Cleveland Indians 2008 Recap Part 1 – A Tale of Two Seasons
September 29, 2008Breaking News: Brian Windhorst to Join PD
September 30, 2008
Phil Savage is on record supporting both Romeo Crennel and Derek Anderson. Much to my chagrin, Phil Savage has decided that one quarter of football played against one of the worst teams in the NFL, which results in victory, is reason enough to stay the course with this sinking ship.
First on Romeo Crennel…
“It’s a heck of a struggle when you start off 0-3 and people are pulling at you in a lot of different directions. It’s important to have a head coach who’s going to stand in there and who quite frankly is man enough to take some of the criticism. Some of them, he’s brought on himself, there’s no doubt about that. You have to have a head coach who’s strong enough to take it. Romeo does that. I think the players know that, and they appreciate it. As long as they play hard for him, I don’t think we have any issues at that position.”
We don’t have any issues at that position? How on earth did the Browns get to 0-3 in the first place? Well, Phil, I think it is because you in fact have issues at that position. Head coach is an issue. It has been an issue off and on since Romeo Crennel failed miserable managing his personnel as it related to Maurice Carthon. Don’t you remember when you had to step in and fire him?
Next, Phil Savage is stepping up to support his QB Derek Anderson…
“Derek deserves the right to build off what was done last year,” Savage said in his bye-week news conference. “We feel like we have enough good players, enough people around [Anderson] and that he’s a good enough talent with his ability that we’re going to pull out of this and have our best football out in front of us here with him as the quarterback.”
Now, I hope for our sakes as Browns fans that Phil Savage and Romeo Crennel are much better soothsayers than the rest of us. I will never root against my team. At the same time, I am not sure what kind of crystal ball they have because I just don’t see it. I don’t see a team leader in Derek Anderson. I don’t see the bright future of an NFL starter in this league. There have been no indications that DA is going to be the guy. He doesn’t look like the next Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, or even Eli Manning, Drew Brees or (gasp) Ben Roethlisberger.
Derek Anderson did deserve the right to build off what was done last year. And given the full faith and confidence of the franchise since his ill fated performance in the Pro Bowl, Derek Anderson has failed pretty spectacularly thus far. He was given roughly 20% of the season to “build off what was done last year” and until the fourth quarter of a game against a bad team without their starting quarterback, he failed to approach deliverance. That is unless we are talking about the movie.
16 Comments
If Savage is really this delusional, then he needs to join Romey Smalls and DA on the next bus out of town. I’d rather give the keys to the car to Bill Cowher (who, like Bill Parcells before him, wants to be able to “shop for the groceries AND cook the food”) and Brady Quinn. I said a few weeks back that Savage was walking a very thin line between genius and fool: I think he just stepped off toward the latter.
What do you expect him to say though? No matter how bad things get a GM has to appear to have the back of the coach and the players; how can he expect Derek or Romeo to perform better if he is talking bad about them to the media? I for one don’t want a GM or Owner, or people generally in charge, like Hank Steinbrenner or Al Davis that breaths down the neck of his players and coaches, that makes it impossible for them to work for him. We don’t even know if this is how Savage really feels, its very very likely that he is just saying things to help give Romeo and DA confidence. DA is already severely lacking confidence, his boss talking bad about him wouldn’t help
Savage is going to be singing a whole new story after we get stomped by the Giants.
And are we already starting to not like Savage? It was just last year he was the savior of this organization. And Coaches who have GM responsibilities rarely work out, didn’t we learn this lesson with Butch Davis? He didn’t have a GM title I don’t think but he was essentially in charge of player personnel decisions
I tend to agree with Ricky. While I certainly think Crennel should not be the coach of this team in 2009, now is not the time to start throwing people under the bus in the papers.
Now, if he truly feels this way, and truly thinks Anderson should be the starter the rest of the season behind closed doors, then we certainly have a problem.
My point is that we have a coach who has shown a complete inability to act ever. He stands pat all the time. We have a first round draft pick sitting on the bench while a flash in the pan 6th rounder with a rocket arm continues to rocket the ball into the other team’s hands.
