Mike Florio on the Dan Patrick Show: “Richardson not a top 15 pick”
April 2, 2012Daniel Gibson to undergo season-ending surgery
April 2, 2012The Browns and Cavs are both almost in the same exact place in the standings at the moment. Jason Lloyd pointed this out in a long, but good article mostly about the Cavaliers’ rebuilding. Take this stat, for example.
The Browns under Heckert even have a slightly higher winning percentage (.281) than the Cavs have under Grant (.273). Yet fans continue to implore the Cavs to lose while eviscerating the Browns for doing the same.
There are obvious differences between the Browns and the Cavaliers. The Cavaliers were coming off the most successful years in team history with LeBron James. The Cavaliers’ woes were never thought to be self-inflicted the way all of the wounds in Berea are viewed. The Cavaliers have a brash, communicative owner who tweets displeasure with big losses and seems to fight for his team and fans whenever possible. The Browns have a recluse who is threatening to come out of his shell a bit more. But other than an annual talk with Mike Trivisonno or a Scene profile, Randy Lerner is still more likely to skip the owners’ meetings than he is to start a twitter account or sit at the negotiating table during collective bargaining.
But even beyond ownership, there is one main difference between what the Cavs showed fans this year versus what the Browns were unable to show. The Cavaliers were able to create some excitement for the future while the Browns created only fear. Is it fair, just perception, or the fundamental differences between the NBA and the NFL?
In the Browns defense, it is hard to ever say you are only one player away in the NFL. With specialists galore on both sides of the ball and 50+ person active rosters, you can’t stink it up, draft Kyrie Irving win a few games on buzzer beaters and leave people hopeful in the NFL. Obviously a franchise quarterback helps immensely. Carolina Panthers fans are probably pretty hopeful for the future with their 6-10 season in the rear-view mirror, but we know it doesn’t even take a Cam Newton to create excitement.
Browns fans and writers (this one included) over-estimated the Browns coming into the 2011 season because of a guy named Peyton Hillis. Hillis showed what he was capable of doing when he was healthy, focused and motivated the year prior. There’s little doubt in my mind to this day if he had remained healthy and focused for 2011 he would have erased a lot of the growing pains that the offense felt all year long and left Browns feeling so very negative about the future.
It is a part of being a fan of the NFL though. I don’t know many Browns fans who would say they aren’t optimistic about Joe Thomas, Ahtyba Rubin, Alex Mack, Joe Haden, Phil Taylor, Jabaal Sheard, Greg Little, and T.J. Ward. There are others, of course, but those guys are eight relatively young, key pieces to the franchise going forward that Browns fans should probably feel pretty good about. Five of them were added in the previous two drafts.
Somehow that doesn’t translate to optimism for the Browns like it does because the Cavs have Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson and seemingly found a diamond in the rough with Alonzo Gee. Again, the records are really similar in terms of win percentage, but it’s all about perception. In the end, there are a lot of similarities. I think both teams are off to a good start. I think both teams still have a ton of work to do to become relevant in playoff talks anytime soon. Both have significant opportunities to improve their teams this year, in particular with all the draft picks between the two.
We just all need to hope the Browns and Cavaliers have the one most important thing in common. We need to hope that they both have the right GM in place to make the moves to finish the job.
(Again, go read Jason Lloyd’s article when you can.)
35 Comments
Cavs have a promising future, while the Browns future seems hazy. You bring up good points as to why, though honestly plain and simple, the Browns have next to nothing to get excited for while the Cavs have the pieces in place to keep the future looking bright.
For my part, I think it’s a little early to say I’m optimistic about the Cavs. I think Kyrie is showing he’s the real deal and Thompson could prove to be a solid rotation player. The Cavs MUST hit on at least 2 picks that can become legitimate NBA starters. And even then they’ll still be a few years away from being championship contenders, which is what this is all about.
That’s not the point I was trying to make. I am excited about Joe Thomas, Ahtyba Rubin, Alex Mack, Joe Haden, Phil Taylor, Jabaal Sheard, Greg Little, and T.J. Ward… Just the burden of proof is so much harder to see in the NFL than it is to see the future through one or two players in the NBA.
Your fifth paragraph is key, Craig. If I thought the Browns could fix or improve 1/5 or 1/6 of their team in one draft, and thereby essentially ensure multiple playoff appearances to follow, I might be inclined to approve pursposeful tanking.
There are vast gulfs in the respective ROIs for tanking in the NBA and NFL.
Agree that the personnel evaluation/acquisition is the foundation, but there is another element in rebuilding: the coaching. In football it’s crucial because of the overseeing of so many more moving parts and the increased pressure of just 16 games. I can’t imagine an NFL version of an Erik Spoelstra taking a thrown-together group of talented players to the Super Bowl in one year. The NFL is more of a coach’s game.
