Mike Sherman is poised to be the offensive coordinator for the Dolphins and it looks as if the Browns will get Brad Childress, according to sources and reports that peppered social media last night. Whether or not that means Childress was the consolation prize between the two remains to be seen, but it sure feels that way with Sherman landing first. The negativity from Browns fans on Brad Childress doesn’t stop there.
If Childress is the guy it will be another Bob LaMonte client coming in to catch a paycheck from Randy Lerner. LaMonte’s name has grown to such epic proportions over the last two years because he represents so many of the people who occupy Berea, it is becoming its own conspiracy circle. It would have been funny to see what those theorists would have said if the Browns went after Josh McDaniels who happens to be a Bob LaMonte client, yet a part of the Belichick tree instead of the Holmgren one. It is my sense that too much is made of the LaMonte thing, but it is certainly a pervasive opinion.
Childress also flamed out and seemingly lost the locker room in Minnesota as head coach. It sounds like Childress made a lot of his own problems there in how he got along with the media, but if there is a potentially mitigating circumstance then his name happened to be Randy Moss. Nobody gets an excuse for losing a locker room as a head coach, but organizations are more likely to keep locker rooms together than individuals. When you have a front office acquiring guys and then coaches requesting they get ousted, then the message is confusing.
Just ask Eric Mangini. He’s seen it from both sides. One could argue that Brett Favre was thrust upon him with the New York Jets and when he rode Favre even after he seemed to be imploding the season, Mangini became the fall guy in New York. On the other side of things, Mangini had players of questionable talent and questionable scheme thrust on him like Jayme Mitchell as he was fighting for his job. Mangini didn’t play Mitchell and you have to think that philosophical divergence at least had something to do with Mike Holmgren’s decision to cut bait with a guy outside his own tree. Point being that when they say a coach lost a team, it is usually a whole organization contributing.
Regardless, Childress isn’t being brought here to be the head coach. You can’t negate him as an offensive coordinator because he might have failed as a head coach. Last night on Twitter when we were talking about this the examples being used were John Kuester and Romeo Crennel. It is logical.
If Childress is getting the job and coming here, I’m fine with it. Childress is a massively experienced candidate with head coaching experience. I don’t know a lot about his abilities as an offensive coordinator because really, who can separate a coordinator from a strong offensive head coach like Andy Reid? Childress has experience doing what it seems the Browns want to do offensively. Whether he will call plays or not remains to be seen, but you have to hope the influx of experience will have benefits for whoever ends up playing this season. That being said, nothing is a given. Childress will have a lot to prove just as the rest of the Browns offense will have a lot to prove.
This was the structure I wanted when we found out that the Browns had hired Pat Shurmur. Surround the young, first-timer with experienced coordinators who’ve seen lots and lots of football. That didn’t happen last year and even if I can’t tell you with any confidence level that this will work, I can tell you that I think this is 100% the way this coaching staff should have been structured a year ago.
Better late than never, right?