Meanwhile the receivers are slowly losing patience as they plot their departure from the city. (Winslow and possibly Sir Drops-A-Lot Braylon Edwards.) At some point, while these players all seem to support Romeo, his choices are going to cause reverberations throughout the organization that are going to undermine any solid scouting and drafting that Phil Savage might do in the future.
This kind of bothers me…..before the season started, Phil Savage was the savior of the franchise with the talent he had assembled. Now, after a 1-3 record, he is being ridiculed for the comments above? What the hell is he supposed to say about the team? “Yeah Romeo sure is botching the personnel I’m giving him”? This team has talent….we thought so all year last year, and for most of training camp. Clearly, this is not a personnel issue, it is a coaching issue.
Phil Savage has missed on a couple of players (like the linebackers) but has hit on quite a few as well. Injuries are not Savage’s fault, and you don’t hear him using them as an excuse. Firing a coach is a huge move to make, and until you decide to make that move you have to support the guy you have. (Al Davis are you reading this….)
Some of you guys are really missing the boat with this. Savage is responsible for ALL talent on this team. He has done a good job acquiring football talent to put on the field. While this is great, he is also responsible for our coach, which is this team’s most important position. If he fails to see the shortcomings of our head coach then he is failing as a GM. The Browns can have all the talent in the world, but a completely inept coach will never be able to use it correctly.
Last week was a shining example of what happened last year. The Browns had far superior talent and eeked out a win (when they should have blown the team out) due to that talent alone. Luckily for the Browns (and Romeo), they played 10 games against poor teams last year and won them (they even lost a couple they had no right losing). This is due to inept coaching. Like I said, if the GM can not recognize this then he is failing at his job.
I think Savage is doing two things, and both quite well. He’s saying the right things in the media to make DA and Romeo feel better and safer. At the same time he’s giving them just enough rope to hang themselves on. I don’t think he really believed that Romeo would succeed this season, and made moves that looked to be helping the team, but just enough not to. He may be setting up Cowher, especially if you look at this last draft. Bell and Hall are Cowher type players, not Romeo’s. I mean they actually have speed.
I think it would be a deadly mistake to fire Savage. He has been the first man to actually give us respectable drafts, and not busts year after year. His drafted players? Starting, and at least trying to produce while completely over their heads.
The only way you get rid of Savage is if he refuses to get rid of Romeo after this year (at the latest)
I think Rick’s right. As much as I want Romeo out the door, at least the Browns aren’t bringing in guys to interview them before even firing the coach. The Raiders are making an embarrassment of themselves and of their coach, and I’m glad the Browns aren’t taking that tact.
Anyway, I’m equally frustrated by his comments, but I also don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. I’m 100% on board with Savage as a GM. I think he’s done a GREAT job, and the talent on this team is better and deeper than it’s ever been since the Browns came back. Yes, we have a long way to go still, but Savage has shown us time and time again that he will be aggressive in making changes to upgrade the positions of need in the offseason.
@Rockking, couldn’t agree more. Phil Savage is the man. He made all these awesome trades possible, and to fire him would be the dumbest thing ever. You cannot create a superbowl team overnight, it is a matter of putting the right pieces together. Savage has shown that he has that talent. The BQ-era is coming, but probably not this year. I foresee DA getting the sack at the end of this season, and possibly (but not sure) RC as well. With this crappy season, we’re going to get some more good draft picks next year and we should have a good team!
We can have all the talent in the world and it won’t matter with that dumbfounded head coach. It’s up to Phil to fire him or he isn’t doing his job as GM
To sort of dovetail with what Rock said, as we discussed in the podcast last week, not many of us think the Browns are just “a coach away” from truly contending for a Super Bowl. That having been said, what good does it do a 1-3 team with 12 games to go to start undermining the coach in the media? Not a bit.
As I tried to say above: if Phil really, truly believes these things he’s said in private, then we may have a problem. Until then, I’ll take everything with a rather large grain of salt.
I recently read that Savage sent a nasty email to a fan who ripped him for the terrible job Crennel has done this year and our lackluster performances thus far.
Savage’s response was – “F – you, Go root for Buffalo.”
Not sure if it is true… but where can I get Phil’s email address. ???
I would love to send him an email DAILY about how the 3-4 is not working and that our LB’s are terrible and unable to play a Pittsburgh style defense.
And it won’t be fixed in the offseason either……..