No idea what level of competence Shurmur will reach, but the decision to hire a first-time on any level head coach was bound to slow the rebuilding as he cut his teeth. Byron’s taken two different teams to the Finals already and should be able to maximize0 the Cavs’s ability to get the most out of what Grant gives him.
It’s because our 8 “good” players on the Browns mean less than the 3 “good” players on the Cavs.
(8/22) < (3/5)
And even if the Brown's top 4 picks hit we're still:
(12/22) < (3/5)
I think you hit on a key difference across the two sports: in the NBA all you need is one transcendent player and a couple of very good players, and you will immediately be in the playoff discussion. The Cavs appear to have a transcendent player, and they have a stockpile of draft picks and other young players that make it likely they will develop at least 2-3 other good players soon. That means they are pretty damn close to a successful formula.
In football, on the other hand, you need 2-3 elite players plus another 10-15 very good players to be a playoff team. While the Browns do indeed have 6-8 good young players, only one of those is elite (Thomas). Thus the Browns are much farther from being good.
Plus, their front office inspires less confidence because it is less transparent about its goals. Grant is a realist, and recognizes the Cavs will struggle for a bit, and has told the fans as mich. Holmgren fired Mangini for not winning enough, said the offense would be much better last year, and then the team went backwards. That has hurt the fans’ confidence in his credibility.
I think the difference is a litle more obvious between the two..
The Cleveland Cavaliers are in the midst of a true “rebuilding” process. They are two years removed from a 6 year playoff run filled with chances at a title. They’ve hit their bare minimum in talent, drafted for the future and cleared cap space to allow flexibility.
The Browns, like it or not are unbelievably still in “expansion team” mode. They were granted permission back into the league and are still trying to build the right team from the ground up for the past decade.
You stole my thunder I was going to cite head coaching/coaching as the primary difference. I think the other difference is playmakers/superstar/star. The Cavaliers lucked out getting the first overall pick but they struck gold in Irving. Not only that but they added a piece in Thompson and brought Gee up from the D-League and look to have found a player. Meanwhile the Browns trade down bypassing on potential stars to fill a roster full of maybe, pretty good to solid guys.
yep.
i dont get the point.
1. the cavs have been relevant in the last two decades; browns, not.
2. the cavs ownership/gm turned mo williams and cash in to KI; browns spent four draft picks on RB with two knee surgs.
3. the cavs hired a head coach with winning pedigree as player and as coach; browns hire CEO’s friend’s nephew.
4. the cavs’ ex GM was with organization for decades (and his father was an NBA GM too), he transitioned to an assistant GM he’d been training; browns fired their OC, HC, GM and then owner hired HC before GM.
5. cavs are demonstrating improvement with young pieces within two years of the best player in NBA leaving them high/dry; browns have regressed every year except for 2010 after which they fired their HC in favor of crony.
i mean.. what is the point here? are we being unfair to the browns?
seriously. i mean.. wha??!
Agree 100%. From coaching moves to trades, everything the Cavs do make sense to the fans, writers, talk show guys etc. Maybe 25 to 50% of what the Browns do makes any sense. The Browns President only talks to Seattle radio stations. The coach looks completely clueless and no one in the front office holds him accountable. They do nothing in free agency other than overpay their backups and let starters in their prime leave for nothing in return. The worst part is the Browns have Zero game changers, and those are the hardest thing to acquire. A year ago, the Cavs had, by far, the worst roster in the NBA. They hired a coach with track record of success. They drafted Irving, TT and found Gee, and now have maybe 5 first round picks (4 for sure) in the next two years. The $30 mill plus in cap room after this season won’t hurt either. Having an owner and coach who constantly show you how passionate they are about winning doesn’t hurt either. It’s not rocket science figuring out why fans are excited about the Cavs future and not the Browns.
If you have a few studs in basketball, you don’t always need other awesome guys. You can fill with more fodder than you can in the NFL. In football, the name of the game is to expose the other teams weaknesses more than in the NBA where it is (usually) more outplay opponent than out think.
I think the Browns are a little bi-polar as well in particular when it comes to the position of quarterback. You are right about them not being transparent if anything they want to play cloak and dagger with cupcake reporters that cover them. When they encounter a reporter who shines a negative light (Grossi) they move quick.
But more importantly then this is the mixed signals they send about the QB position. One moment they defend McCoy then the next they reportedly look to trade up to have an opportunity to draft Robert Griffin. After that failed they defended McCoy again and now you have all of these reports that they are enamored with Ryan Tannehill.
