeholder in Arsenal.
Supprime tuum stultiloquium!