If they draft Tannehill it’ll make or break Holmgren & Heckert most likely Heckert. I was reluctant on Griffin because I didn’t think he was worth the risk well compared to Tannehill he was Andrew Luck. If the Browns use their first round pick to draft another rookie QB who will have to learn and unseat the current starter to me this is just a repeat of what they did with McCoy. You know, unless Tannehill is amazing, that it’ll probably take two years for him to develop and if so your right back where you started. I don’t know maybe I’m missing something.
Exactly, in football you have to get excited about aspects of the team, like if the offense was really clicking but the reason we lost games was due to defense, or vice versa. You can’t say you’re excited about Joe Thomas when he’s just 1 of 5 guys on the O-Line, and 3 of those other dudes sucked hard. That equates to our O-Line sucking. Being excited about Joe Haden and watching the rest of the secondary get torched for big yardage game after game doesn’t do any good. Football is and always will be a team sport, whereas basketball is much easier to single out 1 or 2 exciting players and focus on their progression, because 1 player = 1 aspect of a basketball team.
Craig writes an article containing the sentence “In the Brown’s defense..”
Posts that article on WFNY..
Oribiasi is on WFNY…
Our Oribiasi….
….fairwell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies, fairwell and adieu to you ladies of Spain.
I think the Browns future is harder to see even with the promise of the players you named. Whatever goodwill they had has been gone since before Savage texted a fan to f-off. I completely agree with the overall strategy of building through the draft, and I sincerely believe the Browns are on the right path. However they actually seem to go out of their way to yank their most loyal fans chains. Whether its Holmgren’s pressers, or not talking to in town guys, or Randy Lerner’s inexplicable decision to not attend owner’s meetings, they just don’t seem to get it. And worst of all, while I appreciate the slower rebuilding process, nobody has a clue what is going to happen after year 5 of Holmgren. Does he stay on? Does he have a successor being groomed? Are we going to get right to the point of respectablilty, then hire a new guy who wants to tear down the whole thing, build a 3/4 D with a power running game and stretch the field with fast deep route running receivers? Seriously, I don’t understand how sports writers don’t start hammering Lerner/Holmgren on what year 5 +1 is going to look like. It is bar none the single most important question for the long term success of the team.
So personally I don’t see the Browns future as clear at all even if they do draft well this year and next and the next. It could be gone and starting over in year 6. The Cavs meanwhile seem to have a clear vision of where they are going and how to get there.
^ THIS. Precisely why we need major play-makers and a large influx of talent and precisely why so many of us wanted this team to make some significant moves in free agency. Not over-paying for Pierre Garcon moves, but SOMETHING to generate points, fill a hole or two, and contribute to our sad, sad offense.
I wish the Browns defense was as good as their excuses!
I think a big difference in the perception is the communication of “the Plan”. The Cavs plan is to draft character over talent, create a tough athletic defensive team and run an effective “princeton style” offense. They have clearly showed these things to us. Byron needed a point guard for the Princeton, so they took Kyrie instead of Derrick. They value work ethic, defensive ability and athleticism in their bigs – so they “reached” on TT. Gee is the kind of player that fits for Byron, he got minutes and got better, everyone’s favorite Manny Harris spends more time in the D League than the Association – guys who didn’t fit “The Plan” got moved for character guys (JJ for Omri) or cut (Hollins) or benched (Erden) and they stacked up on draft picks: the Cavs have more picks in the next three years than any team in the NBA. If you’re a Cavs fan you get “The Plan”
The Browns seem like they are always floundering or reaching to grab on to something. They want to run the West Coast system, but our most talented offensive player was a power-back. We don’t have any quick, sharp route running wide-outs and our offensive line isn’t built for pass blocking and three step drops. We look at the list of random signings and cuts and try to “divine” the purpose. Is RGIII a West Coast guy? Was Stienbach just too expensive? Can Colt be “The Guy”? Are we building our defense around the d-line? If so then why not try for Mario? If H & H took a chance on a super quick wideout or a back-up lineman from Indy or NO we’d go “Ahhhhh ha”. But even in the age of hyper informed fans, we don’t get it.
Thats the difference to me.
i just spend like 10 minutes writing what you already said lol. Agree on all accounts
Both franchises are headed in the right direction (no matter what you think about the Browns, their roster is light years ahead of where it was when Heckert took over). I think the Cavs appear to be closer as they have their cornerstones aligned in Irving, Thompson and four picks in the upcoming draft (2 picks in each round). The Browns still have no franchise QB, a cloud that simply overshadows the progress they’ve made the past couple years.
It’s also important to remember that it takes a lot longer to get better in the NBA than the NFL; in the latter, you can go from 3-13 to the playoffs in one offseason. So, even on top of their bright future, the Cavs are afforded more leeway than the Browns.
The difference isn’t that hard to see. The Cavs needed a star playmaker and made and aggressive and expensive move that wound up netting the first pick in the draft, Kyrie Irving, who is showing the potential of being exactly who the team hoped for and needed. The Browns have needed a star playmaker for years and haven’t even tried to get one since they drafted Braylon Edwards. Okay, maybe you can count Savage’s move up to get Brady Quinn as an attempt to get a playmaker. Either way, they haven’t been successful in bringing in difference-makers and haven’t really been trying, each year preferring to “fill holes” (and the number of those holes never seems to get any smaller) and “develop players” (who seldom develop) and are content to “show improvement” (a type of improvement that never, ever seems to show an impact on the won/loss record).
The big difference is between the NBA and NFL. There are 22 starters in the NFL, only 5 in the NBA.
If you can snag an elite player at any position in the NBA you have a chance to make a run at a championship. In the NFL you can have an elite player (Joe Thomas) and still draft in the top 10 on a continuous basis. The fact of the matter is, a #1 pick in the NBA is much more valuable in my eyes than one in the NFL.
most teams that go 3-13 to playoffs in one offseason are ones that have either been building for years through good drafting and finally have that breakthrough or teams that were very good but had an injury-filled year when they fell apart.
with our current FO, I’m hoping we can finally become one of thsoe building for years and breaking through teams.
Most of us believe that the Cavs have the resources to put together a contender in 2-3 years if not sooner. This is partly due to our recent success and is also the result of a passionate owner, a GM who has so far made all the right moves, a coach who has it together, and a young team showning signs of improvement. Add to that a truck load of draft picks and emerging cap space and the future looks bright. Plus we know Gilbert will do everything he can to make it happen.
The Browns, on the other hand, have been nothing short of a disaster since their return. We have only one trip to the playoffs, nine years ago, resulting in a loss. We have a disinterested owner and a President who has already made some monumental mistakes regarding the QB and head coach carousel, not to mention unexplicably turning off the local media and some fans. One true positive is Heckert, who has demonstrated an ability to acquire talent through the draft. Consequently, we have some young talent on this team and can expect to acquire more. There are signs that this team can be built eventually, no one really knows when, but there is at least some optimism, and this draft will be crucial. It’s difficult to buy in because we’ve been duped into feeling optimistic before. And we have an owner who might favor blowing things up again if it doesn’t pick up soon. So while we all hope for the best, we’ve also seen the worst, and know that either are just as likely.
I usually join the chorus of boos for the Browns, not because I think that Holmgren is doing a bad job, but because given the teams record, I sympathize with the naysayers. That said, Holmgren and Heckert are doing a good job. It’s a pity that they had to revamp the team AGAIN when they’d been making progress under Mangini, and now they had to get rid of the few players they’d assembled. Then once again, they did nothing to tailor the game plan to the players, instead choosing to dump another few good players in the name of the system.
But all that said, within the plan they have, they’ve made progress. The team has a real defense – not a defense that can hold the worst team in the league to twelve points, a real defense that can play for thirty minutes against the better teams in the league. They have had some instances when they’ve actually sustained drives against quality teams playing quality football. Under previous regimes, even when they won, it was on a wing and a prayer – kickoff returns, strange muffed punts, freezing days against terrible teams. They finally looked like a real NFL team with uniforms and everything last year.
Now all that has to happen is Lerner needs to not blow up the team again. Honestly, even if they are 6-10 for the next five years, I’d rather steady borderline mediocrity than the mediocrity vacillating into singular awfulness that they’ve been the last ten years.
You’re cute. And a little obsessed.
If only I could direct all that silly energy you have on an honest look at this team. Alas, me hardies, its not possible.
You mean with uniFORM and everything. Apparently they only had one last year.
Let’s not forget that the Cavs have the luxury of being second/third fiddle in this town. We’ll be more patient and actually give them time and chances because we’re busy lighting torches and sharpening pitchforks for the march on Castle Lerner every other week.
The difference is the Cavs have their “quarterback” in Kyrie Irving and the Browns don’t. Not to say that the PG position is as important in the NBA as the QB position is in the NFL, but it’s close. And the Cavs have a guy who will probably rank in the top 3 at that position for the next 5-10 years.
The Cavs have been in playoff contention all year. Granted it would be
the 8th seed, hence why people want them to lose. We are one or two drafts away
from being a solid competitor in the eastern conference. The Browns on the
other hand have just been floundering since they came back to the league.
Management under the current situation has shown no real direction. I
understand they plan to build through the draft, but you want to get starters
in the draft. You should still sign depth through FA.
the Indians were in playoff contention most of last year too; people seem more upbeat on the Cavs though
Chief Wahoo is for closet racist.
Cheers!
Simple math for me.
Owner who cares+Great Coach+A GM who makes you think “wow he’s smart”=Hopeful Future